Some very interesting experiences being shared here, thank you.
My 14 yo DD1 was diagnosed when she was 9. The first signs appeared at the age of 5, but they were obscured by ADHD. She was so hyperactive and chaotic, never had those routines and rituals. We couldn't relate to the descriptions of autism until we read Tony Attwood and attended a Help course. However with age and with ADHD medication, as the doctors predicted, her Aspergers traits became more obvious.
- DD1 does not want to change from one activity to another, would carry on and on
- Would listen to the same music, or watch the same DVD time after time until something like dinner would stop the viweing
- Does not like changing clothes
- The main thing was the unusual intensity of her interests, which otherwise could be normal. My Little Pony was a normal toy for a 5 year old girl, especially when it was just launched. But DD1 was obsessed with it to such an extent that she run like a horse on her arms and legs and pretended to be a horse at school. She didn't draw any other thing, talked about horses all the time, collected pony toys, horse images and books. Everything was about horses. It was ok for a while when she was 5, but became very odd when she was 9 or older.
- When she stopped being obsessed with horses, she became obsessed with Twilight, then with Minecraft, then with Sonic and Mario brothers, then with StarTrek. It is the intensity and level of excitement that is unusual.
I suspect my 5 yo DD2 might be on the spectrum, although the school disagrees.
-She becomes very anxious and upset if I change the route of going anywhere
- She becomes hysterical if there is a sudden change of plans, or something unexpected happens
- She has that attachment to old school shoes that someone up-thread described - have to run the old pair into the ground before she would switch to the new one.
- Watches the same TV programme or DVD time after time.
- Arranging things - I have a story I want to tell. None of my DDs ever did that at home. However we went to the Psychiatrist to review DD1 medication and had to wait in a room with two huge buckets of figurines. DD2 started to pull out all the elephants - 6 of them and put them in family group. Then all the tigers, the lions, the horses, the zebras, all nicely arranged in raws or family groups... 20 minutes later she had a raw of 7 woman-like figures, a raw of man-like figures and raw after raw of children. At home we simply don't have enough figurines of the same type. When the Psychiatrist entered the room he froze, observed DD2 for a while and checked with me which DD was he to see that day.