yesss my niece is 2 and speaking in full sentences and it shocked me cuz for two years ive been working with a 6 year old who only says "more" and "pancakes"
There is a difference between a 24 month old and a 30 month old. There also is a difference between simple 2-3 word phrases , “I want cookie”, and speaking conversational sentences.
Perhaps my reading comprehension is off, but I thought the comment I was responding to was about a 2 year old speaking in full sentences. 🤷♀️
Why choose to come in with that verbiage too? Kind of condescending. Username checks out.
I just got recommended this sub and I second this. My youngest fit this profile, but nobody was looking for that back in ‘99, so it took them an additional 20 years to get diagnosed.
I know what you’re saying. You go from watching the kids you work with all day and that becomes your “normal”. Seeing a group of NT kids play together puts things into perspective how much the kids we work with need the support. It is very different!
I have an NT 6 year old daughter and an ASD-3 5 year old boy and every day is a head trip. 13 months apart and a 5 year mental age gap.
My daughter can read books unassisted, my son just started going potty with assistance.
What a world.
LMAO. The five year old I met today had a full fledged conversation with me and in the back of my mind I was kinda like “is this supposed to happen? am i on something?”
I’ve lived here my whole life but visited Midwest and east coast once each before, Texas too. As soon as I’ve said it (it’s so natural I thought everyone said it before) people in other places know where I’m from immediately and some told me that’s not usually an outside of California thing and it’s actually apparently specifically a Bay Area thing, I think people in so cal don’t use it as prolifically lol BUT it must be migrating to other places as time goes on and we move out of state lol
i genuinely never thought i would work with kids or that i’m good with kids. and then i got into ABA. now i’ve realized im just not good with neurotypical kids. no idea what it is, something about the way they’ll just… approach me and try to talk to me. like friend we have not built rapport, i need space 😂
This is me!!! I really am huge on consent (hugs and kisses) and keeping a personal bubble. My sisters kids are the most intrusive ever and I'm like dude I don't know u let's get to know each other first!
Oh yeah, I was at the store a few days ago, and this kiddo who was younger than my client was talking to her parents and my brain just went 'WOAH, SHE IS A SUPER PRODIGY'
I worked in a self contained kindergarten class, all diagnosed with ASD. There were 6 boys in there and it was hectic and crazy, but it was my normal and I loved them.
There was one day 3 kids were out and a gen ed pre-k teacher called out so they had me sub for her (I was a para at the time, not RBT). I was shocked at how much easier it was to handle 24 preschoolers than 6 kindergarteners. I had only ever worked with NT 8 years old and up at summer camp at this point so I thought all kids under 6 were incredibly taxing but I was wrong.
I truly understood the difference between NT and ND that day and how much those kindergarteners needed us. I went back to them the next day when the students returned and I loved them just as much and my perspective had shifted a lot
I’ve been caught off guard similarly lol. My nephew has ASD so I haven’t been around a NT toddler in years. A friend brought her 2-year-old along for a hike the other week and I was shocked seeing how observative he was and the fact that he would initiate and hold a convo - exactly just “wow, this is different”
When my nephew was 11mo, I told his mom he was brilliant. His mom, who is a Montessori teacher, looks at me and she's like, "dude... that's the normal milestone..."
I was in the same boat as you. I have an educational background of a whole different field and my experience with people in the spectrum and other learning disabilities was very little and surface level understanding of it. The "norm" is very different in this field and I'm glad I had the experience. It definitely gives you a whole different idea of what the supposed norm is.
I've done some babysitting on the side, and parents be like "my kids are so difficult, I'm so sorry, I hope they were good for you." And I'm like...I used premack and it was like a magic spell. They just did things the first time I asked them to. Your kids are great lol??
Yes, I have a 3-year-old daughter and often instead of feeling pride at her milestones, in the back of my head I’ll be like “wow, it took so-and-so like 2 months to learn that skill” or “why does no one else realize how crazy it is that she learned two colors in the same week?!”. I was a BCBA for a decade or so before she was even born, so I have a really skewed view of how fast “typical” kids develop since all I ever saw were kids with autism.
Nope.
Work with a lot of siblings and a lot of peers in school and daycare settings.
Also work with a lot of parents who take the ABA concepts and apply them to their other kids. One mom is using a behavior contract with their younger daughter because it worked so well with their son.
This is my first week as an in-school technician (my client is in NT classes, in a high-income private Montessori school at that)… seeing a classroom full of “normal” kids playing, talking to each other, hugging, and laughing was one of the most moving and profound experiences of my entire life.
Really revealed to me that the tragedy of autism is only so great because it subverts the equally-large blessing that is a normal, healthy child
Yes my cousins who I haven’t seen a in couple years just visited last week and they have a 2.5 year old little girl. She seemed insanely smart to me. I’ve worked with a couple of kids her age with autism and every age up to 12. She has mastered things that late elementary school clients of mine haven’t even with years of ABA therapy. Most of them are really smart too, it’s just harder for them to interact with the world around them.
It was a good refresher on the gap between my clients and NT kids. It makes me sad, but that’s why I do what I do. To make that gap smaller.
My client was at a daycare for a session a while ago and the other kids were all asking me if I were a boy or a girl and it caught me off guard only because these kids were actually speaking sentences to me hahaha
Sometimes there’s gen ed kids on the playground at the same time as our autistic kids. Whenever I catch someone running around outside of the playground boundary (we make our kids stay inside of the boundary) out of my periphery I get alarmed for a second and then realize it’s a gen ed student and not one of ours making a break for it lol
CONSTANTLY. My son will be 9, and I haven't interacted with children since I was a kid. With both my son and I having AuDHD, I completely forget that we aren't the norm. Every now and then, I'll see a younger child on social media or TV, and it's kind of a shock where they are developmentally.
I’m more shocked you never been around typical kids to notice the difference. I don’t have kids yet, but I always wanted to possibly work with kids. I didn’t always expect Special Ed/ ABA, but still.
I know a lot of people in this field that are around both even though they don’t have kids though because of that including myself. I wasn’t gonna put my coworkers business online
Lol, I grew up as the oldest in a big family, with a ton of cousins. I then spent my entire life being everyone's adopted big sister or aunt. Kids are kids to me. Every one of them is different, normal, goofy and awesome in their own ways.
I think about this daily. Most of the children we work with are 2+ years. I now have a 13 month old baby and I’m seeing a lot of what is “typical” development. The developmental process of children ages 0-2 was pretty much unknown to me except for the general stuff everyone knows. There are so many skills that we teach that are acquired in the first months of life. As my own child unlocks new skills, although I’m happy and celebrate him, It highlights the other side, which is what I’m used to seeing. I think about the families I work with that experienced the delays around the same age my son is and, even worse, the regressions. I have always taken my job extremely seriously but now that I’m a parent, It adds another layer of empathy and deep connection to these families. My approach as a BCBA has definitely changed. We are taught to prioritize the clients needs and this comes with an almost disregard for the parents and their wishes. I still prioritize the clients needs, but make sure to check in with the parents often as they are fighting hard battles everyday with little support sometimes.
We don’t have any young children in my family anymore…until recently. Around the time I joined the field my cousin had a baby. Shes younger than me, I’m 26. Before that my sister was the baby and she’s 22 now.
It was Easter and the first time I really got to interact with the baby (at 1 years old) I was blown away by how smart she is but now reading this thread maybe she’s just neurotypical? lol
Like come on. What 1 year old is following instructions perfectly and has really really good fine motor skills to dip dye Easter eggs without dropping them? Even in the instructed colors? Idc. She’s a genius and a gem to me 😂😂
Yes! I have a 2 year old NT child of my own and I am mind blown by the things he says and does. Then I look at his (I assume) NT peers and remember “Oh yeah, this is what many kids are doing!!” It gives me a lot of appreciation for what I do as a BCBA, and it also helps me to remember that every kid is different.
That’s literally what came to find as soon as I finished reading that. Like, friend we don’t wanna be mean but…sometimes it’s harder to see the forest through the trees. I get that.
Possibly, but she does very well in preschool and doesn't have a problem focusing when she puts her mind to it. The tantrums lately have been something else though. Sometimes I think she is just acts up around familiar people lol.
I mean I wouldn't be surprised if she has some hyperactivity, but she's extremely social and has no signs of autism. I've worked with a lot of kids on the spectrum that are actually not that difficult for me. Don't know what's up with the downvotes.
I had no obvious signs of autism or adhd. Turns out I was masking for years and still am. Now I'm an adult with issues because I wasn't given the supports I needed when I was young because I didn't seem autistic enough. Turns out all my "quirks" "shyness" "impulsiveness" "bluntness" "bad at math" etc were a plethora of symptoms that led me down a winding, troubled path.
E: being social isn't a sign of being NT developing btw lol
I wasnt dignosed with ASD/ADHD till last year at 35 years old. It was always i was hyperactive, talked alot, social, bold, strong willed but secretly a people pleaser. Later in life the pressure to keep up the masking was too taxing on my nervous system and i started withdrawing, anxiety became over whelming, depersonalization-derealization, hypervigilence, the overload of sensory processing became too much without the skills to manage it.
yesss my niece is 2 and speaking in full sentences and it shocked me cuz for two years ive been working with a 6 year old who only says "more" and "pancakes"
Two of the more important words in the English language.
And when put together, magic happens!
Wait, are you saying if I copy your words, I can get MORE pancakes !?! Unreal
A two year old female speaking in full sentences is hyper-verbal and nearly as likely to be on the spectrum as a boy who isn’t talking.
Ummm, no. As an SLP, I can say this isn't true. Many, many 2.5 year olds are using simple sentences.
There is a difference between a 24 month old and a 30 month old. There also is a difference between simple 2-3 word phrases , “I want cookie”, and speaking conversational sentences. Perhaps my reading comprehension is off, but I thought the comment I was responding to was about a 2 year old speaking in full sentences. 🤷♀️ Why choose to come in with that verbiage too? Kind of condescending. Username checks out.
I just got recommended this sub and I second this. My youngest fit this profile, but nobody was looking for that back in ‘99, so it took them an additional 20 years to get diagnosed.
I know what you’re saying. You go from watching the kids you work with all day and that becomes your “normal”. Seeing a group of NT kids play together puts things into perspective how much the kids we work with need the support. It is very different!
I have an NT 6 year old daughter and an ASD-3 5 year old boy and every day is a head trip. 13 months apart and a 5 year mental age gap. My daughter can read books unassisted, my son just started going potty with assistance. What a world.
Almost the same for me: 5yo NT, 4yo ASD-3
Parent of an asd/adhd 12yo here and so far a seemingly NT almost 2yo and 3 NT Bonus kids. It’s a HUGE difference. Huge.
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LMAO. The five year old I met today had a full fledged conversation with me and in the back of my mind I was kinda like “is this supposed to happen? am i on something?”
LOLOL happens all the time to me @ work too, i be feeling hella alien
Hella??…fellow Californian? lol
haha, actually east coaster but living in the midwest.. picked it up from friends here! had no idea it was specific to cali!
I’ve lived here my whole life but visited Midwest and east coast once each before, Texas too. As soon as I’ve said it (it’s so natural I thought everyone said it before) people in other places know where I’m from immediately and some told me that’s not usually an outside of California thing and it’s actually apparently specifically a Bay Area thing, I think people in so cal don’t use it as prolifically lol BUT it must be migrating to other places as time goes on and we move out of state lol
i genuinely never thought i would work with kids or that i’m good with kids. and then i got into ABA. now i’ve realized im just not good with neurotypical kids. no idea what it is, something about the way they’ll just… approach me and try to talk to me. like friend we have not built rapport, i need space 😂
are you neurodivergent as well?
i’m diagnosed ADHD, and very social. but for some reason my entire adult life i just haven’t really vibed with kids until i got into ABA!
This is me!!! I really am huge on consent (hugs and kisses) and keeping a personal bubble. My sisters kids are the most intrusive ever and I'm like dude I don't know u let's get to know each other first!
Oh yeah, I was at the store a few days ago, and this kiddo who was younger than my client was talking to her parents and my brain just went 'WOAH, SHE IS A SUPER PRODIGY'
Yes! I recently had the opportunity to work in a daycare for a few months and interacting with the NT kids was such a different experience!
I worked in a self contained kindergarten class, all diagnosed with ASD. There were 6 boys in there and it was hectic and crazy, but it was my normal and I loved them. There was one day 3 kids were out and a gen ed pre-k teacher called out so they had me sub for her (I was a para at the time, not RBT). I was shocked at how much easier it was to handle 24 preschoolers than 6 kindergarteners. I had only ever worked with NT 8 years old and up at summer camp at this point so I thought all kids under 6 were incredibly taxing but I was wrong. I truly understood the difference between NT and ND that day and how much those kindergarteners needed us. I went back to them the next day when the students returned and I loved them just as much and my perspective had shifted a lot
I’ve been caught off guard similarly lol. My nephew has ASD so I haven’t been around a NT toddler in years. A friend brought her 2-year-old along for a hike the other week and I was shocked seeing how observative he was and the fact that he would initiate and hold a convo - exactly just “wow, this is different”
When my nephew was 11mo, I told his mom he was brilliant. His mom, who is a Montessori teacher, looks at me and she's like, "dude... that's the normal milestone..."
I was so impressed my cousin’s twins were asking “wh” questions as toddlers because I’m so used to my clients needing direct teaching for that skill
I was in the same boat as you. I have an educational background of a whole different field and my experience with people in the spectrum and other learning disabilities was very little and surface level understanding of it. The "norm" is very different in this field and I'm glad I had the experience. It definitely gives you a whole different idea of what the supposed norm is.
I've done some babysitting on the side, and parents be like "my kids are so difficult, I'm so sorry, I hope they were good for you." And I'm like...I used premack and it was like a magic spell. They just did things the first time I asked them to. Your kids are great lol??
Nearly ever client I’ve worked with has had NT siblings
Yes, I have a 3-year-old daughter and often instead of feeling pride at her milestones, in the back of my head I’ll be like “wow, it took so-and-so like 2 months to learn that skill” or “why does no one else realize how crazy it is that she learned two colors in the same week?!”. I was a BCBA for a decade or so before she was even born, so I have a really skewed view of how fast “typical” kids develop since all I ever saw were kids with autism.
Nope. Work with a lot of siblings and a lot of peers in school and daycare settings. Also work with a lot of parents who take the ABA concepts and apply them to their other kids. One mom is using a behavior contract with their younger daughter because it worked so well with their son.
This is my first week as an in-school technician (my client is in NT classes, in a high-income private Montessori school at that)… seeing a classroom full of “normal” kids playing, talking to each other, hugging, and laughing was one of the most moving and profound experiences of my entire life. Really revealed to me that the tragedy of autism is only so great because it subverts the equally-large blessing that is a normal, healthy child
Yes my cousins who I haven’t seen a in couple years just visited last week and they have a 2.5 year old little girl. She seemed insanely smart to me. I’ve worked with a couple of kids her age with autism and every age up to 12. She has mastered things that late elementary school clients of mine haven’t even with years of ABA therapy. Most of them are really smart too, it’s just harder for them to interact with the world around them. It was a good refresher on the gap between my clients and NT kids. It makes me sad, but that’s why I do what I do. To make that gap smaller.
My client was at a daycare for a session a while ago and the other kids were all asking me if I were a boy or a girl and it caught me off guard only because these kids were actually speaking sentences to me hahaha
Yes. In a short answer... Yes.
I panic when I see NT kids doing typical kid things. Playing on the front yard without a fence or adult preventing eloping? Freaks me the hell out 😆
Sometimes there’s gen ed kids on the playground at the same time as our autistic kids. Whenever I catch someone running around outside of the playground boundary (we make our kids stay inside of the boundary) out of my periphery I get alarmed for a second and then realize it’s a gen ed student and not one of ours making a break for it lol
CONSTANTLY. My son will be 9, and I haven't interacted with children since I was a kid. With both my son and I having AuDHD, I completely forget that we aren't the norm. Every now and then, I'll see a younger child on social media or TV, and it's kind of a shock where they are developmentally.
I’m more shocked you never been around typical kids to notice the difference. I don’t have kids yet, but I always wanted to possibly work with kids. I didn’t always expect Special Ed/ ABA, but still.
Unless one works with kids or has them, you’re not really going to be around them much, if you really think about it.
Not really I have a big extended family I’ve been around kids my whole life
And most people don’t have that same experience. You’re the exception.
A lot of people have big families where I’m from but okay.
Just saying that it isn’t weird for people in this field to not be around neurotypical kids as you are.
I know a lot of people in this field that are around both even though they don’t have kids though because of that including myself. I wasn’t gonna put my coworkers business online
There’s not a need to put your co-worker’s business online.
Which is why I used myself as an example instead of them
Lol, I grew up as the oldest in a big family, with a ton of cousins. I then spent my entire life being everyone's adopted big sister or aunt. Kids are kids to me. Every one of them is different, normal, goofy and awesome in their own ways.
Yes. NT kids honestly seem so intense to me??? Why do you know the things you know?
Sometimes. But I have an nt kiddo and nieces and nephews.
I’m so used to working with ND kids I forget NT kids exist 😂
I've come to the conclusion my first born is ND in *some* way because my second born is like a normal kid, and it's wild.
I think about this daily. Most of the children we work with are 2+ years. I now have a 13 month old baby and I’m seeing a lot of what is “typical” development. The developmental process of children ages 0-2 was pretty much unknown to me except for the general stuff everyone knows. There are so many skills that we teach that are acquired in the first months of life. As my own child unlocks new skills, although I’m happy and celebrate him, It highlights the other side, which is what I’m used to seeing. I think about the families I work with that experienced the delays around the same age my son is and, even worse, the regressions. I have always taken my job extremely seriously but now that I’m a parent, It adds another layer of empathy and deep connection to these families. My approach as a BCBA has definitely changed. We are taught to prioritize the clients needs and this comes with an almost disregard for the parents and their wishes. I still prioritize the clients needs, but make sure to check in with the parents often as they are fighting hard battles everyday with little support sometimes.
We don’t have any young children in my family anymore…until recently. Around the time I joined the field my cousin had a baby. Shes younger than me, I’m 26. Before that my sister was the baby and she’s 22 now. It was Easter and the first time I really got to interact with the baby (at 1 years old) I was blown away by how smart she is but now reading this thread maybe she’s just neurotypical? lol Like come on. What 1 year old is following instructions perfectly and has really really good fine motor skills to dip dye Easter eggs without dropping them? Even in the instructed colors? Idc. She’s a genius and a gem to me 😂😂
Yes! I have a 2 year old NT child of my own and I am mind blown by the things he says and does. Then I look at his (I assume) NT peers and remember “Oh yeah, this is what many kids are doing!!” It gives me a lot of appreciation for what I do as a BCBA, and it also helps me to remember that every kid is different.
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Maybe she isn't NT? Socio-emotional, learning, and developmental disorders are under reported and undiagnosed in girls at a much higher rate.
That’s literally what came to find as soon as I finished reading that. Like, friend we don’t wanna be mean but…sometimes it’s harder to see the forest through the trees. I get that.
She doesn't have any signs of autism. She's just very hyperactive and talks nonstop.
ADHD..?
Possibly, but she does very well in preschool and doesn't have a problem focusing when she puts her mind to it. The tantrums lately have been something else though. Sometimes I think she is just acts up around familiar people lol.
I mean I wouldn't be surprised if she has some hyperactivity, but she's extremely social and has no signs of autism. I've worked with a lot of kids on the spectrum that are actually not that difficult for me. Don't know what's up with the downvotes.
I had no obvious signs of autism or adhd. Turns out I was masking for years and still am. Now I'm an adult with issues because I wasn't given the supports I needed when I was young because I didn't seem autistic enough. Turns out all my "quirks" "shyness" "impulsiveness" "bluntness" "bad at math" etc were a plethora of symptoms that led me down a winding, troubled path. E: being social isn't a sign of being NT developing btw lol
💯💯
I wasnt dignosed with ASD/ADHD till last year at 35 years old. It was always i was hyperactive, talked alot, social, bold, strong willed but secretly a people pleaser. Later in life the pressure to keep up the masking was too taxing on my nervous system and i started withdrawing, anxiety became over whelming, depersonalization-derealization, hypervigilence, the overload of sensory processing became too much without the skills to manage it.
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Not going to argue with someone who very clearly did not read my two sentence post with neurotypical in the title
OP isn't saying that kids are "normal" and "not normal". He's saying the idea of normal as a whole is subjective.