Clinical Material

Maggie and her husband, Peter, originally from the north of England, live with their son Steven, and his older brother, Mark, having moved to London when Mark was first born. There is a 4-year age gap between the two boys.

Steven was born during a time when Peter was becoming very successful and busy with his work, and was away from home a great deal. Maggie herself had given up a successful career in order to start a family, and was disappointed that Peter was away so much. Maggie remembers the pregnancy and birth as otherwise having been unproblematic.

There were no reported difficulties with Steven during his first 2 years. Steven was described as an easy baby, who didn't cry very much. He breastfed well, and moved easily onto solids by 6 months. Maggie weaned Steven gradually, until he was just breastfeeding at night, finally stopping altogether when he was nearly 2 years old. Steven did not seem to mind this particularly, but Maggie had been quite anxious, because they were already starting to have trouble with Steven's tantrums, and his sleeping difficulties (not wanting to go to bed, or waking up at night and wanting to return to the parental bed).

The parents first became concerned about Steven when he was about 2 years old. Having started to babble at 10 months, acquiring a few words by 18 months, Steven's language development seemed to regress. He no longer used the words he had already achieved, instead continuing to babble using nonsense words, making no attempt to string words together. Otherwise, however, both parents felt that he was extremely communicative non-verbally, able to indicate what he wanted. They felt that the ‘terrible twos’ were much more difficult with Steven than anything they had experienced with their older child. They both felt that Steven was like his Dad, unable to accept a ‘no’. Steven got into terrible rages when he could not get his own way. Maggie noted that Steven would interrupt an