Seamus

Seamus has had some behavior and developmental issues since he was born. His gross and fine motor skills have improved greatly over the last 3½years but his behavior hasn't (and his speech was doing well but started to decline the last few months.) We've been working with our pedi for years to try to figure out what was going on.

He was born with Torticollis ("twisting of the neck") which resulted in Plagiocephally. Neither of the 2 would have cause him to be as delayed in the fine and gross motor areas, so we did lots of testing, blood work, CT scans (which showed nothing but Macrocephally). He was in OT from 3months old till 15months(we moved out of state for a couple months) and PT from around 8months till 15months. It was hard seeing him suffer through the therapies but they helped and now instead of being 3-6+ months behind developmentally like he was he is only at most 3mo in some categories.

Onto his behavior, he's always been more of a "I want to be by myself" kind of kid. When he was a baby he never wanted us to play with him, throwing fits or just not playing if we tried, if we left him alone he'd have a ball. Even to this day 75% of the time he prefers to play alone. We also cannot initiate things, like games, or counting, or play time, he has to do it or he will have nothing to do with you or what you're trying to do. I've been trying for over a year to get him to count past 10, and he wont, heck he wont even count to 10 if you ask him(but when he's playing alone he'll do it just fine) same with the alphabet, he wont say it if you provoke him but alone I've herd him say almost the whole thing (even lmnop in the the correct order). He's also very picky about things and how they have to be or all hell will break loose...speaking of that his temper its bad and so are this tantrums. One day Kieran's Early Headstart FC was here and she wasn't talking to Seamus and he threw a block at her so I put him in his room(he hadn't had quiet time yet so I said he needed it then) and for well over 45mintues he screamed....because he wanted the block (or FC was timing him till she left). He has to sleep with his light on, I've tried using a night light(taking it out of our room) and he freaked, tried a small lamp, freak out again, but at the same time he freaks out about the sun being too bright or flashes from camera's. Seamus is also overly friendly...scarily so, he'll talk to anyone and go with anyone without any fears and he's always been this way. On the topic of other people, hes not aware of others bubbles, touching people (hands, feet, face, etc.) even strangers, even when they tell him no. He's also horrid with listening, we could tell him to do something more then 6 times before he finally does it, or not to do something. Punishments have also been bad, we've tried spanking(I know...) it works for a little then he goes back to the naughty behavior. We've tried time outs that's a major fail, he just yell's and screams and then when its over he goes right back to being naughty sometimes even more so. I moved on to taking a toy away...resulted in major breakdown fits, so at this point we've had to put him in his room "grounding" him for 10-15minutes(depending on what he did) it seems to work some of the time.There's other "odd" quirks he has but right now I focused on some of the main ones.

Seamus' pedi referred him to a psychologist for counseling and to get the ADOS test done. The ADOS test is to test for Autism, something that we've brought up to our pedi since Seamus was about 15 months old but she said they couldn't do anything till he was 3. We've herd from a couple different people that they think he's high functioning Autistic(without us saying anything). Seamus has gone to one counselor's meeting, last week, and she said just by watching him(she had a sandbox) she saw some things that made her think possible Autism, and then when we told her about what he does she said that its a strong possibility. We are trying to get his ADOS test set up but the psychologist that does the test is busy(works for the hospital too) so its hard to get a hold of him, but the counselor we see is in his practice so hopefully she will mention something.

So right now its looking like he has Autism. I'm not trying to "label" my son, but I'm trying to figure this all out and learn how to be a better parent for him and actually be able to teach him right because right now I'm at a loss and so stressed with him I can barley handle him.