Autism

[Thaigal]

I have always suspected that my younger sister may have autism, she showed all the classic signs as she was growing up, from nursery she would always sit on her own and avoid the others, she could never make any friends and became obsessed with material objects instead such as a certain fluffy toy, a certain out of date games console and even other peoples toilets. The fluffy toy she would carry around everywhere, she would talk to it and have 2 way conversations with it, she would blame it for things, laugh at it and generally revolve her life around it...not too strange for a little one but this went on until she was about 9-10 years old and it the end it was forcefully removed from her to make her act "more grown up". She was also obsessed with a games console, she would spread all the games all over the floor in a certain order and then sit and stare at the screen swaying from side to side laughing at the screen...never actually playing the games. She also had 2 way conversations with the games on the floor too, this went on until last year when she was 12.

There are loads of other examples but my mum is too proud to admit that anything is wrong with her so she has never been diagnosed with anything, just lately however she doesn't seem too bad, at 13 she is now acting more or less normal however she has replaced the old fluffy toy with a new one and I've noticed she talks to it when she thinks nobody is looking, I saw her pretending to feed it the other day and "wind" it, she will also put it in peoples faces and just stand there laughing with it in your face. She is also having 2 way conversations with herself in her room and she is still organising all her possesions to the point where she knows if anything has been touched.

So, she doesnt seem "as bad" anymore but she still doesnt seem 100% 'normal' if that makes any sense? does autism become less obvious as children grow older or is it more likely that she never had autism to start with?

[Marina]

Hi Thaigal, I can't really help with this, but if you go to "find discussions by topic" and navigate your way to the Special Needs section, and post there, hopefully someone with more experience of ASD can sdvise.