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<blockquote data-quote="FLC" data-source="post: 556841" data-attributes="member: 15371"><p>Wow, now this is what I call help <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p>So many responses and questions that makes me think. Thank you so much, everyone.</p><p></p><p>There are a lot of messages today so I'll respond to all them at once here, if that's OK.</p><p></p><p>First, I just realized that we where rather passive in the sense that we just take our son to this or that doctor and wait to be told what's wrong with him and what to do, but since I joined here (that's only yesterday!) I learn a few things, among which that jut waiting for the doctors to come up with the solution won't work. We need to take wheel on this. And like Ktllc said, we need to analyze him ourselves, do a lot of research, and keep posting <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Everyone agreed, and with arguments, that this is not our fault, and something that I often miss but it's really important, not our son's fault either. By reading you I came to figure out that I need to separate how much we suck at parenting, or at least at coping with his issues, from the cause. I even talked to my wife last night and she seems to be at least considering that we (that's me and all of you here) could be right. It's shame she doesn't speak English and can't participate directly.</p><p></p><p>I think that the underlying theory to blame us is that, say, our fighting, or loose of temper when he misbehaves, or for example the fact that when he was just two we misscarried a 3 months pregnancy and my WF was devastated to the point of having a few suicide attempts (it took her 3 years but she is well now), caused some sort of psicological trauma that resulted in his difficulties, for example to learn normally like any other kid. But, I realize now that this is really just mystical thinking that is only justified by a complete lack of knowledge of how such things actually work. Granted, neither my WF nor I have a clue of what makes the brain and mind to work, so from our laymen point of view this "theory" might make sense, just like it did for the ancient people to think some gods caused rain. But a doctor should know better, so at the very least I will more actively question what I'm told and try to do my own research. (I'm a biochemist working as a software engineer so I'm used to research and such, is just that so far I only did it to help me understand what the doctors said, but not to build my own ideas of what's wrong with him)</p><p></p><p>I agree with DaisyFace that relating the memory problems with bad parenting is a stretch, to say the least. Is just that like I said above, I do wonder if a psicological trauma couldn't cause that, but then again, I only wonder because I don't have a clue about that. And now that I'm writing this, I also wonder if supposing the existence of a psicological trauma just becasue we (used to, really) fight all the time or be agreesive to him (and his sister) when we snap is not a streatch on itself.</p><p></p><p>It makes perfect sense to me to figure that bad parenting or bad adult behaviour would definitely get in the way of his progress. Granted, so we will keep trying to stop fighting and to cope with him in more productive ways than a slap in the back of the head. But, what I think is the lesson from what you all said: that alone won't even come close. He has a "wireing" problem and that won't go away by us turning into PP. I told my BW that tonight and she agreed.</p><p></p><p>My WH also told me that there are in fact Neuropsychs here, at leat in the one center that specializes in the Brain. It's not covered by the healh insurrance and hes fee is like 4 times what we are used for any other doctor though. We are seriously considering that we should nonetheless go see him.</p><p></p><p>As an infant my son was normal, from what we can tell. However, though he started speaking at normal age, in my opinion he never developed the language at the expected pace. He used to be very very quiet, and he used to fingetr-point and use his body to express as opposed to used words. We used to think that this was the simple consequence of his sister (9 yr.old now) talking *all* the time (sometime I don't know when she breathes) <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />.</p><p>FWIW, because of that the very first treatment he had was with a "speeach-language therapist" (fonoaudióloga in Spanish), but she didn't get anywhere and even said that she did not found a, say, "wiring" problem and that is was due to emotional reasons. So we moved on centering the therapy on the psicologist which then suggested to push aside the speech language test.</p><p></p><p>What I'm thinking now is that there might be two separate running issues: he could have psicological problems BUT ALSO learing problems of a more "physical" nature.</p><p></p><p>He is VERY sensitive. For example, from the very first day he was born we had trouble changing his clothing because he was all tight. We couldn't extend his arms etc. We learned that we had to sooth him first. Also, when we put him on the craddle, he would always cry and naturally we thought it was because he didn't wanted to be left alone, but we learned that, no, the real problem was the movement!. If we where just very very, but *very* slow, specially the last part when his head was left in the craddle base, he would be perfectly OK. Even sleep normally like nothing.</p><p></p><p>FWIW, due a sierious mistake on the obstetrician, my WF was given ACTH duing the entire pregancy. Only the last month we incidentally learn that ACTH was completely unsafe during pregnancy. But we told that to evert doctor and none seem to give it any importance.</p><p></p><p>AFAICT our son is socially normal, though he is rather shy, meaning that he needs time to get along with a new group of peers. But once the initial period is passed he interacts normally with them. One thing do is that he needs some help to detach, for example every morning I can't just drop him at school like nothing. He hugs and kisses me and I'm like "ok now you have to go", and is like that for a few minutes until he goes. When he was 4 and 5 though, it was terrible as in I had to leave him crying and the teacher had to pick him up, almost everyday. </p><p>We think however that the real problem was that kinder, for when we moved it to another one, at 6, that problem went away and he never again had to be left crying like that.</p><p></p><p>Although he is very very sensitive, at the emotional level, he doesn't seem bother with noise, or clothing or wheather or anything like it that I can recognize now. BUT, it might be difficult to tell because only now, say since a year or a year and a half, he started to speak normally like all day. He used to be very very quiet and rarely say anything, *including* if he wasbn't feeling right or was in pain. On more than one occasion, when he was younger, we would discoverd that he was hurt, or have a mild fever, etc by observation, but he wouldn't cry or say anything.</p><p></p><p>I wouldn't say that he had lots of sinus or ear infections. And he is not alergic to anything that we know so far.</p><p>We never gave him any medication before (he just started on Risperdal last night)</p><p>I would say that he makes good eye contact with people, strangers or not, unless you are scolding him.</p><p></p><p>Now I know these are all treats for something in the autism spectrum. And when he was diagnose Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) I thought it was it. He certainly seemed to be just like that.</p><p>But now at age 7 I do see that he seemed to be deviating from the symptoms, that is, now seems to be able to connect with his surroundings, people or things, a lot, lot more than ever before. So I don't know.</p><p></p><p>FWIW, I have pretty much no recolection of my infancy below age 12 or 13 (I'm 41 one), but my mom told me that when I was 7, the 2-grade teacher told her I had autism and had to be moved to a special school. She took me to the family doctor and he responded that I was not, that the problem was that I had no interest in shcool, that it was boring, so she just didn't do anything. I stayed in the school and that was about it. I don't recally anything but she said I didn't have any learning problems.</p><p>on the other hand, I had a special situation with my dad: he had his own familiy so he was home only on certain weekends, thus we didn't interact much but I was also told by my mom that he did thing I had some sort of "mental problem". She just ignored it.</p><p></p><p>Having said that, I actually always felt like I could totally relate with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), specifically with Asperger's. But the few occasions I told that to a psicologist she said that I was crazy and I was nothing like it. So I always wonder that maybe is all about degree: maybe I was (or am?) indeed Asperger but to such a low degree that you can barely see it.</p><p>And if that's the case, maybe the same happens to my son. (except that he has important learning problems and I didn't.. or maybe I did but when I was in school no one cared if I could read and write, etc...)</p><p></p><p>by the way, I told my WF about the "he's is actually younger than he's age" trick and we loved it! I can inmediately see how that will help because ineed we might be asking too much of him.</p><p></p><p>I will closely watch out for side effects of Risperdal indeed, altough it seems like a good idea that he is taking it, at the moment at least.</p><p></p><p>We do have OTs here and we thought about consulting one. Specially because I had no idea that Auditory Processing Disorders (APD) existes but now that I read about it I think it might be related.</p><p></p><p>And now the last post <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Indeed I started reading about ADHD and also wonder why it wasn't addressed.</p><p>Specially these days. When he was 4, he was rather shy, always quiet and felt disconnected, so Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) looked like a good fit to me.</p><p>But now at age 7, I wouldn't talk about him being quiet or looking disconnected. Instead, I would talk about him being *all day* running, jumping, kicking the air, and recently also shouting all day mimicking a kung-fu shout (he loves TV shows for the like). In my own words I would definitely say he is "hyper active".</p><p></p><p>Well, I'm so glad I joined the forum. I'll keep posting and reading.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FLC, post: 556841, member: 15371"] Wow, now this is what I call help :) So many responses and questions that makes me think. Thank you so much, everyone. There are a lot of messages today so I'll respond to all them at once here, if that's OK. First, I just realized that we where rather passive in the sense that we just take our son to this or that doctor and wait to be told what's wrong with him and what to do, but since I joined here (that's only yesterday!) I learn a few things, among which that jut waiting for the doctors to come up with the solution won't work. We need to take wheel on this. And like Ktllc said, we need to analyze him ourselves, do a lot of research, and keep posting :) Everyone agreed, and with arguments, that this is not our fault, and something that I often miss but it's really important, not our son's fault either. By reading you I came to figure out that I need to separate how much we suck at parenting, or at least at coping with his issues, from the cause. I even talked to my wife last night and she seems to be at least considering that we (that's me and all of you here) could be right. It's shame she doesn't speak English and can't participate directly. I think that the underlying theory to blame us is that, say, our fighting, or loose of temper when he misbehaves, or for example the fact that when he was just two we misscarried a 3 months pregnancy and my WF was devastated to the point of having a few suicide attempts (it took her 3 years but she is well now), caused some sort of psicological trauma that resulted in his difficulties, for example to learn normally like any other kid. But, I realize now that this is really just mystical thinking that is only justified by a complete lack of knowledge of how such things actually work. Granted, neither my WF nor I have a clue of what makes the brain and mind to work, so from our laymen point of view this "theory" might make sense, just like it did for the ancient people to think some gods caused rain. But a doctor should know better, so at the very least I will more actively question what I'm told and try to do my own research. (I'm a biochemist working as a software engineer so I'm used to research and such, is just that so far I only did it to help me understand what the doctors said, but not to build my own ideas of what's wrong with him) I agree with DaisyFace that relating the memory problems with bad parenting is a stretch, to say the least. Is just that like I said above, I do wonder if a psicological trauma couldn't cause that, but then again, I only wonder because I don't have a clue about that. And now that I'm writing this, I also wonder if supposing the existence of a psicological trauma just becasue we (used to, really) fight all the time or be agreesive to him (and his sister) when we snap is not a streatch on itself. It makes perfect sense to me to figure that bad parenting or bad adult behaviour would definitely get in the way of his progress. Granted, so we will keep trying to stop fighting and to cope with him in more productive ways than a slap in the back of the head. But, what I think is the lesson from what you all said: that alone won't even come close. He has a "wireing" problem and that won't go away by us turning into PP. I told my BW that tonight and she agreed. My WH also told me that there are in fact Neuropsychs here, at leat in the one center that specializes in the Brain. It's not covered by the healh insurrance and hes fee is like 4 times what we are used for any other doctor though. We are seriously considering that we should nonetheless go see him. As an infant my son was normal, from what we can tell. However, though he started speaking at normal age, in my opinion he never developed the language at the expected pace. He used to be very very quiet, and he used to fingetr-point and use his body to express as opposed to used words. We used to think that this was the simple consequence of his sister (9 yr.old now) talking *all* the time (sometime I don't know when she breathes) :). FWIW, because of that the very first treatment he had was with a "speeach-language therapist" (fonoaudióloga in Spanish), but she didn't get anywhere and even said that she did not found a, say, "wiring" problem and that is was due to emotional reasons. So we moved on centering the therapy on the psicologist which then suggested to push aside the speech language test. What I'm thinking now is that there might be two separate running issues: he could have psicological problems BUT ALSO learing problems of a more "physical" nature. He is VERY sensitive. For example, from the very first day he was born we had trouble changing his clothing because he was all tight. We couldn't extend his arms etc. We learned that we had to sooth him first. Also, when we put him on the craddle, he would always cry and naturally we thought it was because he didn't wanted to be left alone, but we learned that, no, the real problem was the movement!. If we where just very very, but *very* slow, specially the last part when his head was left in the craddle base, he would be perfectly OK. Even sleep normally like nothing. FWIW, due a sierious mistake on the obstetrician, my WF was given ACTH duing the entire pregancy. Only the last month we incidentally learn that ACTH was completely unsafe during pregnancy. But we told that to evert doctor and none seem to give it any importance. AFAICT our son is socially normal, though he is rather shy, meaning that he needs time to get along with a new group of peers. But once the initial period is passed he interacts normally with them. One thing do is that he needs some help to detach, for example every morning I can't just drop him at school like nothing. He hugs and kisses me and I'm like "ok now you have to go", and is like that for a few minutes until he goes. When he was 4 and 5 though, it was terrible as in I had to leave him crying and the teacher had to pick him up, almost everyday. We think however that the real problem was that kinder, for when we moved it to another one, at 6, that problem went away and he never again had to be left crying like that. Although he is very very sensitive, at the emotional level, he doesn't seem bother with noise, or clothing or wheather or anything like it that I can recognize now. BUT, it might be difficult to tell because only now, say since a year or a year and a half, he started to speak normally like all day. He used to be very very quiet and rarely say anything, *including* if he wasbn't feeling right or was in pain. On more than one occasion, when he was younger, we would discoverd that he was hurt, or have a mild fever, etc by observation, but he wouldn't cry or say anything. I wouldn't say that he had lots of sinus or ear infections. And he is not alergic to anything that we know so far. We never gave him any medication before (he just started on Risperdal last night) I would say that he makes good eye contact with people, strangers or not, unless you are scolding him. Now I know these are all treats for something in the autism spectrum. And when he was diagnose Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) I thought it was it. He certainly seemed to be just like that. But now at age 7 I do see that he seemed to be deviating from the symptoms, that is, now seems to be able to connect with his surroundings, people or things, a lot, lot more than ever before. So I don't know. FWIW, I have pretty much no recolection of my infancy below age 12 or 13 (I'm 41 one), but my mom told me that when I was 7, the 2-grade teacher told her I had autism and had to be moved to a special school. She took me to the family doctor and he responded that I was not, that the problem was that I had no interest in shcool, that it was boring, so she just didn't do anything. I stayed in the school and that was about it. I don't recally anything but she said I didn't have any learning problems. on the other hand, I had a special situation with my dad: he had his own familiy so he was home only on certain weekends, thus we didn't interact much but I was also told by my mom that he did thing I had some sort of "mental problem". She just ignored it. Having said that, I actually always felt like I could totally relate with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), specifically with Asperger's. But the few occasions I told that to a psicologist she said that I was crazy and I was nothing like it. So I always wonder that maybe is all about degree: maybe I was (or am?) indeed Asperger but to such a low degree that you can barely see it. And if that's the case, maybe the same happens to my son. (except that he has important learning problems and I didn't.. or maybe I did but when I was in school no one cared if I could read and write, etc...) by the way, I told my WF about the "he's is actually younger than he's age" trick and we loved it! I can inmediately see how that will help because ineed we might be asking too much of him. I will closely watch out for side effects of Risperdal indeed, altough it seems like a good idea that he is taking it, at the moment at least. We do have OTs here and we thought about consulting one. Specially because I had no idea that Auditory Processing Disorders (APD) existes but now that I read about it I think it might be related. And now the last post :) Indeed I started reading about ADHD and also wonder why it wasn't addressed. Specially these days. When he was 4, he was rather shy, always quiet and felt disconnected, so Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) looked like a good fit to me. But now at age 7, I wouldn't talk about him being quiet or looking disconnected. Instead, I would talk about him being *all day* running, jumping, kicking the air, and recently also shouting all day mimicking a kung-fu shout (he loves TV shows for the like). In my own words I would definitely say he is "hyper active". Well, I'm so glad I joined the forum. I'll keep posting and reading. [/QUOTE]
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