Early stages

Laurie screamed for hours when he was a baby for no reason we could work out. He was my first child so I thought this must be normal but it was extremely stressful and exhausting.

We began to realise that something was wrong when by two years old he had stopped using the few words he used at 18 months. We went to a speech therapist who suggested Laurie may be on the autistic spectrum and we were referred by our GP to a paediatric consultant who confirmed this.

To start with we were given a leaflet and a Disability Living Allowance form. We were devastated and overwhelmed by what this meant for our family.

We attended an Early Bird course and a local authority support team came to give us advice. At this stage we were still feeling shell shocked but the team included our own support assistant who helped us manage Laurie better. He was very prone to tantrums but this was because he couldn’t communicate what he wanted. His dad has taught him to point when he wants something and that takes some of the frustration away but he doesn’t make eye contact and he still uses only a few words.

The great break came when he was given a place in the assessment nursery. Laurie found it quite stressful at first and he spent a lot of time jumping around the room flapping his arms. He needs a lot of adult support or he gets distracted or goes onto “auto pilot”. Now he has been there two terms he is beginning to respond to all the visual techniques the nursery uses such as pictures to prompt him to do something new or posting a picture to show that the activity is finished.

For me the nursery has meant I don’t feel quite so isolated. I can talk to other parents in the same situation which helps enormously. I think his dad and I are beginning to come to terms with the fact that Laurie will need a lot of input at school. We found it hard at first to accept that he needed a statement and couldn’t go to the local nursery. We have seen the progress he’s made at this nursery but only with really intensive one to one support. Our main worry now is that he won’t get that at school. The special schools round here take children with all sorts of disabilities so he’ll be just one of a large number of children with severe difficulties. They don’t use the same methods as the nursery because of that. It would be terrible if all the progress he made were lost so we’re looking further afield to find the right school.