4 year old ds who seems late to do everything and shrieks at every new physical experience

[soootiring]

I don't really know where to start by describing my worries about DS as I feel so worn down by his ways at the moment. That sounds awful I know. I have long (since he was 6 months old) had worries about autism or aspergers but he had an assessment last September and nothing was acknowledged by the paed as I guess none of his probs are severe enough.

Basically he is late to do lots of things, especially socially and physically! This includes jumping, pedalling a trike (3.5yrs), still can't propel a scooter, can pedal a bike but whinges and loses interest after about 15 metres, swimming-gets hysterical if out of depth (understandable totally) or asked to kick legs while I pull him with armbands on or asked to jump in (with myself and dh- not on his own). I have had to teach him quite a lot of things which I think (not certain) that a lot of children just 'do', for e.g. getting him to climb the stairs with alternate feet which he is eventually doing of his own accord now and this week I have started teaching him how to do it coming downstairs. Socially he is reasonable at playdates for the first 5 mins (and is v excited beforehand, screechingly excited when they ring the door bell infact) then after that will ignore the other child for the most part unless lots of intervention given. He cannot seem to play on his own either- will loll around instead of playing quite often or play for 5 minutes with something then get something else out (very flitty and irritable!!). I don't know if he is just very immature, a control freak or whether I should really push the paed more when I see her in a couple of months. I don't like talking about this in RL as I think a lot of the time people will brush off your worries and are obviously less concerned as it's not your child.

The other difficulty is how to help him- it is really wearing having to deal with whinging resistance at every new experience (yesterday it was holding a snowball with gloves on). He will hold one today but will not collect the snow up and carelessly and joyfully throw one like the other 4 year olds I see! I have recently become more pushy with him as I feel he is doing himself out of a lot of things by being fearful of everything, so this week I have bribed him with treats to get him to jump off my bed as he absolutely refuses to jump off anything higher than a pavement drop when we're out! Most parents would be telling their child not to jump off their bed I know!! Please if you've got a child like this tell me how you're helping them. Any insight would be wonderful

I have no answers as I am going through the same is he/isn't he worries at the moment (see my thread in the SN section). We had DS assessed yesterday and the feedback was basically...maybe! So I'm emotionally exhausted. There is lots of good advice on the thread from other mums who have been through the process.

Does your DS go to nursery? If so, how is he with social interaction. This is my DS's big problem. Do you prep him before a new experience as I found that prepping DS before a social occasion helped a lot.

You say you have had worries since he was 6mths. What were your worries back then? How was his non verbal communication (waving,clapping,pointing)? How did his speech develop? Do you think it could be dyspraxic tendencies? Iamnot qualified to diagnose BTW just the bike thing made me think that. Perhaps he has sensory issues (the snow on his hands)
Again, please don't take my word for anything. Have a look at my thread and search the archives on here.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

I have no answers as I am going through the same is he/isn't he worries at the moment (see my thread in the SN section). We had DS assessed yesterday and the feedback was basically...maybe! So I'm emotionally exhausted. There is lots of good advice on the thread from other mums who have been through the process.

Does your DS go to nursery? If so, how is he with social interaction. This is my DS's big problem. Do you prep him before a new experience as I found that prepping DS before a social occasion helped a lot.

You say you have had worries since he was 6mths. What were your worries back then? How was his non verbal communication (waving,clapping,pointing)? How did his speech develop? Do you think it could be dyspraxic tendencies? Iamnot qualified to diagnose BTW just the bike thing made me think that. Perhaps he has sensory issues (the snow on his hands)
Again, please don't take my word for anything. Have a look at my thread and search the archives on here.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Thank you I will certainly have a look on your thread over on SN. At his pre-school I always bring up social interaction at meetings particularly as when I drop him off, he invariably wants to go to an activity on his own. They say he is fine and soon moves around the room to other things and interacts with other children (it did take him around 2 and a half terms of pre-school to get to this stage though). He is not yet at the next stage of making friends and hooking up with particular children- they do admit that but don't seem worried. This does worry me with school in September!

I was worried way back then because of things like he didn't put his arms up to be picked up (never did this), he wasn't worried by me going out of room, not good eye contact (but not awful by any means), very slow to get beyond pureed food (12 months). Clapping I think was first at 11.5 months, pointing started day after 1st birthday, waving not until 13 months. So I did get bit worried that nothing until 11.5 months. Also he didn't seem to copy much.

He could well have dyspraxic tendencies but have not researched this much. I was also late with physical milestones as a child but my parents just let me be. I remember being referred for not doing alternate steps and I must have been at least 5.4!!!!

Ok, as I said I am not qualified but looking at what you've said and what was in our questionnaire yesterday.

1. The psychologist asked about DS's reaction to lumpy food particularly if he gagged on it. 2)DS pointed at 10mths. Psych said this was good as many/most ASD children don't point til after 2yrs if at all. Though he did say there was 2 types of pointing a) at something they want b) at something they want you to share with them. 3)He asked if DS put his arms up to be picked up and whether he cried when I left him alone. DS did both so the psych didn't go into detail with this.
2. He asked about copying as well. Asked if I banged a plastic cup would DS copy me before 1yr old.

Your DSseems to have done most of these within normal timeframes even if towards the later end. Have you had his eyesight tested? I would look at the dyspraxia website. Google it as I'm not sure.

Really sorry I'm not more help. Also, on my thread,Buckets linked to the NAS website. If you scroll down you'll there's an autism checklist. It may help. Good luck

Soootired, your son sounds a lot like mine, both physically and socially. My son has been at big school since September and despite my fears has a best friend and is hugely happy there, so try not to let the school thing worry you at this stage - you just don't know how he'll settle in, so don't prejudge it, just try to build it up to be something exciting, enjoyable and grown up so that he starts out with the right attitude.

As for the motor skills issues, I do actually think that my son is dyspraxic as I've had to work incredibly hard to teach him the most basic things, and there is a colossal mismatch between this and his general intelligence - he is positively gifted at reading and maths and has a superb imagination. HOWEVER, he does also have a genuine physical reason for motor skills activities to be harder work for him, in that he has a diagnosis of Ehlers Danlos syndrome, hypermobility type (a connective tissue disorder causing extreme hypermobility of the joints). So, whilst it does sound as though you might find it helpful to look into dyspraxia as a possible cause of your son's difficulties (and dyspraxia does also cause difficulties with social skills), it may be worth also asking yourself whether there may be some genuine physical difficulty for your son that is delaying his motor skills development and affecting his confidence (which would impact on social and emotional development and his willingness to try anything new). Hypermobility and/or hypotonia and dyspraxia are not uncommonly found together, but hypermobility alone can cause a lot of issues (and needs to be ruled out, along with other physical reasons for motor skills problems, before a diagnosis of dyspraxia or developmental co-ordination disorder can be reached).

As for your son's resistance to new experiences, this could just be a result of his acute awareness of his lack of physical prowess! (In other words, a finely developed sense of his own limitations!!!). It is probably better to be like this if you have co-ordination difficulties than to be at the other extreme that un-co-ordinated children can find themselves at, namely having a very poor sense of danger and prone to getting themselves run over/breaking their arms falling off things...

Anyway, your child is not alone with the difficulties he is facing!

ps The playing with friends for 5 minutes and then ignoring them unless encouraged into structured activities is not that odd in a 4-year old boy, I've found (I find most 4-year old boys peculiar creatures)!!! And throwing snowballs is not everyone's cup of tea, it's just that the only other children you are likely to see out in the snow are the ones who are there because they want to be. There will also be the children who haven't gone out in the snow in the first place because they hate the cold, or who went out for 5 minutes and then decided they weren't too keen. Personally, I'm not to keen on getting frozen hands picking up snowballs.

pps You say you were late with your motor skills. Are you now an un-co-ordinated adult, or is everything fine?

soootiring, my ds2 has dyspraxia and was very like your ds at that age.
He actually wasn't all that late learning to walk, but was horrendously slow to ride a tricycle and throw a ball.
To me, your ds sounds more like a child with dyspraxia than with autism/aspergers but I should point out that there can be overlap between all these conditions and children with dyspraxia are often hypersensitive too.
With ds2 I found that he developed an "I can't" attitude towards a lot of things and wouldn't even try something if there was a chance he could fail. I found it was better to jolly him along rather than actively push him into things. less stressful for all concerned.
His early years in school were difficult but now that he is older ( 10) the differences are becoming less obvious. A good occupational therapist can help hugely.

Well the dyspraxia thing certainly sounds like something worth looking into. Do you think the developmental paed will arrange for an OT or someone to assess him for this? I know what you mean about the jollying along tactic but DS is incredibly stubborn, i.e if you ask him 'would you like some chocolate?' or something equally attractive, he seems to instinctively say no or no thanks as his automatic answer!! We have resorted to the pushy approach as you can see the pride he feels when he then can do something new. I am bit like this too. Wouldn't say uncoordinated but terrible balance, hate walking on uneven ground, very cautious and late to do all the things that ds is. DH thinks is because my parents were totally NOT hands on, certainly didn't help!

Having looked at the dyspraxia foundation site, this sounds a real possibility. DS has at least two thirds of the symptoms for his age bracket. His fine motor skills are pretty good- can write his name and pretty good with scissors though he hates puzzles and is not good at them. This always surpised me as he is very visual and bright with letters and numbers etc. and is starting to read of his own accord.

Can anyone advise me on how to proceed with the developmental paed we are seeing next month? I think dr's are very clued in to the fact that parents post on boards such as these and Google things but at the end of the day I'm not making up DS' problems! Do I mention dyspraxia or not?

bump

There's no harm in telling the paediatrician what you are concerned about and why you think your son might be dyspraxic. Write down all the problems your son has and has had in the past that you think are unusual so that you don't forget what you want to say. And have a think about what you actually want the paediatrician to do for you - do you think, eg, occupational or physiotherapy might benefit him? If so, then state that you think he needs the extra help and would therefore like him to have an assessment with an OT. You don't tend to get what you don't ask for... And the waiting lists tend to be very long, so no harm in asking to be put on the end of the long list.

In my experience, paediatricians are much happier just listing the symptoms than giving a formal diagnosis of something like dyspraxia in very young children, and if this is enough to get you some OT or PT, then you may be happy with that, too. If not, then you may decide you need to push for a proper diagnosis, rather than a list of ongoing concerns. However, a proper diagnosis is not going to be a quick and painless procedure and will probably require assessment by several different professionals.

That's my take on it, anyway!

sooptiring come post over on sn not saying your ds has but might be some fresh idears