Hi everyone, I’m new to the forum so not sure if I’m doing this right or not, but I’m looking at some guidance on possible ASD and ADHD in respect my four year old son (nearly five).
For most of his life I would say he was a “typical” boy however, over the past two years or so, some features have come about that I’d say aren’t so typical. I will list below his behaviours/difficulties to make it easier to read and try to keep the thread as short as possible:
• He always has to sit on the same chair at home and has a “meltdown” if anything is different about the chair or his place at the table
• At parties he becomes extremely excitable, to the point his behaviour becomes very erratic, his listening becomes very poor but when it comes to sitting at a table to eat party food, he becomes really overwhelmed and choosing where to sit and this triggers one of his meltdowns. It takes a lot of patience and waiting to overcome what I can only describe as a complete mental block for him in overcoming the scenario - despite various tactics to try and support him through it.
• We had to (on the advice of a health visitor) completely remove him from his pre-school due to the distress it caused him by having to go and leave me. Again, having tried everything I can think of (with it getting worse as he got older)
• He has Encopresis.
• If he makes a mistake, he really struggles to overcome them. Once a mistake has been made he will either have a meltdown or become very quiet and calm but present as low in mood, for example… I gave him two snacks one day and he passed one to me for me to open. I open it, pass it back and he then goes in to full meltdown. I ask what happened and he replies “I wanted to open that snack, I wanted you to open the other one. I made a mistake. I can’t eat them now” and despite being hungry, he refused to eat either snack. He has never been punished for making mistakes or had any involvement with food used as a punishment (very much the opposite!) so I honestly can’t make sense of it myself.
• He will only read books at bed time. Before 2 years ago, I couldn’t get him to engage in books at all, so this is progress in itself.
• He has things in general that he feels he has to do. For example: go down the stairs first, be the only one to open the baby gate or cupboard door.
• He has a really good, balanced diet which I’m so grateful for however, his mood is massively affected by his eating and vice versa. If he is excited he won’t eat. Quite often, we can be out all day and he simply won’t eat. Similarly, if he’s hungry, his emotions become extremely heightened where he again can’t eat, despite food in front of him and if the food in front of him is not what he expected/wanted/imagined, this can trigger a meltdown.
All of the above are only very small snippets of our life. Well done and thank you if you’ve gotten this far. But I guess what I’m asking is… are these “typical” four year old behaviours? Are they phases? Or are they potentially ASD/ADHD traits? I have spoken to two health visitors and a GP who have all given me their advice and my son is currently under a CAMHS referral but I really wanted to talk to other parents who may know what we’re going through as some days are so, so tough and draining and I feel often like I’ve failed. He is such a loving, caring and thoughtful boy but I feel as time has gone on that there are certain aspects of life where he is extremely overwhelmed and cannot cope easily. I am in the middle of trying to access what support I can and whilst I wait at least, I’ve come here to see if anybody else can make sense of my son’s behaviours.
I hope I’ve made sense… any advice/guidance is extremely appreciated.