I recognise a lot of the behaviours in this thread from my now 11yr old ds2. Stress from school expectations and my normal parenting expectations rose as he went through primary school.

He only started walking round in circles and hand stimming around 8yrs old?? and the hand licking came on all of a sudden after the first residential trip with school age 9 1/2. I honestly thought he was copying his older brother who started flapping his hands much earlier...maybe in the first years at school.

With home education from age 10 the regression has slowed down, however right now I am struggling with the regression, if that's the right word for our situation, because he won't go out of the car into a shop, won't socialise apart from with one family I know, refuses to talk to his granparents, won't eat at the table, I have to take plates up to his room, refuses to take showers unless his father tells him to, has no friends any more, loves being online, has just got into a horrific sleep cycle, all upside down, maybe due to the heat??

So I don't know whether this is part of early puberty, depression, my bad parenting, bad diet, or a wierd phase which will sort itself out with loads of good humour and online banter, for him and for me.

He has a wonderful sense of humour though and is chatting online right now. I will move him on to just watching youtube clips and sit with him until he drops off to sleep, hopefully a good hour earlier than last night, and so on every day until his sleep is back to a pattern I can cope with.

Last night at some unearthly hour I told him he was the best person I could think of to be giving me sleep deprivation! He gave me such a big smile.

Othermother I totally get where you are coming from lots of <<<hugs>>>...the fear and worry of what IF is sometimes unbearable....it makes our lives already stressed enough far far above the stress scale which is so bad for us and can cause our kids to pick up on it...not that I'm saying your ds has. But we constantly look for the Red Flags which can cause paranoid thinking that this is it...
I can't say get counselling on it cause I have not either myself and would never tell anyone to do something I would or not have done myself. Like TC says maybe a sensory issue is causing this or an infection/or other physical/nerological (temp always causes ds to regress). I personally find it is like a rollercoaster in general, others (not you) have said changes around 5yrs and again at pubity cause changes in development ...ds not 5yrs old so can't speak from experience only that he is also licking and now mouthing objects with some close calls in choking.

Your ds sounds like he is stimming a lot? Maybe anxiety from even stimming is causing this?I found ds gets worse if I allow him to stim, so I bloke a lot...but this is my ds and each child is so different as someone mentioned earlier.

Pipin - neither her DS or her DH have ever been tested for Huntingdon's. It is in her DH's family though, which is where the worry stems from.

Othermother has your ds been tested positive for HD?

I'd agree with Tc's view, G got his dx at 9 with suspicions from around 6.
He presents as much more Aspie when he's under pressure, tired or hungry. The trick for us is to head things off before they're a problem, be proactive rather than reactive.
When the stress is removed or decreased, then the response decreases as well.

I find with my ds that there is always something going on, like if he will be calm or speaking a lot but there will be a counter-active tic. On the flip-side he will have times where he has less obvious behaviours but then will be less communicative. I think he uses the tics or whatever to balance himself. If that makes sense?

Thanks total chaos too, and everyone else.

God, I feel like I'm at the Oscars!!! :P

Thanks ever so much mum2fredand pudding.
I've already reared two boys (they are 20 and 21 now) and know how different they are to my girls...now I can put SOME of Tom's behaviour down to him being a lad, but it's the bits I can't that I find worrying.
It's just the way it all came on (the licking and ticcing etc) at such a late age. The non-sleeping and hyperactivity and tantrums have been forever, and those (apart from the not sleeeping) I did just put down to him being a lad.

I'm just finding it so hard at the moment.
Anyway, away to browse and maybe post on other threads. I must stop this maudlin!!!

Thanks x

slight xpost there. dont know ahything about huntingdon

[madly googles it]

thing with ASD - it's not always apparent from birth - and behaviours can get a whole lot more noticeable at times, particularly as the kids get older- stims/tics whatever the docs would think of the licking etc as. I wonder as well whether it's starting school and the pressure of conforming means that he lets out the behaviours at home after the effort all day. also - you have had concerns about his behaviour on and off since he was wee, and I get the impression that with Huntingdon's it would be a really sudden change in behaviour etc, rather than concerns on and off for a few years. . btw the poo smearing can be a sensory rather than stress related thing, like he enjoys the feel of it bleurrgh.