My daughter (3) has just been diagnosed with autism but now we cant get in for the official diagnosis appointment until January I'm thankful that they called me ahead saying she has been diagnosed but its still a bit of a wait till I know all the details but hoping someone can at least fill me in on the basics of Autism? Please. It is clear she is Autistic in her behavior and we do our best to work with her but other than that i don't know the first thing about it ?
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Ok, mum to 21 year old, on the spectrum here. Each child is very very different because it is a spectrum. So it is going to be a learning journey to discover what that means for your family. So for my child behaviour, speech and cognitive challenges are present, but for my friends child not knowing when to shut up, being a genius and behaviour are challenges. So can you see how it varies??? There is no one child that typifies autism. But usually there is stereotypical behaviour (flapping, walking on toes, self stimulatory behaviour), a social component, and a language component.
I'd start by looking at this website
http://www.autismawareness.com.au
And also the local autism association in your state
And the raising children website
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/autism_spectrum_disorder_overview...
You are going to have to decide what therapies are best for your child personally I'd look into evidence based therapies like Applied Behaviour Analysis. There are a lot of whack a do claims made by different 'therapies' but Behaviour Analysis is the one that continually stands up to testing, research etc.