to worry that my daughter may have ASD?

[80smercedes]

Hi, I am a long-time lurker but first-time poster, looking for some advice, so please be kind! I have concerns that my 9 year old DD may be on the autistic spectrum. It's hard to describe her behaviour exactly, but I'll try to give a few examples.

She acts very young for her age, she has no understanding of normal social behaviour, she struggles to make and then keep friends. She's either over-familiar with her friends, becoming dependent on just one person until they find her too much, or she'll back off completely, for instance, inviting friends over to the house to play and then completely ignoring them. She often does 'odd' things, like walking up to complete strangers in the street and telling them what's for lunch, or telling checkout staff at the supermarket what she watched on tv last night. She also tends to be very passive, she'll hang back and observe what's going on around her rather than participate in it. She's in her own little world most of the time, the only way I can describe it is as though she's watching from behind a pane of glass.

DH and I arranged a meeting at school with her class teacher, SENCO and H/T, and they all insisted that they have not noticed anything wrong or unusual in her behaviour. The SENCO said she wouldn't be prepared to make a referral to the educational psychology team, and we would have to go through our GP. DH and I then made an appointment with our GP (without my DD), who was very understanding but told us that in order to get the referral, we would have to complete a parenting class first. DH absolutely refused to attend, saying we don't need to learn how to be a parent. This was about 6 months ago, and he's refused to even discuss it since.

I feel like I'm stuck, I'm so worried but don't know what to do next. If anyone has any advice or suggestions I'd be very grateful.

If you can afford to go privately then do. None of my dd’s teachers ever noticed anything up with her and said she was in a group of friends- she was but I feel she was just pulled along with them all. She didn’t get a diagnosis until she was 15 and other issues like severe anxiety came to the fore. I also can’t understand why you need a school to refer in the UK and I’ve never heard of a GP saying you have to do a parenting course before referral. CAMHS etc usually tell parents to do that here too, I refused at first and then when I did an asd specific one I had more information and strategies than they did as did some other parents whose kids had been diagnosed a long time.

My son has been diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, he's 10. Diagnosed at 9 but started noticing at 4..
Not sure it's the same everywhere but the diagnosis where we are takes a long time.
We started with dr. Went on lots of courses and training so would recommend you do as much as you can.
If your child does get a diagnosis they just advise you to get training and then send you on your way.
The more knowledge you get the better and it makes you better equipped when you meet all the professionals.

Have you looked up the list of traits in girls? There is also an online test (think it was a channel 4 one) that was aimed at children and could give you an indication. None of these are a diagnosis of course. What you have written doesn't seem that unusual. My DD can be very over friendly and wouldn't think anything of telling people things. She has also struggled socially. Some children are more outgoing and some are passive, it's just their personality.

Some of the behaviour you've described sounds similar to my DD who is 11. It has become increasingly marked over the past year or two, and she is now finding it difficult to cope socially at school and becoming distressed. We weren't really getting anywhere fast with school so decided to pay for a private consultation with a psychologist specialising in children who had previously held a senior post locally in the NHS children's mental health service. She advised that DD was showing possible autistic tendencies, and her letter has allowed us to start making progress with school in getting an assessment done by the community paediatrics team. Maybe getting private opinion from a recognised specialist might help you to move things forward too? Our consultation cost £110.

I highly recommend looking at going for an initial private consultation. DS1 has ASD and was diagnosed by CAMHs but to be starkly honest we had to reach crisis point before we received his diagnosis because they're just so overloaded, underfunded and understaffed. I knew from around 3/4 that he was Autistic, so his actual diagnosis wasn't a surprise at all, but the length of time to get his diagnosis was hard, hard work, and the initial lack of support after diagnosis equally surprising.

As for the parenting courses, they can't hurt. I don't mean that patronisingly, but when DS1 was initially referred to CAMHs I knew from working in a school that they'd go down the "have you tried parenting courses?" route so took as many as I could find locally to almost pre-emptively tick off their boxes when he finally had his assessments. It worked and, really, it was like teaching your granny to suck eggs, but meant that once he was in the CAMHs system they couldn't delay or fob us off.

Hi everyone, thankyou so much for your responses, it is much appreciated. To be honest I’m so clueless about the whole process, I didn’t even know going privately was an option! That is definitely something I’m going to look into. I’m also going to raise the subject of the parenting courses with DH again, and if he still refuses to go I’ll book to go on my own. Not ideal, but I really feel I need to be doing something. Thankyou again everyone.