Should I consider investigating an ASD diagnosis for dd age 10?

[arieschicke]

My dd is 10 and at a ms school. Her official diagnosis is GDD including sensory difficulties, social difficulties, severe dyslexia, dyspraxia, auditory and visual processing difficulties, severe visual perception difficulties, a mixture of high and low muscle tone, bone density disformity, expressive language disorder, speech clarity difficulties.
Dd has an average iq but due to the difficulties above is about 3 years behind academically. She struggles with social cues and is always in people's faces. she gets too close to her friends and can be too loud - almost scaring them. She flaps her arms and her hands and makes unusual noises. she has always struggled with pronouns - her instead of she etc. she will know what's she wants to say but can't always get it out. Some of her speech is copied from films etc. she intensely watches other children and will then copy how they act, what they say etc. she struggles to sequence events so when she gets dressed she often puts her jumper on before her vest etc. she struggles to keep herself organised and is always loosing things. she is very clumsy and trips alot, drops things, funds it difficult to manipulate her knife and fork. she is very compliant in school and has been described as eager to please adults.
I am confused as I do often wonder if she is autistic and her difficulties stem from this. Her paed was reluctant to diagnose her dyslexia and dyspraxia as he said its just part of her GDD. But now I am wondering if her GDD is in fact autism. does anyone know the difference? would it make any difference if we were to get a diagnosis? would she be helped in a certain way etc?
has anyone had a GDD diagnosis and then had a asd diagnosis?
sorry to ask so many questions but I am struggling to understand her behaviour and how she never learns from her mistakes. If she has GDD does that mean she is expected to catch up? TIA

[arieschicke]

Also she doesn't hold eye contact and she is obsessed with child birth. she watches videos on you tube and this is the only time she will sit still. she is constantly on the go. she has never played with toys and the only game she plays is linked to her obsession with child birth. her friends think she is odd for wanting to still play with dolls but she doesn't care and will shout and scream and jump around flapping her arms if they won't play her game. she won't compromise at all - it's her way or no way. she constantly asks me how many minutes until x, how many seconds. she will ask this question all day every day.

[Ineedmorepatience]

To be honest her list of diagnoses does sound like Asd!! I do know someone whose daughter had a GDD dx and now has an Asd one.

I think they often give a GDD dx if they cant decide what is causing the problems!

She sounds auty to me, I would ask your GP to refer her to someone who is trained to do the DISCO assessment, it was developed to pick up people who are hard to dignose and is a detailed questionairre.

Good luck

[arieschicke]

Thanks for replying .
I was talking this through with a friend earlier and she seemed very that I wanted another diagnosis for her!
its not that I want her to be autistic - I just think that this could explain an awful lot of her behaviour.

[bitbap18]

Agree with Polter, it does sound very much like Austic traits. Def see if you can get a DISCO assessment done, or a new one done if it's not been done for a long time. No such thing as too many diagnoses!

[Teawaster]

I would have thought that s normal IQ would be inconsistent with GDD which generally means delays across the board although I believe there can be strengths and weaknesses but not enough to give a normal IQ, unlike specific learning difficulties where this could be the case. Did you get this GDD diagnosis before iQ testing? Sounds more like ASD to me and as others have said a diagnosis of GDD is sometimes given before an ASD one

[arieschicke]

The GDD diagnosis was given a few years ago after our first initial paed meeting. dd was assessed by an OT and physio and the paed concluded that she had GDD due to the severity (0.1 centile etc) of her difficulties across different domains.
Last year dd was assessed by an EP and diagnosed with spld (dyslexia) but her iq was average. The paed wouldn't accept that dd was dyslexic for quite a while she just kept stating that she was globally delayed and the dyslexia was part of the delay but as it wasn't in isolation a separate diagnosis should not have been given. she said the same about the dyspraxia aswell. so confusing!