If your dc was described as 'spacey' 'away with the fairies' 'daydreamer' and it wasn't ASD then what was it?

[PaulHeymanHairline]

Basically I'm looking at the most recent criteria for ASD diagnosis and I'm not sure my dd fits anymore. I'm not too bothered as she seems to have caught up in school more or less but I'm still concerned as her teachers say she's very much 'not present' during the majority of her lessons.
ASD was first raised when she was 2 and I suppose I've always thought of her in this context, she didn't have a diagnosis but her nursery made special care plans around her sensory needs and anxiety. I didn't mention to them that the health visitors had mentioned it but they independently raised it with me.
The school have been great but even they disagree amongst themselves whether it is ASD or ADD or some other sensory processing thing.
I just wondered if it could be personality. Has anyone else had a similar type of child who hasn't received a diagnosis? And if so then did they grow out of it and become more present or do they continue to live in a sort of half day dreamy state of semi reality.
I have a lot of empathy for my DD as I also spend my time with a sort of internal story playing in my head. I am very creative and think sort of visual images and narratives for things rather than rational plans. I genuinely thought everyone's mind was like this until recently. I am not ASD and I can focus if I need to, it takes a lot of concentration. If I have to do something with numbers or dates I have to work up to it and break it up and I will get 50% of the numbers wrong. Luckily I don't have to di this in my job!

That’s pretty rude. It’s because constantly daydreaming is not conducive to getting things done as you need to concentrate in class. It may well be normal though…but it may well not be.

I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD as an adult and didn’t have huge issues at school. Looking back I can see why I struggled with exams even though I was getting high grades on assignments (retention issues). Daydreaming, constant chatting, makes silly mistakes - all adhd related. As a mature Uni student, it was a slap in the face - taking 5x longer than my peers to get assignments done and more….

As an adult it really affected me in my relationships, my ability to regulate my emotions, manage anxiety (even realising I had it), and understanding myself.

In my first corporate role (I needed additional support - a checklist if you can believe it as I was struggling to do my job due to retention issues). I nearly lost my job, once I had a checklist I excelled.

So yes, to you it may be just a label etc but to someone else it can mean accommodations, and having self awareness to help manage stress, emotions, and navigate life.

Very bright girls can present with traits similar to ASD. Could it be that she isn't distracted, rather she is focused on something that is more interesting to her, such as her own thoughts/ideas?

Just to clarify, she is not gifted academically (sorry DD) and struggles to focus even long enough to work out the answer for most maths questions. She can read but only bright, loud fonts, even if the subject of the book is one she enjoys or is passionate about, she can barely make it through one page. In writing she is so eager to get what she wants to write down that there are loads of mistakes, but not, her teacher says, the classic ones which would signify dyslexia.

She is 8.

I have a child like this who has adhd dysgraphia and is also gifted. I wouldn’t have known about the giftedness without a diagnosis

This is a really helpful explanation.

Could be ADHD or is there any trama?

I have ADHD and I had a lot of trama as a child. I spaced out because I wanted good grades but unless I found a lesson really interesting and connected with the teacher I checked out.

In high school I got rebellious and simply walked out of class.

I developed a "loud" personality because of my impulse brain but as a small child I was away with the faries.

I recommend a test. While uou wait try fresh air and exercise. If I get some energy out it's easier to concentrate and sleep. Being still is often uncomfortable for me.Help you child get organised but follow her lead, ADHD people do things their own way, be patient and show love.

You seem to concentrate on grades but also look at her social skills. Girls can be mean to anyone different. Chat about friendships ans teach basic social skills without trying to change her.

Also get therapy, a stressful environment makes things worse and you are a lot of her environment.

I really regret not getting meds until my 40s, I could have had a lot more in life.

On the bright side your daughter is probably sensitive and creative.

ADHD or trauma.

Dd had Autism / ADHD assessments.

She was just diagnosed with dyslexia. She used to see "people" dancing around the board / screen when the teacher was talking.

I'm Autistic Dyslexic and Dyspraxic

I would still get her assessed for dyslexia as it is a spectrum all of its own with different presentations. The only similarity is the learning disability to encode from thought to writing and decode from writing to thought. Don’t take a teachers word as gospel, have a professional assess her.

Those with Dyspraxia / kids with it. I'm diagnosed with it together with other things and I can't tell what's what. What are the things you struggle with? I know a lot overlap autism too though. Thank you.

Both DH and myself, but more DH as he was diagnosed earlier were described as this as children/teens and we both have epilepsy.

To add on while I have ASD and ADHD + mild dyslexia,

My elder DD has ASD and severe dyslexia- she wasn’t seen as academically gifted because of her struggle to learn to read, and then of course by year 3 you are reading to learn. So she was below average until I got fed up waiting for the school to admit she had dyslexia (hers isn’t “classic” either), and went private which came with a list of accommodations the school had to do that actually worked for her. She went from below average to going to one of the top 10 Unis in the World, and #1 Uni in the U.K.

So you don’t know whether your DD is gifted or not. You won’t until you tangle whether she has SEN holding her back. Then you’ll have to fight the schools every year to keep her accommodations.

This is me!

That was me. Always in my own world, nose in a book, fantasy and SF more real to me than the real world. At 11 I went to secondary school - and it was discovered I'm extremely short sighted. Fine without glasses close up but a blur four feet away.

PS - I'm an (unknown) actor. Just saying, being a bit away with the fairies can be an actual job.

What is the school like? could it be that some of the teaching is really poor and/or that there are a lot of issues with classroom discipline so your child is withdrawing because of that and could be bored because of the lack of stimulation?

If it is a good school as other have said autism might be something to look into.

But some people simply learn differently and might have other talents (such as being creative) than the traditional academic type.

I was very much like that as a child and teen. Very quiet but with really good imagination and creativity. Many schools are really quite rigid and not geared towards people who simply have different personalities.

Maybe see what activities outside school she could thrive in and that might give you a clue of what is going on.

I don't have any diagnosis. I just felt happier inside my own head. I enjoy my own thoughts and daydreams. I don't think that has to be cause for something being "wrong" or "abnormal". Not everyone is the same. I tend to feel a bit sorry for people who don't have an active inner world.

Me also. I think I might have felt sceptical about ‘labels’ some years back, and the wrong label can be highly damaging. It’s worth stating that undiagnosed ASD and ADHD will most likely accrue the person a crop of delightful ‘labels’ through their lifespan - lazy, difficult, manipulative etc. If you have a happy child who is imaginative but also has no particular problems with learning or sensory processing, who has friends and seems confident, then seeking diagnosis is perhaps not necessary. If, however, you have a journey like mine: lived in my head, labelled as ‘in a world of my own’, found other kids bewildering creatures, was badly bullied, am most likely dyscalculic and bombed out of school with no qualifications and a label of being antisocial and unemployable - possibly some additional help and some curiosity about those difficulties would have helped. That knowledge wasn’t available when I was a child and I’m extremely glad it is there for youngsters now, so that hopefully fewer children have my journey in future. If it means a lot more ‘labels’ and terminology, as long as that also means understanding and support, that’s a good thing. I am not diagnosed with anything; my understanding of my problems has been informed by the growing amount of information available nowadays, and through working with women who are autistic and having multiple ‘aha’ moments.

Low end of normal dyspraxic dyslexia, so could cope with mainstream school but was unhappy and picked at by teachers as was slow producing work and daydreamy. I also suspect some autistic traits but not full ASD and is now a very happy and successful adult who earns more than me in tech.

This is my DD13. Non attentive ADD and she is ASD. Medication has helped hugely

There is likely more overlap and interplay between these conditions than currently recognised. It’s important to understand that each edition of the DSM changes the way things are understood and categorised.

Currently there are a lot of comorbidities where people diagnosed with one condition are more likely than not to also have one or more other things as well.

If she has sensory issues, don’t rule out asd. But from what you’ve described dyslexia (and the other dys-) are a good starting point.

I would caution that if school have raised a concern take it seriously and act on it. A surprising number of kids don’t register as having a problem in school and it can be incredibly hard to progress if it’s not apparent in the classroom.

I was described this way throughout my childhood but it wasn’t at all how I viewed myself - it really, really confused me. It turns out that I was having absence seizures and I had no idea. Eventually I had full TC seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. I stopped having seizures and, to my knowledge, no one has described me that way ever since.

In my case it was inattentive ADHD.

I can see you’ve had a lot of people posting about ‘not needing labels’ but as a PP has wisely said, the undiagnosed neurodivergent child accumulates a whole host of other labels that really damage their self-esteem - in my case, lazy, day dreamer, disorganised, scatty, useless, incompetent, stupid.

When I was at primary school in the 90s a teacher said to my parents ‘she’s a daydreamer, she won’t amount to much.’ (Of a 7 year old!)

I hope that wouldn’t happen now.

For me, diagnosis has opened my eyes. I now know that I’m not lazy, stupid and incompetent. My symptoms have improved a lot in adulthood. I have some solid coping strategies in place. I’ve got a pretty successful career. I’m not saying I don’t struggle with organisation but I’m happy.

I do often think how much happier the first 35 years of my life might have been if I’d known, but there’s no point in dwelling on that. The truth is that no one understood ADHD in the early 90s so it probably wouldn’t have helped much.

But I think that if you suspect she might have it, it’s worth pursuing a diagnosis. It can take years. She might not have it. But if she does I think it’s better to be diagnosed.

ADHD. I’m similar.

I have always been like your child, but I am not asd or adhd (which seems a common diagnosis now)
We don't all need some type of label just because we don't fit into society's norms!