to give 5yo DD a "script" for talking to people?

[WordsAreNoUseAtAll]

DD1 is in reception and is "a loner" according to her teacher. I have always known her to be, well, not shy, awkward is probably the word for it - if she wants to play with a child, she goes up to them and stares at them (which upsets them) or says, for example "do you want to play with me? I am playing hide and seek, I will hide and you count" and then runs off to hide without the other child having said anything. Quite often the child was already playing a game of something else.

The teacher says she has tried to set up games where DD1 can interact with other children in her comfort zone - eg reading to the other kids - but that as soon as the task is finished, DD wanders off.

I wasn't all that bothered before, because she didn't seem to mind playing by herself - she kind of happilly potters about at home or bosses the two year old around. But now she has started having nightmares - last night it was that she was being chased by a tiger and nobody cared, and then the tiger ate her :( She also says that she doesn't like playtime because it smells of dead pig The teacher says she spends the time wandering around the edge of the playground by herself :( Last night she said she was sad because her friends won't play with her any more. One of the friends (although the teacher told me that she doesn't really have any) lives near to us (I only know because I do Avon and saw her when I collected a book from the mum) so I said we could invite her to play and her little face lit up :)

Now I am worried that she will spend the time either bossing the other girl around or being odd (we love her oddness btw, she is really finny and clever, but other kids don't seem to appreciate it) so I thought I would give her some little scripts to use when she doesn't know what to say. She has a good memory so she could remember, but whether she would adapt to what was going on I don't know.

She has one friend who lives in my old town - one of my friend's 4 yo daughter, but she made her cry when they were both sat in a museum victorian classroom and DD told her friend that the teacher would hit the children and lock them up. DD didn't understand why this upset her friend, because it was true, but how do I tell her not to scare her friends?

ARGH. Poor DD is getting upset now when it is time to get ready for school :( She has also started having tantrums like a toddler.

I would HE her if she said she didn't want to go full stop but she adores her teacher and loves the work, and is convinced that the other children will play with her one day, they are just being naughty now.

Sounds like my DD too.
There must be quite a few of them out there!

Reading with interest.

Well today I took DD out while I delivered some Avon stuff to houses, and on the way she saw the little school friend and another little girl and started staring at them when they asked what she was doing, so I prompted her to say "can I play with you?" and the little girls said yes and let DD come into their garden! DD then seemed to stand at the opposite end of the garden firing questions at them about their toys, and took herself home when I wasn't looking, but it must have been a whole five minutes that she spent with them :)

The thing that worried me most was when the little girls asked DD what she was doing, they kind of rolled their eyes at each other, then when she asked if she could play there was a definite look of "do we have to?" to each other. But I will take what I can get. When she got home, DD said that the school friend had wanted to come round to ours but her Daddy wouldn't let her, so, presuming that is what actually happened, that is a good sign.

Sigh. I hated all this stuff when I was five. the other kids used to give me the exact same looks, and I can't say I found a solution. I just found a drama club in the next town and the internet, and then started going to rock clubs early - kids who like rock music, poetry, music and politics forums (at the turn of the century) and drama aren't cool to start with so I stood out less :)

DD already begs to go on world of warcraft (she has a bit of a run about and casts the odd spell when we let her on) and likes The Ramones and dressing up as a suffragette, and gets into arguments at her (catholic) school when she tells people that girls CAN marry girls, if they are in love. She gets annoyed if people call a meteor a shooting star or say that food is in their belly and not their stomach. She is lovely, but she isn't shaping up to be exactly trendy :)

Does it matter that she does make eye contact? She does sometimes play properly too- its not like she never does it at all.

The teacher says Dd is such a good reader that she doesn't know what to do with her. :)

Obviously nonsense - give her harder books, surely? There's only so good you can get at reading. There are no gsces in reading.

Just wanted to say something good about her - it all seemed a bit negative.

I was like this - not ASD, but dyspraxic. I think teaching social skills is definitely the way to go - bright children can learn where it doesn't come naturally. She sounds a lovely child.

Even if your daughter did have SN, there would still be loads of good things to say about her. She will still be your lovely little girl. :)

If she doesn't have SN then any assessment will tell you that. They won't give a diagnosis if she doesn't meet the criteria. Then you can move on. IMO it sounds like you are concerned and this is really bothering you. I would go to the GP if I were you.

Getting an ASD dx for my clever little boy has been hugely helpful to us to understand HIM. He is still him with or without the dx but some of his little ways just didn't make sense to us...and now they do :)

How would I go about having her assessed?

I should add, DH thinks I am being silly, and that Dd is just so cool that she doesn't like the other kids because they are all daft. So there could be a battle there.

Take her to your gp, express your concerns and ask for a referral to your local paed.

Your dh is reacting the same as most dh's do, they don't like to think there maybe something wrong, my dh was the same and sometimes he's still like this even though we have a diagnosis , theres no harm in looking into these things, one day she will want to know 'why she is different', my dd knows she has Aspergers and she knows thats why she's cool .

Re. The reading thing. The challenge for very good, but still young readers is finding books which provide a good level of complexity of vocabulary, but are appropriate in their content and complexity of concept. I suspect that is what her teacher is referring to.

I thought it would be you when I saw this title [not a stalker emoticon] I'm sorry DD is still finding this hard.

I am now waiting for my own dx of Aspergers and a lot of what you say rings bells. Because it is such a wide spectrum it is not possible to say "DD makes eye contact [or whatever] therefore she doesn't have it" IYSWIM. Not that I'm saying she does, but I agree with others here that it is probably time to follow this up now. IIRC you have previously described your DH as 'Aspergersy' so it may be difficult for him to accept that his very similar little girl has a diagnosable problem.

The problem with AS is that because it often comes with high intelligence, schools often don't pick up on it. Why would they if the child is achieving good grades. [bitter] :(