Three

I'm keeping this blog to try and make sense of it all.

Meet the kids. From left to right, there's Nancy (1 year), Aiden(6 years) and Kyle (10 years). There's THREE of them. I remember turning around one day when Nancy was a couple of weeks old and thinking, Oh my God, there's three of them, I'm officially outnumbered!!

Aiden has just been given a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A few years ago, they would have called it Aspergers, but this term is no longer used. He's highly intelligent but his social skills are not as they should be. He also has lots of other strange little quirks and habits such as a compulsion to put things in his mouth. Shoes, toys, mud, you name it he'll eat it. He once chewed through an electrical cable! Things like this, you get used of seeing and it becomes normal. 

It wasn't until his year one teacher raised some concerns, over this particular behaviour, that i thought "Oh, OK this isn't normal". She reported that he would often take his shoes off whilst they were sitting on the carpet and lick the bottoms of them. On another occasion, she caught him eating glue! I spoke to my doctor and he referred Aiden to the Child development centre at the Hillingdon Hospital. After many questions, observations, there and in school and a three hour interview with 300 questions asked, we got the diagnosis of ASD.

Kyle is currently being assessed at the same place but he was originally seen by a counselling service as his problems seemed to be more emotional. My main concern was his highly charged emotional and sometimes violent outbursts and "tantrums". His teacher reported that he was unable to concentrate in class and often makes inappropriate noises during lessons, which disrupt the class. He also has poor social skills and is often bullied at school. He says he has no friends. 

Nancy seems to be "normal". She makes sure she's not overlooked with her own little tricks of dancing, chit chat and if she's desperate, she'll just scream for as long and as hard as possible.

This is a rare quite moment at home, thank god for the telly :)