Hi Everyone I’m Dee I have a son with autism

[Crossbreed]

We are from Sydney Australia and the diagnosis is Autism

Would his medicine be Ritalin, methylphenidate or Concerta?

 

[Tatimax]

Good afternoon thank you for reading my posts I’m new to this forum I decided to join as I have a 5yo son diagnosed with Autism he is my pride and joy we love him so much and we would like to ask for your help we need clarity on what to expect as we are quite apprehensive about him start school this year.
Our son is unique he’s a lovely boy who is filled with energy, enthusiasm and happiness however he has social interaction issues finding it very difficult to keep friends he is very self orientated he tends not to reply when spoken to and wriggles and moves a lot it’s really difficult to get him to focus on tasks for long periods the paediatrician has told us this might become a problem in school and we might need to think about medication she said the medication has side affects but she said we can revisit this issue after the first term of school.
To be home we are so scared to give him any medication that’s why I decided to reach out and see if anyone else here has any experience they’d be willing to share.
Thank you.
Dee.

Hello! I am also a mom of autistic boy and this forum has always been a very helpful resource. My son is 7 and we are homeschooling. I thought I share my journey with my son’s education hoping it might help you with your decision making.
At 5 he was just like you described. He could not focus on anything for more than 5 min. At school, he was allowed a movement break every 10 min. Today (2 years later) he gets through 30-min blocks of phonics, writing/spelling and math with 15-min breaks between the blocks. No medications! Our major distraction is window . I agree that wiggling 5 years old is how he should be at this age. My son was failing academically at school and thrives at homeschool. School (general Ed classroom) was too stressful for him. He used all his energy on self-regulation and did not learn. Giving your child a movement break and NOT meds might help a lot with his academic process.

 

[Clarity]

Hello! I am also a mom of autistic boy and this forum has always been a very helpful resource. My son is 7 and we are homeschooling. I thought I share my journey with my son’s education hoping it might help you with your decision making.
At 5 he was just like you described. He could not focus on anything for more than 5 min. At school, he was allowed a movement break every 10 min. Today (2 years later) he gets through 30-min blocks of phonics, writing/spelling and math with 15-min breaks between the blocks. No medications! Our major distraction is window . I agree that wiggling 5 years old is how he should be at this age. My son was failing academically at school and thrives at homeschool. School (general Ed classroom) was too stressful for him. He used all his energy on self-regulation and did not learn. Giving your child a movement break and NOT meds might help a lot with his academic process.

Thank you for sharing Tatimax every little bit helps having knowledge and hearing from other people like yourself is exactly what we need to help our children.
My son has now started school and it’s quite challenging other children are already noticing he is different and ostracising him from group activities lucky he hasn’t complained yet he seems to like school so far but we are monitoring it on a day to day basis thankfully he has a wonderful teacher who understands his needs and communicates with him on his level we have also considered home schooling and to be honest we don’t really know how to homeschool ourselves but we may have to learn
Mainstream isn’t designed to tech one on one and I’ve noticed autistic children need a lot of one on one interaction otherwise it’s like you say they spend so much energy on self regulation that they learn nothing.
Thank you for sharing we greatly appreciate.

 

[Mr. Fox]

Hello! I am also a mom of autistic boy and this forum has always been a very helpful resource. My son is 7 and we are homeschooling. I thought I share my journey with my son’s education hoping it might help you with your decision making.
At 5 he was just like you described. He could not focus on anything for more than 5 min. At school, he was allowed a movement break every 10 min. Today (2 years later) he gets through 30-min blocks of phonics, writing/spelling and math with 15-min breaks between the blocks. No medications! Our major distraction is window . I agree that wiggling 5 years old is how he should be at this age. My son was failing academically at school and thrives at homeschool. School (general Ed classroom) was too stressful for him. He used all his energy on self-regulation and did not learn. Giving your child a movement break and NOT meds might help a lot with his academic process.

autism and distraction.

I have an autistic daughter, not diagnosed though. Trying to understand it I seem
to realize its an issue of not being able to focus on 1 thing for an extended period of time. Things Tv, toys, etc are very distraction. It cripples you from "thinking".
My comparison is, Your taking 1 enviornment, and adding a million distractions to it.
This makes it hard to understand the environment itself.
As opposed to having 1 object (toy), and see how it works against a million enviornments, which leads to a better understanding of the enviornments.
Concepts of Me and You (toys) and Mass and Time (Enviornments).
The cause, Id guess a spike happened around the time tv's were commen in the house,
A distraction machiene, that you used to raise your kid by accident, whislt you went off into more distraction. I could go on and on about it.

So the cure is, get them to focus on 1 object for a long time vs many enviorments.
Not only that YOU the parant could probably barly be undistracted and focus for more than 15 mins I'd guess, before you abandon the task. Its like how long can you cross your eyes before pukeing. I can cross my eyes for a long time, and 1 eye at a time, I dont get sick from it. I can just keep going and not "Abandon the task", flashing lights, sounds, whatever. I can focus, very well. So please listen to me, this will help I promise, Im working on it right now with my daughter, almost 4.
The hardest time finishing a task is the first time. the second time will be a little easier than the first, then the thrid. Eventually it will naturally be an on going train, That you dont "need" to think about to do. You will have been "Conditioned", to be able to remember and apply that memory to many situations. I have no reason to lie to you. I just want to fix this problem.
And I murdur english Im sorry.

 

[Tatimax]

Yes, things like TV, iPad games, toys are all sources of distraction. In our house we have a rule ‘No screen’ before school or work. It definitely has significant impact on academic process. Also, recommendations from OT are very important.