any wise advice re dd2 and her behaviour??

[steppemum]

dd2 is 8, just started year 4. She is youngest of 3. Bright, does well at school, articulate, sociable.
But there are one or two things in her behaviour which are really starting to worry my and we have had a few incidents in the last few weeks that have highlighted them.
She doesn't seem to have any awareness of danger. She keeps making bad choices which at times could be dangerous. She will happily go up to and chat with ANYBODY, at any time, with no sense of stranger awareness. She will be very sensible crossing roads etc and then run out across the road becuase she is cross/upset.

She is also at the moment having loads of melt downs. Usually over minor things, and when she is angry she will lash out at older sister and kick/hit even bite because she is cross. When she is having a melt down, she is like a toddler, with no stop button. She has no natural self restraint.

She finds chnage and transition difficult and always has, she has a minor medical condition that is worse when stressed and every year it is bad through August and gets worse until the first day of term, then it disappears. That was true again this year, despite her new teacher being one she has had before.

There have been a few changes lately and I am sure that has contributed to her being worse, dd1 has left the school to go to secondary. There have been a few changes to routine as we adjust to 2 in secondary. Dad has been away for work for a week, and has just left for a further 2 weeks. but. I don't know, it just feels like something doesn't add up with her.
Sometimes her empathy is good, but she does some stuff which shows a real lack of understanding of others. The main one is that she pinches stuff from her siblings rooms, and when caught doesn't really understand why they are so upset.

Needless to say there are always consequences to her behaviour, and we are consistent and fair, but to be honest, she doesn't care about the consequences for more than a few minutes, and sometimes just cannot see why the consequence is fair. eg, she took a toy from dd1, so I allowed dd1 to remove a toy from dd2's bedroom. dd2 couldn't understand why that was fair - but she might take my favourite toy! When I asked if dd1 had had any choice about the toy she lost, dd2 still didn't get it. When I said that dd1 was just as upset as she was, she couldn't see the link.
Perhaps it would be more true to say she coudl see the link, but couldn't see why I would apply it, because she would be upset.

Sorry, long and rambling, don't know what I'm asking really

steppemum thanks for starting this - I've found it very useful in thinking about DD1. I took her off to football open day today, thinking that she might like this - but she doesn't want to do any of the activities that she's tried (even ones she has initially liked or been keen on) I suspect because of the social issues that come with them - being with kids she doesn't know, having to initiate social interaction etc etc. Other than family she now doesn't really have any social contact outside of school and I'm keen for her to find a context that isn't school. It's hard sometimes.

over the last week I have gone backwards and forwards trying to work out if she is ASD or not. Some things she does are so 100% neuro typical, and then there are these few things.

I have read a few articles about girls with ASD and some things are really striking. So for example the questions on the tests ask about reading fiction, as most boys with ASD don't enjoy fiction. But according to the articles, girls with ASD are often very big readers of fiction. Again, the questions talk about imaginative play, but girls do do imaginative play, they just do it differently to NT girls.

It is frustrating trying to work out if something is wrong.

dd loves the drama group she goes to. It is well run, and well structured. But it is also not too big, and I think it teaches her how to act, which is something Aspergers girls are always trying to learn.
On th eother hand she has givne up brownies as she hates it, she says it is too busy and too noisy.

I am sure no-one is still reading, but it helps me to put my thoguhts down.

dd2's teacher cuaght me yesterday and told me there had been a few incidents with friends (I had spoken to her a couple of weeks ago about dd struggling with friends, so this was partly keeping me in the loop)

Had a quick chat with her (teacher) this morning. mentioned that I had been looking at Aspergers traits especially around social issues. She was FAB, so supportive, really on the ball, had recently had training around girls and ASD so was really aware. Was very interested in the book I have orderd etc etc.

I came home a bit tearful as she was so supportive.

still following! that's really good news I think. my DD's teacher is a bit spectrummy himself, but had a quick chat about her today, and he said "she's a puzzle" which is really about the inconsistency which is down to focus, which is down to - well, who knows what. I've hardly been here this week so have missed them hugely.

Hi steppemum, sorry I've only just picked your thread up again, it dropped off my watchlist. Really glad to hear that the teacher was so supportive.

It can be very difficult to know if a child has an ASC or not. My DS was diagnosed 12 years ago and I still have days when I think "maybe we're making a big fuss over nothing" and other days when I think "well it's obvious he has an ASC, how could I ever imagined anything else?" And before he was diagnosed I had no idea whether he would get a diagnosis or not. But the psychologist pointed out that some of the things I thought were "just DS" or "I wasn't handling it right" were really more signs of DS's ASC; and the SALT picked up whole lot of communication issues I hadn't even realised were problems for him. If you decide to ask for an assessment then it's likely that several different specialists will be involved - some mix of development paediatritian, clinical psychologsit, SALT and OT, depending on what kind of issues she seems to have - and the assessment may try to rule a lot of different conditions in or out, not just ASC. You don't have to know yourself whether your DD has an ASC or not in order to ask for her to be assessed.

thanks kleinzeit, that is veyr helpful.

You are right that I am almost trying to diagnose her before seeing a professional!
I guess the probelm is that I don;t wnat to put us both through the process unless it is worth it in some way for her.

The irony is she is fine at school, very able, loves school, does well. This year's teacher is especially good as she is firm and structured.

The question I am asking is what benefit would a diagnosis bring? I am not sure at the moment.

From my own experience of DD's condition (not ASD) I would say a major benefit of having a diagnosis is that it means you don't spend hours and lots of anxious thought trying to diagnose her. That sounds flippant but I mean it seriously.

Before DD's diagnosis I would spend hours on the internet going round in circles, trying to work out whether x was a symptom of y, finding different conditions it could be, generally worrying. It really wore me down and it meant whenever I looked at DD I was to some extent "symptom spotting". Now I only go on the internet re her condition when there is a specific issue affecting her and I want to hunt for a solution - and that hunt is a lot easier now I know that it may be related to a particular condition. And I can just look at DD now and not be constantly symptom spotting.

Hope that makes sense?

Also now that DD is starting school I am very grateful that she has her diagnosis and the school will know that - they will hopefully realise some things are harder for her and they won't think she is not trying properly or that I haven't taught her to do things. It's great that your DD is doing so well at school so maybe this isn't such a benefit in your case.

I don't think the process of diagnosis is particularly onerous or distressing in any way from what I know, so it's not something horrid you'd have to "put her through"?

so for those of you with a diagnosis, did you go through school or GP? I am thinking that for us, most of the issues are home based, except the friendship one, which, while it is an issue in school, is never going to be enough for school to trigger any further investigations. I am a governor, and I know how stretched the SEN budget is, and she would not be top of the list at all.

I guess for me the advantage of a diagnosis would be pinpointing useful strategies. I have started to work on finding strategies now anyway.

Thanks for all this input, sorry about all the thinking aloud!

Hello, OP. You asked what benefit a diagnosis might bring. I'm looking from the other side of the coin as it were - I'm retired now and self - diagnosed (scored very highly on internet tests plus a close family member in the medical profession is of the opinion it's "highly likely"). If I'd had a diagnosis at secondary school and even more so at work, I think life would have been easier as accommodations could perhaps have been made. One work example was losing my own office and being made to go open plan with what was to me a crowded, noisy room - a nightmare. So my personal opinion is that a diagnosis would have been better for me. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Rhetoric, earlier in the thread says Dd assessed for autism and this was ruled out due to the ability to make eye contact...

I've not read the entire thread but I wanted to pick up on this as it's a comment often made on these threads. Assessed? Or Screened?

Autism SCREENING, a few quick tests/questionnaire which can indicate that a person is likely/not likely to be on the spectrum, and might be done by professionals with no particular expertise with autism. A positive SCREENING would often be the starting point for ASSESSMENT, which can be a long protected process involving professionals with expertise and training in this area.

SCREENING is a bit rubbish at picking up kids who are high functioning, and especially girls who are high functioning.

I have 2 DS who are diagnosed (both high functioning), and they absolutely do make eye contact (they only avoid eye contact when under a lot of stress), the laugh, smile, tell jokes (not always funny ones!), and want to play with others (they want to, but can't always manage to in an appropriate way).
All of those things, at one point or another has been used by teachers, relatives and friends in to illustrate that "your DS can't be autistic because.." and sometimes followed up by a "he is just badly behaved", or a "badly parented"!

Rhetoric, that is not a criticism of you I am just picking up on the comment that was said to you.

Agree about the "screening" thing. I had some partial ed.psych testing done on my (always very verbal) daughter when she was 8-9; at the time it had just occurred to me that she could be aspergers so the psych did a screening test and told me 95%+ probability she wasn't. So we put it aside.

Now 14 she's finally headed for diagnosis. Issues include anxiety, coping with change and loud / noisy environments, and how to relate to others around her. The consensus is that confirmation of the diagnosis will give her and her teachers a framework in which to help her and her classmates/friends understand each other and understand why certain things rub each other up the wrong way (on both sides!).

It's a bit circular - it's hard to know what help your DD might get until she's been assessed and you know what her underlying issues are. But you are her Mum - you know her and you know if things aren't going right for her, even if you don't know exactly what's causing it.

Here's the thing: she is 9 now. Secondary school is a big step up. The day is more structured but the schools are bigger and busier, with endless moves from room to room and from teacher to teacher (my DS got on a lot better with some teachers than others) and at the same time the kids are developing into teenagers with everything that implies - friendship issues, strops, fashion, the lot. Quite a lot of kids who can get by in primary school start to struggle badly in secondary. Do you think your DD might need help to cope with all that? If so, then I would start asking for assessments now, because it all takes time.

The GP would probably be the best place to start though you could try asking the school as well. My DS had urgent issues so the school told us that we should see the GP and ask for children's mental health while they would contact their education psychlogist and we would go through whoever gave us an appointment first!

A lot of the help that my DS got wouldn't be relevant to your DD - he was challenging in school (sigh!) But there were two broad things that did help. First, social skills group sessions. Groups vary but this one was excellent - the therapist made it very much about the kids in the group discussing things together and figuring them out among themselves. Some quite basic skills like sharing and joining in, and listening to each other and helping and making positive comments. A lot of the kids (even including my loud stroppy DS) had been on the receiving end of bullying and they could talk to each other about that. With the right encouragement my bossy little terror of a DS could be a good helper and very supportive to the shy kids.

The other thing was that the diagnosis helped me find local parents with similar kids. Afterwards I joined a couple of local groups - Autistic Society and AFASIC (for kids with communication difficulties) - and went to meetings where we could share experiences and I found out a lot about how other parents solved problems and what help they had found for their kids and how they got access to help. Other local parents were great for that.

Anyway I know it's not an easy decision to make (though we didn't get much choice!)

foggymorn - yes, thanks. She was assessed (full assessment including speech therapist, occupational therapist, psychologist) - and it was psychologist who made this comment.

Thank you to whoever recommended the book 'Unwritten Rules of friendship' It arrived yesterday and looks brilliant, really practical, and alreay I have it down to recommend on to my friend whose daughter is very strongly Aspergers, but undiagnosed.
After this thread actually I may talk to her about getting her dd a diagnosis. She is year 6 and while mum has no doubt that she is ASD, she is from a family where that would culturally be a massive issue, so as long as she has been fine, she has left it. I am actually with her surprised that the school hasn't persued it.

Hello, me again. Just popping in to add to the answers you've had re your question: what benefit would a diagnosis bring?

One benefit it would bring is to your daughter's peace of mind. People who are bright and autistic do realise that they are "different" and knowing that, but not knowing why, can be difficult and isolating. All 3 of the autistic people I know found diagnosis really positive as it gave them an explanation as to why some things were so hard and a "tribe" They were 5, 8 and 44 respectively. We were shocked at how much insight the 5 year old had into his own difference from his peers as we (not just me but his parents too) had thought he was oblivious because he'd never mentioned it

These are all so interesting, and have given me lots of food for thought.
I was chatting to one of the mums in the playground, her 2 dss are friends with my 2 dds. Her older one has Aspergers, and as I was chatting to her (about dd) I remembered that she does too. her sister and her mum are diagnosed, she isn't. She talked about how she is milder than the others (hence no diagnosis) but how she masks most of the time, and then how when she gets stressed she can no longer mask.

It was really interesting, and what was also interesting is, given her ds is diagnosed, and she knows dd well, she didn't immediately dismiss it.

I think I might ask her over for a coffee after half term.

I am going to make an appointment to talk to her teacher after half term, and ask what is really going on at school with friendships etc, and if there are other concerns.

Still not sure, really don't know if there is something or not, what after all, is the range of 'normal' ?

Oh, and just to add, my dd has been giving her ds (normally a good friend) a lot of crap this term, for which I have had to apologise to mum, and they are currently not allowed to sit together at school.

She said - he is still really keen to be dds friend - maybe he gets her and is tolerant of her because he is so used to dealing with big brother all the time!