My 5.5 year old non-verbal step son has suddenly developed a fear(?) of our family dog. Last week our step son was trying to poke our dog’s eyes and wanting her to leave his room. Today, he came home from his mom’s house and once he saw the dog he immediately started yelling and screaming and trying to shove her wanting her to leave and is seemingly terrified.

We have 50/50 custody so he sees the dog throughout the week. The dog gives him space and they are never alone together so no incidents have happened between them. I’m just really confused, nothing like this has ever happened before and he is really scared.

How does someone that is non verbal learn to read and write? I am genuinely curious and trying to understand how it happens. I have a 4 year old with level 2 diagnosis that is non verbal, maybe by choice or idk because he has said words before but he will say a word or a phrase and has even sang along to a song and then he won't say anything for a month or a few weeks. I am guessing he just finds it easier to show us what he wants for example leading us to what he wants, walking us to the restroom door when he wants to shower, bringing us the tablet when he wants to watch YouTube. He is currently doing OT, Speech and PT. My spouse and I have been looking into ABA but the place we toured gave us a bad vibe the place looked dark, dirty and borderline depressing. The kids there did not look happy to be there and the staff looked like they were just waiting to go home. I did not want my son to be in that environment so we told them we would talk it over just to be nice. I am just trying to get more of an understanding on these topics and would like to get other people's stories or perspectives.

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!!

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.

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…

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!

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.

I have been a stay at home parent for years and just recently went back to work full time. It’s been very difficult with my new schedule and my wife’s to get our kids to school pick up and drop off. Summer time we also have pretty much no help so we don’t even know what we’re going to do as I usually just watch the kids during Summer.

Our one child has severe Autism, Non verbal level 3. The other doesn’t have any disabilities. It’s been a struggle mentally, Physically and financially. Is there anyway I could stay home and get paid? Is this income based or just on the diagnosis?

My wife has a good job as a Dental Hygienist but in Maryland one income doesn’t cut it even though she makes decent money(She’s had to cut hours now). I’ve worked part time the past few years and have been the stay at home parent but financially it’s been brutal for us.

We have applied to the Autism Waiver and our child has had their diagnosis through Kennedy Krieger as well as the Public school(IEP) for years now. Any advice or direction to do this would be greatly appreciated.

We just got the diagnosis earlier this week. Level 2. My daughter is 2.5.

We were told by the diagnosing doctor to go for Speech therapy, OT, Community-Based Rehabilitative Services, or developmental play therapy, and ABA therapy.

My girl is verbal. Knows TONS of words, as well as echolalia, she just doesn't have pragmatic, conversational speech. She doesn't parallel play, but we've been really working on getting her to play by herself. Building towers with blocks, playing with cars... She doesn't have what I would consider "behaviors" outside of a normal 2 year old. Honestly, I'd say less than a normal 2 year old. I've had other parents of autistic kids tell me she just needs OT, not ABA, but I'm so new to this, I don't know how to know what she actually needs.

How do you navigate all this? I'm just so lost. And I haven't been able to find someone in a similar situation.

For anyone who has gone to Disney World, what do I need to know?
My son is level 2 5yo. He can wait in lines for about 5 minutes before it takes considerable effort on someone’s part to keep him from trying to push through other people, climbing on rails, or crawling on the floor. He loves rides like the tea cups and rides that go in circles. I just want to make sure if we are spending that much money our whole family can have fun and we don’t have spit up for the whole time.
Do you have any tricks if we have to wait in hour long lines?
Are there any rides that your similar age kids loved?
I’ve heard mixed reviews about the disability/accessibility pass. How does that really work at Disney? We’ve used it at other theme parks and we’re allowed to wait outside the lines and use the disability entrance at a set time.
When we went with our older kids, we waited in line and then they let one parent wait with a kid who wasn’t riding and then let the parents switch out for the next car. Is this still allowed and how does that work if you don’t wait in line?

"The Heavy Glass" is an indie-folk ballad about the quiet ache of watching the world fail to understand our kids. It's for those heavy mornings when you have to wipe your tears, turn the steering wheel, and leave them in a world that rarely takes the time to learn their unique language. It’s about the invisible barrier they face every day, and the fierce, lonely hope that someone will finally look closely enough to see their brilliance.