In this lesson, we will explore some of

the developmental differences seen in children with

autism during
the pre-school years. Red flags and indicators during
the preschool years can include a lack of joint
attention,
imitation, and social referencing. There may be a delay
in spoken language or the child may have communication,
but
there may be differences in communication. It's often
during the preschool
years that parents seek out support. This is typically
due to the delay
the delay in langauge or due to the extreme tantrums and
problematic
behaviors that the parent is encountering. The child may
not play with toys in
the manner that they were designed or intended for. And
there may be extreme distress
when someone attempts to get the child to play with
the toys in a different way. There's often a lack of
spontaneous functional play and the child may show a
limited
range of affect or emotion. They may begin showing
a restricted area of interest, and they may have
difficulty anticipating
events and dealing with change. There may also be a
delayed
use of pointing and other gestures in order to get and
sustain the attention of others. In this video,
Elizabeth Morgan describes her experiences communicating
with extended family
members about her son's autism and what it means to
advocate for her son. >> So explaining autism to family
members was definitely not a easy task. And I think it
really depends on
what generation of my family too. One of the things I
would say
is true in particular for, I would say, African American
families, is that when we're talking about
developmental disability or especially autism, it's one
of those
things that we don't really talk about. It's more taboo.
So there's always,
I talk about this with my friends, there's always the
cousin
that did rude things and [LAUGH] they've in their room
and
stayed with their parents for their lives. No one never
said that was
a developmental disability, that was just uncle or
cousin and
we never talked about it. So mentioning that we have a
child that
had a developmental disability and we accept him and
we're not gonna hide him. And we're not going to not
talk about
it was something at first I think especially my older
family members,
they weren't quite comfortable with. So we even had to,
for
some who are interested give them more information and
education on it. So, that was something that
I think was a part of our process in becoming advocates
for
our child and what I'm really proud of is that our
daughter who is only two years
older than my son, she adopted that. So, I think what's
really
awesome is that she will be with her friends and her
friends might
ask, hey why does your brother do that? And she will
say, well he has autism and
he needs that to help his body feel good. He needs to do
those type of things. And that makes me really proud
because
it is something that I know that when we're gone and
we're not able,
she'll be able to advocate. And I believe even my son
will be
able to do that for himself to so, those are the ways
that it I think
that we have communicated and what autism means to
others in our family.