Advice regarding 6 year old. LONG!

[iceteaplease]

I've contemplated writing this post for a long time, years in fact, so here goes.

I ponder over DD who is 6 years old, and I'm never able to quite put my finger on it. I appreciate this may be very long as I don't want to drip feed so I'm going to just get it all out.

Any advice or feedback would be very much appreciated.

DD was born full term, straight forward delivery and a healthy weight.

She had problems feeding, she was constantly sick. Huge, projectile and often! HV recommended Infacol which helped a little. As a result, she had quite poor weight gain, but we fumbled on and she weaned at 6 months. This was a struggle. She didn't seemed to understand how to eat. We'd place the pureed food in her mouth and she would just sit there, doing nothing, until the food just slid out of her mouth and onto her lap. She finally grasped the concept of eating when she was around 7-8 months. Hugely stressful time.

From the age of 6 months onwards, she was a very, very frustrated little baby. She would become cross and angry very quickly. Lots of crying.

Around the age of 18months, she stated having huge tantrums. This seemed more than the average "terrible twos". Everything set her off, throughout the day. Wrong colour jumper, wrong spoon with her cereal, a drink of milk in the wrong cup, shoes in the wrong place, a coat handed to her, if I helped with a toy, if I passed something to her, if I offered her something she didn't want.......she'd erupt into a huge fit of screaming, shouting and thrashing around on the floor. Sometimes, these episodes would last anything from 3 minutes to a full hour after which she would usually exhaust herself and usually fall asleep on the floor.

At worst, these episodes were happening 40-50 times a day.

She hated being in her car seat. Every journey consisted of her screaming and screaming for the whole duration, despite some journeys being up to an hour long if not longer.

She stated nursery at 3 and settled in well. She made a little friend and everything seemed to be going well, although she was still having her huge, screaming episodes before and after nursery (not during, as far as I know).

She then moved onto full time school at 4. Again, made some close friends and everything seemed to be going well. Still having a lot of her episodes, but they were starting to lessen, slightly. At worse, maybe 25-30 a day.

She didn't do too well at toilet training. It was a very, very long process. She was almost 5 before she was fully dry with no accidents. She often soiled herself at school which I would have to collect her and bring her home. This would happen 2-3 times a week for the first term at least.

At 5, her teacher approached me to raise concerns to say she felt DD may benefit from some speech and language therapy. I agreed, and had noticed she sometimes spoke quite vaguely and it was quite difficult to hold a conversation with her.

She was referred and the therapist did an initial assessment. She said she felt DD was fine and didn't have any concerns and decided not to take it further.

I pushed and contested this, and in the end, the therapist agreed to do a 6 week block with DD. We did this, and we focused on her story telling ability, helped her to form longer sentences, describe things in depth etc.

So now, DD is 6. She's a lovely little girl, very caring and kind when she wants to be.

However, she seems to really lack understanding of general life and the world around her. I find it hard to explain so I'm going to give you some recent examples to build a better picture.

Me: What shall we do over half term DD?
DD:
Me: DD, what would you like to do over half term?
DD: Cook
Me: That would be nice. What would you like to cook?
DD: Maybe we could paint.
Me: We can paint too, we've got lots of time. What would you like to paint?
DD:
Me: DD? What would you like to paint?
DD: Don't know.
Me: OK, well I'm sure we can think of something. Shall we go somewhere too?
DD: Hello!
Me: Errm, hi. Shall we go to town or something? The library?
DD: Yes.

Another example:

DD: What's the pool?
Me: The pool?
DD: What's the pool?
Me: I don't understand, what pool?
DD: THE POOL! WHAT'S THE POOL?
Me: DD, I don't understand! What do you mean?
DD:
Me: DD, stop crying. Just talk to me. What pool?
DD: THE POOL

She's like this all the time. Not sometimes, always. I can't seem to retrieve any sort of information from her. What she did in school, who she sat by, what she had for dinner, what she'd like to do, where she'd like to go.

She'll watch a film, and with a bit of fidgeting, but she will sit through it all. However, if you ask her afterwards what happened in the film, she couldn't tell you. She could no way replay the story plot, not even a very basic version.

For example, when she saw the film Rio, I asked her what happened during the film. The best I could get out of her (and with ample encouragement and gentle pushing) was "there was a bird. It was blue and it was in a jungle". That was it. She couldn't tell me anything more than that despite us having a long chat about the film together.

She sometimes drifts off into her own little world. Possibly day dreaming. She'll look into space and her whole face will just sort of glaze over. Her teacher noticed that she does this in school sometimes too.

As far as school goes, she has one good friend, who unfortunately, isn't of best influence on DD (in the past, she'd encouraged DD to behave badly, she has shared very explicit language with DD, that sort of thing). All of these have been addressed with the school and they are keeping a close eye on the both of them. She doesn't mix with anyone else.

She doesn't get many invites. Parties, play dates etc. Hardly none in fact. I can't even remember the last time she was invited somewhere, well over a year ago, if not longer.

She does a strange noise when she's either excited or feeling a bit 'daft'. It's like a deep throat grunting type noise. Bad habit perhaps, acting a bit silly? I don't know. Something I've noticed.

School wise, her teaching thinks she's a lovely and sweet little girl and she seems to genuinely adore DD. She does struggle and she has additional support with reading and mathematics. She is still behind for her target age, not by a massive amount, but she is behind.

For her birthdays, she never has a desire for anything in particular. She just asks for "a present". She won't actively want anything in particular. If I take her out shopping for some treats, she won't pick anything out. If I hold something up and ask her if she likes it/would like it, she just says "yes", clearly with no real understanding.

So, that's DD.

Is that the way she's made? Am I paranoid? Reading in too deep? Is that the average 6 year old or is there more to this? I just don't know.

I've often toyed with suspicion of something just not being quite "right", and have done since she was very, very young. DH agrees fully.

Print out your post and take it to the gp. I agree there seems to be 'something' there but would not like to diagnose over the Internet.

How is her behaviour at school? Does the class room have visual aids such as timetable pictures and structured routine? How is she in supermarkets,at fairs etc? Does she wait well in lines at say, the post office? Does she have any particular interests?

Hi OP,

I didn't want to read this and not reply.

There are some parts of your post that I would say are typical to a six year old (not knowing what to do in half term, but she did answer you to a degree).

But I think I understand your concern, even if pin pointing is difficult, probably an accumulation of merging a you've said. PP's suggestion of printing this out and taking it to your GP is a very good idea.

Really? I don't want anything to be not right with DD

Her behavior at school seems OK. There was a bit of falling out between some of the girls last year that she was involved in, but school assured me it has been dealt with.

She's fine when we go out and about behavior wise. She is helpful, will help me load the food onto the belt without me prompting, she'll wait in line when she needs to, she's fine in the park, she'll wait her turn. She'll even help the little children onto the swings or hold their hand as they climb the slides. She has a very caring side.

x-posted.

Yes WienerDiva you are right, a lot of her behavior is typical of a 6 year old. Others, perhaps not. But it's only when you merge it all together there seems to be maybe something else.....

Thank you for your advice too, I appreciate my post is a lot to read!

She doesn't have any particular interests really, she tends to follow suit. If someone else likes Peppa Pig, she'll like it too (if that makes sense?)

MY dd was given something similar by the speach therapist ie very little initially. She ended up with a full statement a few years later mainly for Speach and Language difficulties. NHS SaLT is a bit of a joke, I would just read up as much as possible and do as much as possible yourself while keeping on pushing for more input. The school are obviously aware and seem to support you, I would possibly ask for a meeting wth the SENCO and raise your concerns there.

You may also want to read the special needs forum or post on there. If I had read the SN forum when my dd was 4 I think it would have all made much more sense.

Hi daisysue Thanks for your input. I will start this post again over there for some added advice.

I have a termly meeting with the SENCO unit at school, I will bring it up with them in the next meeting.

I've never shared my concerns with anybody before, this is the first time.

I sometimes wonder if other people think the same but are too polite to bring it up first

A recent study (sorry after I read it I could never find it again but it was a mainstream study) found that if a mother/parent thinks there is something wrong then they are normally right and there is. So have confidence in yourself. As suggested above, take your post to you GP and ask for a referral to a developmental paediatrician who will assess her. Don't get fobbed off. It might be worthwhile getting rereferred to SALT as well and ask them to check her receptive language. This could be a long road but ultimately you will have the same wonderful little girl and hopefully some strategies to help her.

The Special needs boards on here may be able to offer some further insights/advise.

How does she sleep?

Thanks Bill I've reposed my thread over on SN. You're right, she will always be my little girl. I guess that's what we all want for our children.

maw She sleeps like a log. Literally. You could have a disco in her bedroom and she wouldn't even flinch. She's fallen out of bed in the past and just continued to sleep on the floor! She still wears pull ups though as she's still not dry at night. An issue I should have mentioned in my original post really.

She always slept a lot as a baby. She'd sleep 10 hours at night and still slept for 2-3 hours in the day, right up until she was 2 year old.

Does she sleep peacefully or is she restless? Any snoring/teeth grinding or the like?

It's just that you mention feeding problems, being sick a lot, struggling with solids and speech difficulties. This makes me wonder if there is an underlying physical problem such as tongue tie.

This can also cause poor sleep, or sometimes apnoea which can affect the child's mood and behaviour. Imagine being permanently knackered and never being able to rest properly!

This is only a suggestion, it may be nothing like this, but having been down the road of tongue tie causing difficulty with sleeping, eating and breathing I think, from what you write, that it should be one of your lines of enquiry

Some of what you describe sounds like typical 6 year old behaviour. But put it all together, I can see why you have concerns.

I agree with printing off your OP and taking it along to your GP and show the SENCO too.

One thing that jumps out to me is your dd and her choice making. I would focus on this for now. Perhaps limit her choices to two things (e.g. Library or park) but then focus on talking about the reasons. For example, "So shall we go to the library or the park... Great, I think you've made a good choice. It is raining today so the library is much better than the park". Model the language of choosing and reasons including with the choices you make.

mawbroon She sleeps well, very quietly and throughout the night, she won't wake at all. She's a very heavy sleeper. She was a breastfed baby and as far as I know, there was no issues with tongue tie (although I'm no expert!)

Finola Yes the speech therapist made similar suggestions. I admit I sometimes go too open with her, e.g what shall we do today? Rather than shall we do X or Z?