Welcome to the board.
While it's important to know exactly what you're dealing wirth, don't get too hung up on labels. When you say, "I think they have ADHD too" what you are saying is, "I think these particular problems we're having with them are part of whatever disorder they have, they're not being deliberately naughty; they simply can't help it. And I need to find a way to sort this out so we can help them make progress."
Am I right?
If I am, then take tihs attitude - my kids are what they are. I will keep trying to get some sort of accuratte label, but in the meantime, the working hypothesis is, it's all part of the disorder and we will work ourselves to help each little piece of the puzzle, whicl we're eaiting for the experts ro make up their minds.
There is a lot you can do as a parent, while you're also asking 'experts'. perhaps the most important thing, is trust your instincts. Have faith in yourself as a parent.
Next - watch the boys. Watch each one, take notes, keep a diary on what you observe. You need to know what they really love, what they really hate, what upsets them, what calms them down. Where possible, give thme what they want but challenge them always, justa little. Keep the pressure on below damaging stress level but high enough so they're not allowed to simply 'coast'. In other words - maintain stimulation and involvement, at a level that they can handle it. Keep moving them towards increasing involvement and improving skills.
Somewhere there si a key, some way through for you into their world. For my younger son it was the written word 9and numbers). He also loved music. So whatever he was interested in, I gave it to him but I liinked it to something else that would help us communicate.
Often we help our kids learn by breaking things up into manageable pieces. But something I found with difficult child 3 - he sometimes NEEDS to have the whole package presented to him. For example - his interest in letters and numbers were originally NOT because, "Hey, these are symbolic, they represent something with meaning," but I think, because of their apparent deliberate design indicative of a pettern. He loved patterns. He watched things fall (bubbles, water drops, sand in an hour glass) and of course watched letters and words on crawlers, numbers counting down say on a timer or microwave oven - repetitive but changing patterns were the original hook for him. He would have been content to just look at these all his life, except I made him see that they had meaning, by showing him that numbers meant quantity. I had to physically teach him. We would go on walks and he would run to the next letter box to read the next number. His interest in letters - I wrote words and drew pictures to indicate the meaning of the words. We would then read these words and act out the meaning (words like "stop" or "go", for example). I labelled everything in the house and we would walk around reading the labels and touching things. I wrote stories about difficult child 3, I included photos of difficult child 3 doing the things I described in the stories and then put it all together in photo albums (easy for little fingers to turn the pages).
That's what worked for us.
Never forget - once they realise there is more for them to have fun with, they will work intensely, as much as they can and with determination, to learn how to be like other people. Keep encouraging them, they need all the help and support they can get. They need to see that you are their support and not their obstacle. As thye begin to understand more, you will be able to explain your reasoning to them more. At the moment, 3 is a horrible age for you. Their lack of good comprehension only makes it worse.
Language is really important. It doesn't always invovle the spoken word - communication is the first viral step. Once you have communication, you work towards understanding of language in whatever form. Reading is also comunication. So is sign language. So is using Compics (something you might want to investigate - search online, ask a specch therapist for help there).
Your difficulties right now are aggravated by having twins - they will rely on each other a lot, and they both need to learn to look to you. So I strongly recommend you enter THEIR world, in order to slowely engage them and draw them into yours.
Two books for you -
1) "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene - it's almost a bible for a lot of us, dealing with the behavioural problems and ODD-type behaviours you can get in children for all sorts of reasons. It's a different way of teaching your child to interact appropriately. Look on the Early Childhood forum for some discussion on applying the techniques in this book, to smaller children.
2) "Son Rise" - I can't remember the author, it was a librarian at difficult child 3's current school (correspondence but mainstream, he's doing well) who put me on to this book. I could have done with it when difficult child 3 was tiny. Now, I could write the book myself. I did feel there was a lot of emotional over-the-top glurge (almost) at times in the book, but it thoroughly redeems itself for me by going into details of exactly what the father did, to get through to his son. And how spectacularly successful he was. That detail is gold, it is what you need, right now, in duplicate. You also need time (yours) and support (someone to cook your meals and clean your house while you're on the floor 'playing' with your kids; others to come play with your kids too. College kids are good, according to this book. A volunteer register. Kids love to play).
if your boys are high-functioning, they will learn to talk better. If they are already naming their favourite things, thatis really good news. They wuill continue to make progress, especially if you work them. As twins they will rely on each other and understand one another much better; some of this is normal twin behaviour and sometimes can be misinterpreted as language delay; but if they get frustrated with themsleves for not being able to make YOU understand, then there is a problem needing intervention (speech pathology, again).
We didn't have the help we needed when we reallywanted it, so I did it myself and invented it myself as I went along.Teaching difficult child 3 to read was his breakthrough. He still watches TV with subtitles on where possible, because it helps him understand it better. However, his hearing is perfect. But his comprehension of what he hears is not as good as his comprehension of what he sees. By combining both, it's worknig to always improve him.
My son now tests out as normal, for speech, in every area. However, a more thorough assessment shows that he has a wide gap beween his best areas and his worst. These will always mean he will feel frustrated with himself and also have trouble with fast recall and word-finding skills. The language delay is the reason for the ongoing word-finding difficulties. There are eercises we can do to help here, but nothing can replace the sheer brilliance of the infant mindwhen it comes to making new connections between every new word, every new expereince, sensation - the lot. The delay means it's an older brain trying to do the work of the infant brain and although it does it well and can later on pass as normal, there will always be some slight slowness of recall at times. This can be compensated for a great deal in the more highly intelligent Aspies & autistics and often only the person themselves really is aware of it. Again, we found a cute way of trying to help there - the 20Q game. It's a hand-held game, also a website. But your boys need to be a bit more verbal than they are (and able to read!) before they can play this. We bought one for difficult child 3 about 4 years ago while we were on holiday. Then we bought one for his speech pathologist, we felt it was so appropriate!
I could go on and on, suffice it to say - help is here, in so many ways. help is in a lot of places. So many of us have been where you are now (in a way - I didn't have twins, although I have multiple children with this).
One last suggestion - how is it when you go out as a family? Do they wander, or stay with you?
A friend of mine makes harnesses for twins, but she's not selling to the US. You could make something yourself, it's simply a standard harness (five point racing harness) with a clip at the back on the waistband. THis clips to a longer length of webbing (on each child) which then clips to a single leash. When you need to fasten them into a high-chair or a stroller, you don't remove the harness, you simply clip the harness to the stroller or to the high chair. Or the shopping trolley. It makes for less fussing.
The woman who invented this, was herself physically disabled and not able to chase after her boys. And from what I know of these boys (now adults) - I reckon at least one is Aspie. No language delay, but boy, were they terrors and Houdinis! They lived near water in the Aussie bush and the boys would often run & hide in the bush where their mother couldn't go searching.
If you can, get your wife to post here/lurk here too, it will really make a huge difference to your communicartion as a couple even if you think it's already perfect. it's what husband & I now do (hi, honey!) and it really helps us a great deal.
Welcome. Help is here, it WILL get better. You will discover the absolute, wonderful joy in your sons' uniquenesses and in their brilliance. It is there, trust me.
Marg
