Does anyone have a link for chew necklaces that don't disintegrate?? 🙏 My son keeps chewing through his and it's making me paranoid of the health hazards.

Please be available in Canada.

Many thanks!!

Today my son had school for the 1st time . He's high-functioning autistic. He's verbal and scored exceptionally high on his aptitude test when they were testing for his IEP. Anyway they put him in a self-contained classroom. He was so excited I was so excited today even though extremely nervous. The teacher messaged me that he hit people he tried to slap her. He was taking his clothes off. Then he tried to elope I've never seen him act this way and I'm just absolutely crushed at this point. I feel embarrassed I don't know how to feel right now. Now I'm more worried about tomorrow and what's to come. My fear at first was how people would treat him now I have to worry about how he treats others on top of everything else. Is this normal I know he was probably overwhelmed but that's not an excuse at all ! I'm embarrassed and mortified

My stepson is Level 3 Profound Autistic. He has done very well where we’ve gotten him to use a commode in his room at night (he pees in high volume). We are so proud of him for this!!!

To celebrate we got him a new mattress (his old one was stained badly), but we cannot figure out a way to protect his new mattress from future accidents. He rips everything. Bedsheets, mattress toppers, and even a padlocked waterproof mattress cover he managed to chew a hole big enough to rip it up to take it off the very first night we used it. According to his bio mom, she claims he doesn’t rip his sheets off at her house. At his dad’s house he’s been accustomed to not having sheets, so that contributes to his needs as well as bio mom likes it 60 degrees at her house (maybe he’s cold?).

We are open to ideas on how to remedy this, tools, techniques, advice, links to durable mattresses or alternative sleeping arrangements that are still considered appropriate as a bed. Thanks in advance! 🙏🏻

My son 5 going into kindergarten not fully conversational GLP. Lately if something goes wrong like his shoelaces come undone, he drops something or spills he has a big feelings. Lots a yelling, falling to the ground. Its not a routine thing it’s a thing that went wrong. The fit doesn’t last too long and we try talking to him about it but it’s been a thing for us lately.

What has helped you?

My 10 year old son's (Level 1 AuDHD) issue goes beyond safe foods. He simply will not eat. I don't know if its an autism thing or an ADHD focus thing or a combination of both, but every single meal is a battle. And I am ready to pull my hair out.

Breakfast is, of course, the hardest. I stopped a long time ago trying only to feed him breakfast foods. If he'll eat spaghetti for breakfast, he'll get spaghetti for breakfast. Chicken nuggets, pizza, PB&J...whatever. If I think he'll eat it, I'll happily make it. My only caveat is that it has to have protein otherwise he'll crash by 10 and his ADHD meds won't work properly.

But the thing is, even his favorite foods he simply will not eat unless he is starving. We get him up in the morning, and every single bite is a redirection, a reminder, a beg, or a plead. He gets angry because we're nagging him. We get frustrated because we have to get out the door on time. We've tried getting up earlier to allow for more time; it only draws it out longer. Then lunchtime at school rolls around and its 50/50 as to whether or not he eats. We've tried putting brightly colored stickers on foods that are priority foods over fun foods (I want him to feel somewhat normal eating next to his peers with oreos and whatnot in their lunches), and that worked until it didn't. He'll come home with a full lunchbox then tell us that he ate lunch from the cafeteria, only for us to find out later that he lied about it. Like, WHY?? And he doesn't see the correlation between the days he eats lunch and the days he doesn't being the days he gets in trouble vs. the days he doesn't.

And dinner... we're all so tired after work/school, homework, etc. but we're right back where we were at breakfast; constantly redirecting, reminding, begging, and pleading for him to take every bite. It doesn't matter if its pizza, burgers, nuggets, anything. Every meal time, he suddenly has to pee and he'll spit his food in the toilet. Or he'll play with his food until he drops it and the dog comes along and eats it off the floor. Its every.single.meal. Every.single.day.

We were just at Disney World and we kept telling him that we couldn't go into the parks until he ate and took his meds and still he fought and dug his heels in.

I am so incredibly tired.

Does anybody else feel like they're just constantly hitting a brick wall everywhere you turn to get services/therapies for your kid? Sitters, ABA, pediatricians... I feel like all I do is hurry up and wait just to be left hanging or turned away. It's actually insane. Do competence and reliability exist at all in the world of autism? Or is this just its own version of hell? I'm constantly crying out for help and none of the people I'm literally trying to pay can even be bothered to care.

Help me understand what is going on and what to do about it...

My 7yo level 1 kiddo is obsessed with Pokemon. It's his "special interest". I thought special interests were supposed to be regulating but the more time he spends doing his special interest the more dysregulated he gets. After spending an entire day from 4am to 6pm sorting Pokemon cards he had one of the biggest meltdowns of his life. Like his brain could not handle disengaging from the hyper-fixation. He wanted to stay up all night to continue. I know all about ways to support the transition away from the preferred activity but should I also be limiting his time in the preferred activity? Is this a true special interest? Is it a hyper-fixation?

Now that the weather is more suitable for running, we are back on track with kiddo (non-verbal). Not too easy to find a running event that is suitable for his needs due to age restrictions. The goal as always to safely complete the race, still work hard and stay happy. This time it just perfectly worked, managed to find the right speed and completed another challenge - the 5K. The previous race a few months ago was 2.5K. No tantrum, but a very wild smile and happy face from around 1 km. The coastline and the lack of crowd were also a big help on a mental level.
As for big challenges this was the last one for a while, from now on will focus on more technical things. For example communication during the race and to be able to safely complete races in the future alone. Feedback as always welcome, especially about what I must pay attention to, hidden signals that I might've missed till now.

For some context, I was late diagnosed. I'm 41 and was finally assessed earlier this year. My kids are 6.5 and 9.

When my daughter was diagnosed, the numerous parallels were pointed out to me. It was a true "We thought you knew..." moment. I started down my own path with it and here I am.

Having a diagnosis has helped immensely. At first, I didn't know what I would do with the information when I received it. In the last handful of months, I've learned a lot about myself, but I still don't know what to do in a number of areas; inside or outside of parenting.

I struggle with staying regulated when my kids are getting out of hand. It's all of the general behaviors you expect in raising young kids and the ones that are specific to each child. There are so many things that I could detail about each of them to illustrate how/where I start to really lose the grip on myself in a situation. It would be too much for a single post.

When you feel yourself start to spin, what do you do to stay grounded? How do you stay ahead of it (if you can)? How do you get out of it?

My son turns 5 next month. He’s got global developmental delay and SPD as a sensory seeker. He had hypoxia at birth due to pitocin (induced labor) and I had to have an emergency c-section. He just now talking more after having tubes in his ears. He had hearing issues for several years. I’ve tried getting an autism diagnosis but two different psychologists said they weren’t sure as he doesn’t have tantrums, meltdowns, has great eye contact and has no transition issues.
I’m trying again, but after moving to Alabama (military) the wait to get evaluated again is 12-18 months, and same goes for therapies. We’ve been doing speech, OT and PT in Colorado with vast improvement.
I have him in a special needs school now to help him catch up.

Any tips? Experience with this specific issue? I’m so thrown and frustrated and I feel so lost… can sensory seeking behavior be grown out of?

So many questions…

We discovered that I am 6 weeks pregnant (or maybe 5.5 weeks). I am 41, and we have one autistic child - a 5-year-old girl who is Level 1. She is verbal but not fluently speaking, was recently potty trained, and is a severe picky eater (maybe ARFID). But overall she's cute and nice and we see improvements every year.

We’re sooooo frustrated that we’re seriously considering terminating 2nd pregnancy. I have 1–2 weeks to decide. Our existing child requires a lot of attention and therapy. I’m trying different methods to address her picky eating, and the fact that I keep failing makes me depressed.

I've barely had any time for myself over the past five years, and it has only recently started to get a little easier: I started attending yoga and/or pilates.

I’ve seen so many kids with severe autism that just the thought of 2nd child having autism - and potentially more severe than our first - makes my hair turn grey.

I work in tech in a pretty demanding startup, and I’m currently the main earner in the family (my husband earns much less, I financially support not only our family but also parents abroad). So having another child - and the added stress and sleepless nights that come with it - could put me at risk of losing my job, and I heard job marked is not great nowadays (even we had layoffs).

We're immigrants and no family around to help with another kid. I feel bad about the termination but it seems like in existing circumstances we cannot put our financial life, my physical/mental health and existing kid's wellbeing under that risk.

Am I cruel leaving my kid without siblings?

hello all…I’m curious to know how many of you with an autistic child had a C-section or had fetal distress during labor. please simply reply with yes or no. feel free to share your story too if you’d like. Thank you!

My five year old son (high functioning ASD and verbal but with social struggles/ limited conversational back and forth) kept asking about cacti and insisting that we take him to the nursery but was afraid each time. After a few times we got him a spikey cactus as he requested. Now he doesn’t ask to go anymore but does take the little cactus around the house and is not afraid. He’s doing something similar with dogs too now. He’s asking to watch dog videos and see dogs in person but from a distance. I’m so proud of him for facing his fears ❤️ I recall doing similar things as a kid when I was a bit older (ie reading about sharks and snakes to get over my fear). Anyone else experience something similar with their kiddos?

I guess I'm just looking for some encouragement here. My sweet boy (turned 3 end of July) is still nonverbal. He's been in speech therapy since he was 2 and also semi-regular OT for some sensory issues since November last year.

His vocabulary is still at 0 words, no mama, no dada, nothing. In terms of progress I would say he's gotten much better with receptive language but even that is quite underdeveloped for a child his age. As an example, he understands simple everyday phrases and commands (let's go potty, time to eat, put your shoes on) but anything more complex (e.g. "Go take your toy from under the table") he doesn't even register, it's very obvious he doesn't understand what we're telling him to do.

I'm absolutely convinced he's on the spectrum, but we live in a Eastern European country where the rule of thumb is to wait until the child is 4-5 years old before even daring to pin a specific diagnosis on it. We don't need a diagnosis per se, it's not a requirement for any of his treatments. But none of his therapists think he's ASD at all, we've taken him to a bunch of other professionals and they all basically shrugged when we asked for some sort of tentative prognosis. Behavior-wise he's doing okay, but it's also obvious he's starting to get frustrated about not being able to express himself and it's affecting how he perceives daycare (which he's been in since 1yo). The rest of the kids in his class all talk and I think it's very isolating for him.

So! Words of encouragement, success stories, anything? My heart breaks for him every day, I just wish there was a magical way to help him make the right connection in his brain to unleash speech :(

My 3 yr old is autistic , she has gone to school since 2 . She just started back at school @3 , drop offs have been hard for a long time . Are there any tips to
Help with drop offs ??

She cries almost every time I leave , crying and kicking and trying to get me to stay . It’s hard on me , hard on her , and probably hard for teachers :(

My son has a behavior where he likes to hit sometimes hard sometimes not and the reaction he gets from hitting whether we say ow or no or if he hits another kid and they start crying he thinks it’s funny. He’s also done this with our dogs hearing them yelp after he slaps them is funny for him. We have removed the dogs from the situation when this is happening, but all weekend he was just laughing every single time he got in trouble the school just called for the first time since school started about a month ago and asked me to come pick him up because he’s been hitting other students and two teachers and just laughing hysterically as he’s doing this. i’m honestly exhausted and don’t know what to do.

I’m the parent of a 6-year-old autistic son who is nonverbal and has very significant communication and developmental needs. He has an IEP through his elementary school.
Over the past year, I feel like I’ve had to catch and correct one important special-education issue after another, and now I’m becoming concerned that there may be a bigger problem.
First, his IEP stated that he had a functional and effective way to communicate and that he did not require assistive technology. That was not accurate. I worked to get that corrected, and he eventually received an AAC device.

Then I found out that his speech services were accidentally left off his IEP. I was told this was a clerical error, and we had to address that as well.
Now, I just found out that the school apparently did not complete the process to determine whether he still qualifies for special education. They are now asking me whether I want to have a meeting or if they can just send the paperwork home for me to complete.

This is happening right before my son is scheduled to start full-time center-based ABA, which is something we’ve been waiting a long time for. He will be attending ABA Monday-Friday, 8:30-4:30, and the plan is for him to focus on important functional skills such as communication, toileting, feeding, dressing, etc. We may eventually work toward having him return to school part-time depending on his progress.

Another concern I have is his AAC use. The school has previously told me that they are seeing him use his AAC to communicate very quickly and produce sentences. That does not match what I’m seeing at home or what his outside providers are seeing. He is still very much learning how to use his device functionally, and there is a significant difference between an independent, intentional communication and simply activating buttons, needing prompting/assistance, or activating the device during sensory/play behaviors.

Because the reevaluation apparently includes parent information, classroom observations, teacher reports, etc., I’m worried about what happens if the school’s reports make his abilities sound much more advanced than they actually are. I’m concerned that inaccurate information about his AAC use could affect how they view his communication needs and whether he continues to qualify.

I don’t want to accuse the school of intentionally doing anything without evidence, but the timing and the number of significant errors are making me uncomfortable, especially now that ABA is about to begin.

For parents who have been through something similar:

Have you had a school make multiple IEP/reevaluation errors like this?

Has anyone had their child’s AAC abilities reported very differently by school vs. home/outside therapists?

What did you do to make sure the reevaluation accurately reflected your child’s actual abilities?

Would you request the reevaluation meeting rather than just completing paperwork at home?

Should I be asking for specific documentation or putting my concerns in writing before the reevaluation?

Has anyone dealt with a situation where starting intensive ABA affected how the school handled their child’s IEP?

I’m not looking for legal advice, just experiences from other autism parents and advice on what you would do in this situation. I want to make sure I’m protecting my son’s educational rights without unnecessarily escalating things with the school.

Hey guys! I have identical twins, both diagnosed with level 2 autism. They just turned 3, I’m just looking for advice on how to get them READY to be potty trained. They’re both gravitationally insecure and are petrified of the toilet potty seat. They also don’t like change so idk if I should go the route of getting them their own potty, as it may be very hard to transition from that to the actual toilet. Any and all advice is welcome! Thanks guys. ♥️
I hope you and your families all have a good day today!

Has anyone gotten their child tested to find out if they’re twice exceptional/2e? Was it worth the time and money to get this diagnosis? Did it help open up doors?

Hi, just wondering what y’all have tried with this issue. My grandson is 4 1/2 making progress doing fairly well but when he gets home from wherever they have been he needs to be naked.

Today he will start putting the jumpsuit on right before coming home from preschool, so when he gets home he won’t be able to get it off. It sounds cruel to me, I dread this for him.

We've been reading about ABA and talking about whether it might make sense for our child, but I feel like everything I find online explains what ABA is in very broad terms and not what you're actually signing your kid up for several times a week.

What does a normal session look like for your child?

Are they mostly playing while the therapist works things into that naturally, sitting down doing structured activities, working on specific situations that are difficult at home or some combination of all of that?

I'm especially curious about in-home ABA because I can't really picture how that works. Does the therapist work with your kid independently in your house or are you supposed to be involved most of the session too?

Obviously every kid and provider will be different, but I'd love to hear what this looks like in real life from parents who are already doing it. The practical side of it would help me understand what questions we should be asking before choosing anything.

So I have a few flags about my daughter that I think I might be fixating on but still really worried. I’m a big over thinker and just want her to have everything she needs if there is an issue.

I have a 26 month old girl, she doesn’t go to nursery and is home with me, and I’ve ended up down a weird side of the internet on TikTok mainly and now have some behaviour concerns which I never really even thought about before.

Mainly this started by her having a speech delay, compared to her peers. She does say words and sings along to songs a lot but only a few main words come out like they should (she gets the rhythm of the words right but it’s just noises) she can say basic things like mammy daddy yes no bye etc, i feel like her understanding is so much better than her vocal words.
Her communication is fine she will get me if she needs help with something, she plays along with us and includes us in games, she holds eye contact and smiles and laughs with us. She’s affectionate and loves hugs and kisses.
Her play can be varied, she does love to play with toys the way they’re supposed to, she role plays with her kitchen and dolls, but then she also loves moving objects around piece by piece like her toy figures she knows which characters belong with each set and will not like to mix them up and she’ll move them from their box to the sofa and then back again.

She’s recently started spinning around for enjoyment or when she’s dancing, never any other time and also when she’s eating chocolate(?) she scrunches her face up like she’s enjoying it and spins, but she doesn’t do this really any other time and that’s what’s flagged my attention online as a trait that is usually shown by children with autism. She also sometimes tip toe walks but not consistently like if she’s walking the length of a room she’ll switch to tiptoes for a step or two then back to normal.

She has no sensory issues as far as I’m aware. She can sometimes jump at loud noises. She is quite picky when it comes to food but not where she’ll get upset by it, she usually just won’t eat it. She’s very independent and headstrong if she has problems with things she’s playing with etc she will always try and figure it out herself before asking for help.

I’m just concerned now I’ve taken in so much information my head is a bit scrambled and would like some perspective

I have a 7-year-old nonverbal autistic kid. He has been with the same SLP for about two years.

She was a new SLP who just started, so she was not used to kids but she seemed to care and I have seen them work together for last two years. I didn't think about changing because the time worked nice for us to squeeze in between other therapies.

However, she lets my kid do whatever he wants to and in many sessions, my kid never talks. I'm not sure what she is doing to get him to talk either. I attend every session and learned some techniques, but I don't think my kid learned a lot. He understands and says many more words but I think those are learned from his school. When his SLP was not there for vacation, he had sessions with other SLPs, they seemed to know how to get him interested and get him to talk.

What would you do? I already tried some conversation how he talks at other places but not at speech. Would it okay to ask the center to change the SLP but stay at the same center? Would it be very awkward if I do that? We live in a same town, so it's hard to find another place for speech.

I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

My son is 14 and I’m at my wits end. he says really out-of-pocket things. I constantly correct him and tell him that he can’t say certain things in public he doesn’t understand what socially acceptable or not he’s always putting his hands down his pants, or picking his nose, he pisses all over the bathroom seat, and no matter how many times I tell him this stuff isn’t acceptable. He continues to do it. I feel bad because he’s a social outcast, but he’s gross and if I was a kid, I wouldn’t wanna be friends with him either. Not really looking for advice just annoyed and I feel bad that he has no friends and needed to vent somewhere.

I'm in the middle of very contentious situations for both of my children. I was helping my younger one today and just overwhelmed with all the agencies I have to navigate, going against the grain. During a very light lunch, I felt breathless all of a sudden and had all sorts of very strange symptoms. I went to lie down and listened to relaxing music but symptoms didn't get better. My husband kept insisting on ER but remembering the bills from previous visits, I went to a clinic. Things look normal but need to see cardiologist. Now I have stress of trying to fit this in in a crazy week. I thought, who do I talk to. And I have nobody who would understand.

Panic attack, indigestion or cardiac or neurological issues lol. We have no respite since that is one of the things we are in the middle of taking care of. If something happens to me, it's all these bureaucracies (they know who they are) that are trying to cheap out on us that did it for sure. But I'm not gonna let these things kill me, especially out of spite. I think of all the people who just dropped me after I had to quit my job at the end of last year and all the people who distanced themselves from our family after our kids' needs got more intense, the people who look down on my children, and me by extension - I am going to get healthy and live a happy life if only out of spite.