Does this sound like neurodivergence or a sensitive temperament?

[kvazzy]

Hi everyone,

Posting on AIBU for traffic.

I’m trying to make sense of my DD’s profile and would really appreciate balanced perspectives, especially from parents of neurodivergent children or people who know this area well.

My DD has just turned 5 and is in Reception. Overall she is doing well. School are happy with her progress, she is developing well academically and teachers say she is on track. She also does well in structured activities such as tennis, ballet and singing. Teachers/coaches generally give positive feedback. She has a lot of energy, but can also concentrate.

What makes me wonder about neurodivergence:

• She is very emotionally intense and can get very upset over things that may seem small.
• She finds losing, being second, or another child being “first” very hard. For example, if another child overtakes her on a bike or runs ahead of her, she can become very upset and say she doesn’t want to be friends with that child anymore, although this does not last.
• She can take refusal very personally. If another child doesn’t want to play her game or do something together, she can experience it almost as rejection of the whole friendship.
• She can be quite controlling in play. She loves children and wants to play, but sometimes wants very intense, close interaction and struggles when the other child wants space or wants to do things differently.
• She has some sensory sensitivities: hair brushing, hair washing, nail cutting. We have to put a cartoon on while doing all these things.
• She can be perfectionistic. She has said things like “I am not good enough” and can become very upset if her writing or numbers don’t look right.
• She is very sensitive to criticism or correction and can become upset if we point out mistakes.
• She can resist everyday demands such as dressing, handwashing and stopping play. We often have to make these tasks playful or interesting for her.
• She can be very shy around other people at first, especially adults.

What makes me less sure it is neurodivergence:

• She is very socially motivated and has always loved being around children.
• She has rich imaginative play and creates lots of different scenarios and games.
• Her play is flexible in the sense that she invents new games all the time, rather than repeating one rigid script.
• She generally does well at school and in structured classes.
• She can follow instructions and wait her turn in after-school clubs.
• She has good language and can often explain her feelings afterwards. For example, after one big upset with friends and craft materials, she later told me she was scared the other children would take her things without asking.
• She usually recovers after meltdowns and can go back to playing happily.
• She seems very empathic and relationship-focused, sometimes almost too much so.

I suppose what confuses me is that she is not withdrawn or socially uninterested at all. If anything, she is intensely social, very imaginative, bright, energetic and sensitive. But she struggles a lot with rejection, losing, sharing control, and feeling that her things or her place in the group are at risk.

Does this sound more like possible neurodivergence, or more like a highly sensitive / intense / strong-willed child who needs support with emotional regulation and social flexibility?

Well that's interesting and I'm sure there are other reasons you got that diagnosis. But at the same time, it's one of many behavioural tendencies and preferences that are almost universal in 5 year olds. Doing dance shows, fiddling with hair, preferring to win rather than lose, being upset when friends don't play with them - I'm starting to wonder what a non-ND child would actually look like according to some of these posters, because it wouldn't have been me, or either of my children, or any of their friends, or any other child I have ever met.

I was being facetious, sorry 😂 (I do have ADHD though.) I think most kids prefer sweets to veggies a lot of the time. I agree with you completely.

Thanks for sharing @Givemeausernamepls

The school did not raise any concerns, and so did the private nursery she attended part time before. The only negative feedback I had from the school is that she can be quite shy (at times) with grown-ups. She is much more open and relaxed with kids.

I emailed the school and asked for a meeting with the teach to go though what I wrote here. It would be interesting to know if the teacher noticed any of these features and issues in her

Thanks @Whatafustercluck

That's my worry too that our school will miss any signs and DD would be affected. I emailed the office and asked for a meeting with the teacher to go through my concerns and see what she says.

I am wondering @Wildefish if your grandson has and challenges with sustaining attention / focus or hyperactivity? From what I know, these are the main traits of ADHD.

Hi @PurpleThistle7 thank you for your perspective

OP has it struck you, even a tiny bit, that this perspective is shared by over 80% of respondents to your question?

That sounds tough @Lougle as it's so not obvious!

Thank you! I never heard of educational psychology testing. Will look it up

Yes of course! I am not doing any harm in chatting about it or checking the teacher's perspective though, am I? Better safe than sorry.

I think your dismissiveness about 'hair fiddling' and 'dance shows' is in response to what I've said about what stimming can look like in girls. It's all about context, though. The hair fiddling was excessive to the point where both dd's teacher and a SEN specialist noted it primarily as an obvious sign that when dd was uncomfortable she increasingly used it to keep her calm. The 'dance shows' you mention are the same routines, every time, the same repetitive movements - she uses this in the same way she uses the hair fiddling - i.e. to calm herself. This is what my dd's stims look like for her. Not clearing her throat, not jiggling her leg repetitively, not humming, nor any of the 'tics' noted predominantly in boys. They began early in childhood and have continued 4 years later.

My first response was to say that op's dd could very likely be NT, and that being an only child may have contributed to the behaviours seen. But equally, as a parent whose concerns were dismissed for a very long time (leading to delayed support) I wanted to share with the op some misconceptions about autism in girls that I would urge her to keep an eye on. Delayed assessment in girls is a very serious concern in terms of impact on mental health. It's best that op is fully informed so that, if her concerns are not alleviated or get worse as her dd gets older, she can take appropriate action.

Absolutely this! You don’t want to overlook it until it’s too late.

Repetitive behaviours can be all sorts of things in girls, even phrases.

Sure - and I don't mean that any of these things, to the extent that posters have noticed them being a) causing issues and b) being sustained and concerning and c) being present alongside other behaviour that points in this direction, might not warrant some further investigation/diagnosis. But what I am seeing here is the OP leaping on every tiny thing from every post that describes a child who did go on to be confirmed ND and overlaying them onto her own child, about whom nothing seems in the least unusual for a 5 year old. And I do think she seems highly motivated to view the child in this way, to the extent that any assertion that all of these things can be, and very very often are, perfectly usual in any given five year old, is dismissed, and any discussion of children with ADSD and similar is leapt on as probably applying to her own child.

Excellent post.

My DD’s delayed assessment cost us many years in hospital.

Hey @CreativeGreen that's not the case at all!

If anything, I find most of the replies reassuring that at the moment DD does not show any strong ND traits. I chat more with the parents of the ND kids as there is more to find out - what traits led to diagnosis, at what age, etc.

Yes to both.

God, I haven’t read the whole thread because the few comments I read were so flipping rude! Anyway, taking your original post point for point, I really would not be worried. Also ignore the posters calling your five year old mean. Jesus Christ. Also, I am an Early Years teacher. I taught Reception for 6 years.

• emotionally intense - without more information being upset over things that seem small sounds age appropriate.
• She finds losing hard
• She can take refusal very personally.
• She can be quite controlling in play. - taking the above three together it suggests hasn’t developed “theory of mind” and this is totally age appropriate. Some children develop it younger but some as late as 7, basically she doesn’t know others have the same autonomy and processing power as she does.
• The sensory sensitivities you describe could be age appropriate.
• Perfectionism
• Sensitivity to criticism - taking these two together, is this new since starting reception? Could this be a problem with classroom culture?
• Resisting demands - age appropriate. A reception teacher’s job is to make all these mundane things fun too!
• Shyness - age appropriate. You will get some super outgoing kids but the majority would not engage in conversation with a strange adult

All that being said, parents are often the first to spot things. Keep an eye on your concerns and keep sharing them. You know your child best.

Speaking as someone with ADHD and autism she sounds fairly normal but not great with others setting boundaries, you need to work on this. Gentle parenting is really rubbish for young kids. Have strict boundaries

Many of the traits like perfectionism, finding rejection hard in ND are increasingly shown to be built up over time and part of RSD rather than an innate hard wired part of ND, so unlikely this is the cause in a 5 year old, esp one who hitherto has only experienced “gentle parenting”.

Work with boundaries, it sounds like most of these things are simply her expecting to get her own way.

@kvazzy private providers should still follow a code of conduct and only put children through assessments if there is evidence to suggest that there's a reasonable likelihood of the child being ND - usually based on information from school and from a caregiver who knows their development history (usually, though not always, a parent). Most would require screening information before agreeing to a full assessment regardless of whether the parent is willing to pay private (all the providers I've worked with have the same screening process as they do for NHS, the only difference is if you're accepted and paying you can get an assessment appointment much quicker)

Thanks @FunnyOrca. It's great to hear from someone with your experience.

Regarding criticism and perfectionism - I never thought about it but yes it started roughly with the start of Reception. Will speak about this with the teacher too (will need to think how best to raise it not to offend her)

Thanks @Whysnothingsimple , that's very helpful. It's quite an insight re RSD. Form what I read it also does not seem to be a part of ADHD/ASD but a separate thing often coinciding with ND?

Thanks @Birdsongisangry that's quite an insight. Does this mean that if in the future I see stronger ND signs and decide to go through a private assessment I need the school to confirm that they see them too?

Not necessarily, whilst schools have much greater awareness of ND now, it's not guaranteed they could always spot every case. However an assessor would usually still want to have schools view so that they have an overall picture - as school can give a lot of information about how the child compares to what is typical for their age, how they deal with social situations, hierarchies, rules and expectations, concentration etc which are all key for ASD and ADHD. School could also indicate if they think there could be any other cause (eg an underlying learning need instead of ND)

It's less common but sometimes children are diagnosed when there is a significant difference between behaviour in school and at home, eg a child having extreme meltdowns and being violent at home, not seen at school, because of how much they are masking in the day and how burnt out they are when home because of it.

That’s a shame - maybe it depends on area.

Ok, I have more time now. I can give a list of things that I noticed from an early age, but bear in mind that my DDs have a range of conditions which overlap and confuse the picture.

DD1 (brain malformation, ASD, likely ADHD but still undergoing diagnosis, Learning Disability):

• didn't sleep at night for the first 12 weeks. Slept very badly for years.
• No concern when put down and left in a room
• Didn't notice big things (like a plane going overhead) but noticed little bits of glitter in the carpet
• Disordered language
• No sense of danger and completely reckless
• Didn't understand the meaning of 'no' (I don't mean this in a 'naughty' sense - she literally had no ability to recognise that people wanted her to stop a behaviour)
• Climbed before she could walk
• Late to walk
• Would try to dismantle toys rather than play with them
• No 'group' mentality. She did her own thing and didn't care less what others did.
• A concentration span of less than 30 seconds at age 4 (as observed by Ed. Psych, not just parent claims)
• No conformity with social norms (e.g. usual tactics that staff used didn't work at all. Wouldn't be influenced by what the group was doing)

DD2 (ASD, ADHD, generalised anxiety disorder, expressive language disorder):

• Didn't join others at preschool - did her own thing
• No interest in other children
• Literal following of rules (e.g. teacher said 'come away from the computers' a boy didn't, so DD2 turned the computer off)
• High distress when transitioning from year R to year 1 because things had changed (table orientation/colour, transition to cursive writing, children starting to want to play)
• Being told off because she got bored of dance club so just walked out
• Emotionally Based School Avoidance (would vomit and get fevers, tummy ache, etc.)
• Distress when work done at school couldn't be exactly replicated at home (e.g. number guide was slightly longer at home than at home)
• Misunderstanding conversations she had heard and applying them to herself when they didn't involve her
• Couldn't draw her dog on a piece of paper because he wouldn't fit (she couldn't 'scale it down' in her mind
• Drifted off in carpet time so she didn't understand what was happening
• Completely lost the ability to write due to anxiety and had to have intensive support and scaffolding to be able to write (year 5)
• Needed pre-teaching for maths because of anxiety.

DD3 (ASD, ADHD, OCD):

• Tearful entering school and needed reward charts to get her in
• Sensory issues with seams and I used to carry her into school with her socks and shoes in my hands and hand her over (seamless socks were only just being developed)
• Missing the rules - very good generally, but when she got in trouble with the teacher and she said 'Shall I take you to the Head Teacher's Office?' she thought it was a marvellous idea
• Refusal to read because she didn't know how (wasn't willing to get it wrong)
• Germ phobia after 'germ busters' topic in year R
• Hated non-uniform days and I had to take her to school half-ready and let the Head Teacher finish getting her ready (I'd already been trying to get her to school for 2 hours).
• Perfectionism
• Needing to be busy all the time

All 3 girls have needed special school education but 2 of them only since year 10.