When you wave your hand suddenly near his face, does he respond? Does he startles trongly, or just move out of the way?
Does he sleep normally? Snore? Young children can have apnea too, and it can create this sort of somnolent look, where they are basically asleep with their eyes open.
And there’s another thing. I honestly don’t believe she hurt him, but I think one day someone is going to think that and she’s going to have a hard time.
What happened is, he climbed up on his crib, the one he never uses, got his foot caught and got a spirally fractured tibia.
He has also been to the ER twice for a dislocated elbow. I know she used to pick him up off the floor by one arm.
Frankly I’m stunned that nobody has questioned her yet.
I would have to say he doesn’t startle or respond strongly if at all. As for sleeping, he sleeps in bed with my sister and he does sleep soundly she says.
[quote=“Velma, post:20, topic:545732”]
I agree - babies learn to respond to their names very early on. There is a wide range of normal when it comes to speaking, but an almost 3 year old who does not even respond to his name is outside that range on any scale.
When you call his name what does he do? Does he even turn and look at you?
He doesn’t turn and look at me or anyone. I think he’ll respond to a rather urgent tone with my sister or, more often, she’ll respond to him.
And then, other times, he’ll surprise us and go get his shoes or something like he’s told.
Denial is a very powerful force. Frustrating, and powerful.
This is called Nursemaid’s Elbow and it’s quite common. Some toddlers’ elbows will come out of joint very easily when pulled; some even pop out on their own without being pulled by the hand or arm. As they get a little older their musculature develops more and the elbow stays in place. My daughter had not only this, but blue bruise-y-looking Mongolian spots, and I had her pediatrician document them so that I wouldn’t be accused of child abuse.
asked and answered. sorry.
Some quick and dirty checks, gotten for free on the “interweb” (but from a parent whose kid spent 6 months being assessed for Autism Spectrum Disorders).
Does he turn his head to look for the source of an unexpected noise that occured out of his field of view?
=> possible indicator for hearing defficiency. Hearing checks for kids are easy and non traumatic. They can even do babies. Should be the first thing to check out, since it’s so easy.
Does he make eye contact with other kids and adults?
=> no is an indicator for possible autism spectrum
Does he request things by grabbing an adult’s hand and physically leading them to what he wants?
=> yes is an indicator for possible autism spectrum
If somebody else makes a suprised face, looks at an object accross the room, and points at it with an extended arm and index finger, does he follow the gaze to look at the object?
=> no is an indicator for possible autism spectrum
Does he spend a lot of time looking at the same kind of moving, or intricately textured, or sparkly things like spinnng objects, wood grain, or sparkly toys?
=> yes is an indicator for possible autism spectrum
Does he repeat a limited set of gestures or playing motions over and over and over again (perseveration)
=> yes is an indicator for possible autism spectrum
Does he have a lot of difficulty transitionning from one activity/setting to another, and make a lot of fuss when directed to do so?
=> yes is an indicator for possible autism spectrum
I would approach the parent if you have two strong indicators in the above list, or three or more faily frequent ones. There are better indicators, but they require a more formal evaluation type setting, and trained evaluators.
For other possible disorders, I’m as ignorant as the next guy.
It sounds a little like Aspergers/Autism to me, but I’m biased (and NAD).
I suspected my nephew had Asperger’s pretty early on - from perhaps 2 and 1/2 or 3. Things like hugging on command, but never spontaneously, delayed talking (nothing until 3 at least), retarded motor skills. My parents and I were aware and Mum tried to suggest to my brother and his wife that they consider just getting things checked out - it took another 2 years before they wanted to acknowledge that there was an issue and get some assistance.
I think many parents can be head in the sand about this. Additionally, he was their first kid, and I think over time they had chalked a lot of his issues down to be ‘difficult’. I think my sister in law also felt that any issue with him was her ‘fault’ - clearly not the case, but difficult to see things rationally when you’ve been in the trenches so long.
However, the earlier you can get a kid assessed, the earlier both the kid and parents can get some help with coping skills, and the school can be brought into the loop - things like this need to be a cooperative effort.
So, stay concerned, stay involved. But unless he’s at risk, I think you can’t do much more until she’s ready to realise there is more going on than just low on the bell curve. And it may be that that’s all it is - he may leap ahead shortly.
I will note that an additional factor keeping a lot of parents from getting help/assistance for their child is well-meaning friends and relatives assuring them that kids will be kids, it’s wrong to have too many expectations for a small child, “he’s only 3, after all” (which then turns into “he’s only 4, after all” and “he’s only 5, after all” and then suddenly, “Mrs. Whatsit, we’ve noticed some significant issues with your son’s behavior that need to be addressed.”)
Sometimes a parent just needs to hear that, you know, this behavior is not just normal kid stuff. Particularly if it’s their first.
Hmmm. Definitely a strong no for the physically leading and the not responding to the surprised face and leading gesture.
He doesn’t have a hearing deficiency, IMO, just based on my observations.
Does he make eye contact?
Let’s put it this way. I just moved across the pacific to get my daughter help. She had hypoxic damage at birth but exhibits autistic and CP tendancies. She’ll be going through Seattle Children’s Hospital testing this month as well as another specialty center. Government doesn’t get involved until school starts in the fall.
I feel guilty as fuck for not doing this 2 years ago.
Early intervention can really help. Not sure what you can do but he does sound like something ain’t normal and would benefit from some kind of intervention.
Also, the US Government has resources for early intervention through age 3.
At 3 years old? Wow!
Over-clingy parent for sure. This kid is in for a tough life.
One thing that struck me about the OP is that your sister sees kindergarten as “not fun time”, but for the kid it is fun time, very much so. There’s always bad ones, but in general, kindergarten teachers are good at leading children to developmental markers, knowing where to push and where not to. So going there would be both fun for the kid and a form of early intervention that’s good whether there is something wrong with him or not.
I’ve had better luck dropping a hint the size and weight of a H-beam with my best innocent, “I’m just thinking out loud” look, than I would ever have had if I’d adressed the problem directly.
It’s also an indicator for vision problems. I used to fail to make eye contact as a kid because I simply couldn’t see faces well enough to focus on them.
I’m surprised that the child wasn’t assessed when he broke his leg.
If he was around health professionals for any length of time they should have picked this stuff up.
At this point you’re talking about a clear developmental delay, maybe a long term learning disability, maybe a neurodevelopmental disorder, maybe a spacey kid who will come right with time. Ignoring this won’t make it go away.
Your sister knows this, but perhaps her experiences at work have pushed her into denial due to fear, or shame, or guilt or even pessimism due to what she has seen professionally.
Obviously you want to bring this up with your sis, in as non judgemental way as possible, but you need to bring it up.
You are the uncle. It is incumbent on you to push. Strangers are different, but you are blood, and honestly, it’s worth it even if you piss her off. Say you do it, she gets mad, and nothing happens. You can then apologize and say you were so worried. Say you do it, she gets mad…and a diagnosis of some kind comes back. You would have done the right thing because now she can get treatment.
I always think of the Dear Abby things when I tell someone something:
Is it true?
Is it helpful?
Is it kind?
If you can match two out of three, I think you should go for it.
It sounds like more may be going on than was the case with my son, but perhaps a good story anecdote about speech therapy at least would lead her to get her son evaluated. A good evaluation will look at all areas, not just the one that initially prompts the request. Anyway on to our story:
I worried about my eldest son being slow in speech and spent the time to have him evaluated at a free clinic put on by our city’s public health department (First Words). Their evaluation was that he was on the low side of normal and gave me benchmarks to watch for and if he didn’t make those then we should bring him back for further evaluation. 6 months later I felt he hadn’t quite made those milestones, so I took him back, only to be told “low side normal” and a new set of milestones. Those he had pretty much reached by the date, so I did no more testing and he was fine.
My second child also showed speech delays, but I was the “know it all” mum who said “yeah I’ve heard it before … I’ll wait in line for 2 hours only to be told “low side normal” and then have to do it all over again in 6 months.” So I didn’t get him evaluated until he was 3+. Of course, when he was evaluated it turned out he was in the bottom 5% (Talk about a bad mum moment!) Anyway, we started speech therapy with him … now just before he started Junior Kindergarden. And he definitely started improving. Still slow work, but definitely got more understandable, and gained new sounds as we worked on with him. When he turned 5 he was handed over to the school board for the therapy instead of the public health department. And he started speech therapy during school hours. It was not as good, but still he made improvements. Finally he sort of bottomed out in improvements and we stopped therapy. He still has bit of a lisp, but he is very understandable.
The other thing about therapy, was that the first thing that happened was a full evaluation of other things, like hearing and physical problems that may lead to speech delays. So we only started therapy once we had ruled out any physical problems.
As far as other impacts from all this … it turns out that he was also delayed in schoolwork, just I was putting so much effort into speech therapy with him that I didn’t realize that he didn’t know his alphabet yet. (one on one teaching time was spent on speech therapy, not on doing letters and numbers) When I realized that (July before he started Grade 1 … his Kindergarden teacher never realized he didn’t know his alphabet !!!) I spent the rest of the summer teaching him his numbers … he started Grade one and was put in special ed for reading, but regular class for math, so I guess our work was successful. He was in Spec Ed for 2 years for reading and in grade 3 returned to the regular class. He had an A in English on his first report card in grade 3. So he had finally caught up.
He has just finished grade 6. Got straight A’s on his report card, and speaks with just a slight lisp/ impediment that gets worse when he is tired.
So, the moral of the story, is get him evaluated as soon as you think he might have a problem and get any help available. One problem can snowball into others (speech delays leads to academic delays) But even if you start late these problems can be overcome. But starting sooner is always preferable to starting later … and definitely less stress on all involved.
This kid sounds like fast-track upper management material!
That is not over-clingy. Many cultures have the children co-sleeping at that age.