Today's question really is for both parents and therapists/doctors/teachers/aides. I would appreciate a fuller picture of issues for siblings of children on the spectrum who are not autistic. Anecdotally, in the forums it seems like lots of families have multiple children with autism, but there is rarely discussion of non-autistic siblings.
Do you noticed more problems with siblings who aren't on the spectrum, such as ADD/ADHD, behavior problems, quirkiness, social problems, speech problems, etc.? What problems have you seen specifically, and how have you dealt with them?
3 comments:
Our oldest son is 13 months older than Tony (who is autistic)
Tanner was diagnosed with ODD when he was 3 but outgrew that by age 8. We really think he was just a VERY stubborn child. He did have a temper on him though. According to the doctors ODD is for life and you never outgrow it so now we think he was diagnosed wrong.
He was diagnosed with ADHD when was 9 and placed on meds for it. They did help some but he hated how he felt on them so we took him off and he kept his promise to try hard in school.There wer morning battles and bribes to get to take his med. This was 2 years ago. We did see that he can do it and he has been trying to get all his work done in good quality. In fact he has earned all A's & B's for the last 2 years except for spring of this year when his grades dropped do to his un-diagnosed Graves disease.
So far this year he is doing much better again.
I forgot to post- Tanner is outgoing and has quite a few friends. He has 4 close friends that are around daily. Tanner did have a speech issue when he was small. He was a very talker. He was in the Birth To 3 program for speech. But by age 4 he was talking all the time.
He still gets a temper but he does not throw things or hit, he just goes in his room until he is cooled down.
He does have a hard time accepting when we say NO. He will continue to bug us over and over until he gets told he will lose his XBox controllers or get grounded. Then he stomps to his room.
He and Tony fight like brothers do but its not that bad like it use to be. It is only on occassion now instead of daily.
Thanks for sharing, Tina. I was hoping you would!
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