What’s going on with my girl?

[Frustratedgirl]

[Sorry this is long, I’m just trying to give a full picture]

DD (10) has had a really hard few years in school. Ever since covid started (I’m sure she’s not alone). Online lessons were a real struggle. She would look visibly very agitated. I often had to turn the camera off due to tears. Often switching off the lesson entirely. It would be especially bad for maths. As soon as she gets a whiff of confusion about a subject, her guard goes up and then she just can’t engage - she’s just too agitated/frustrated. It’s like she thinks there are really high stakes.

Around this time she said some quite troubling stuff. We got in touch with the school’s pastoral type unit about this. I thought that they might engage with her when school reopened, but they didn’t for quite a while (a year), when the teachers realised just how emotional she was getting in class.

She would have a session with this unit each week. It has quiet sensory spaces, nurturing activities - they talked about their feelings.

She had a course of art therapy. They bought me in to talk about her drawings. Really surreal. DD seemed to generate sad stories. I’m addition. she told them that she didn’t like too much noise - they gave her ear defenders. She had never shown any sign of this, in the noisiest of situations. She never wore the defenders. It seemed to me that she wanted to stay in these sessions. A member of staff suggested that she may show signs of autism, but all the signs she mentioned, I didn’t recognise in her. When she eventually left the unit as they said they had done everything they could, she took it very badly - like a rejection.

That was about a year ago. Since then she has definitely got better at not outwardly getting upset in class, but often tells me how much she hates learning, especially maths. She’s genuinely down about it. I’ve started to do a 5 minutes maths session now and again as I thought she might be able to deal with it. It works okay… I try and nip her frustration in the bud and make a joke or whatnot. Sometimes though, it’s like she’s boiling up inside. Thing is, her bad reaction to maths previously meant I avoided this sort of extra work at home and I think that has exacerbated it and left her trailing.

I sometimes wonder if this style of teaching just isn’t for her. Would she be better in a Steiner type of school.

So my question is; a) does anyone understand what is going on here? and b) are there techniques I can teach her to help her keep calm enough to absorb the teaching? I tell her about breathing deeply, she’s not interested.

Context:

• Speech delay which seemed to get better mostly just in time for reception
• lots of friends, but she definitely seems to let her friends shine - not helping her self-esteem
• wonderfully lovely empathetic girl
• lots of NQTs in recent years
• she has signs of focusing on her weight (and she’s not overweight).

Hi Op@Frustratedgirl

Immediately reading your mumsnet thread, I thought of your daughter could be on Autustic spectrum,?

Could she have dyscallica (maths/numbers blindness too,?

she trys to attempt to disguise this, by getting flustered stressed out, by being overwhelmed by learning difficulties,

I have Dyscallica too,
I didn't know I did, before ,as back in the 80s , learning difficulties, support or awareness ,was hazard,sporadic or allmost non existent..
It was only when I went back to education as a mature student to learn complementary therapy and access courses to uni,
it was picked up, awareness of this, through college.

I am just wondering if she is on Autustic spectrum?
I think more knowledgeable posters will come on board soon enough..

hope you find support for your daughter that she needs,finds beneficial @Frustratedgirl

My dd really struggled during lockdown and was very emotional and anxious. She still gets wound up if she doesn’t instantly ‘get it’, and has set very high standards for herself.

I hadn’t realised until lockdown quite how difficult she was finding written work as verbally she was very bright with a good memory recall.

I organised a visual stress test and dyslexia/dyscalculia test. She has issues with visual stress and was diagnosed as dyslexic. Her baseline intelligence was very high which meant she was scoring in the normal ranges but way below her potential. She thought she was stupid and her self esteem was rock bottom.
She also has some difficulties with vision and focus so has varifocal tinted glasses which really help her.

Following on from that assessment the change has been amazing in her attitude. She is now in year 7 and doing very well, she is on course to be in top sets next year and won a literary prize for her writing! She now has 25% extra time and a laptop for assessments and uses a laptop for longer written work in class.

At home I help with organising stuff as her executive skills aren’t the best! We also have a strict routine with regular breaks for homework and I am always available to support her (mostly it’s proof reading and confirming she has understood a written question).

Her primary teachers were shocked that she was dyslexic as they just thought she was a day dreamer who was a bit anxious and needed to work harder.

Maybe get her eyes checked, visual stress test and educational assessment? I think girls particularly try to mask problems and it shows up in their emotions and behaviours.

I’d echo what previous posters say about possible dyscalculia or autism, OP. My DD is nearly 8 and has very similar traits; she was diagnosed autistic four years ago. I’d also caution against an alternative education such as the one you mention. The underlying philosophies are quite disturbing and while there’s a great “front” of nurture, the background influence from the philosophies is ever present in teaching and support strategies. I’ll not say too much as I think it’s a no-go on boards here, but I know from very recent, personal and work experience that I wouldn’t want my DD anywhere near one of those schools.
Accessing support through the SENCo and nurture groups is the best way forward. My DD also sees a speech and language therapist every month and this has really helped her to unpick and understand other people’s behaviours, reactions and social interactions. That might be an option?
These links might help:

https://childmind.org/article/autistic-girls-overlooked-undiagnosed-autism/

https://autisticgirlsnetwork.org/autism-in-girls/

The not talking bit rings bells for me. Ds was much younger, started saying odd words like mummy, daddy or dog, then didn't speak a word for a month & then one morning started speaking full sentences, by 2 his favourite TV programme was Time Team & he just casually said to me, "that lady is a geophysicist" I didn't start pushing for a diagnosis until he was 7 & he finally got his autism diagnosis when he was 9.

My DD became like this aged 10, at 13 she had an existential crisis and it has turned out that she's been masking, which is very common in girls, and going through ASD ADHD assessments now.
Ask the school:GP what the route in your area is for assessment/support, it takes ages so don't delay, even if there's no actual issue it's good to get that clarified. We found GP can't do anything but it goes through the Healthy Families team and they refer for assessments if there's a need after their initial assessment
Good luck

Thank you. I’ve heard of dyscalculia, but have never joined the dots! It’s definitely a possibility.

I also just discovered that there is a thing called Mathematical Anxiety. She sure seems to have this, but whether it’s part of something else I’m not sure.

On the autism, it has crossed our minds of course. I’m going to contact the GP / SENCO today to get the ball rolling on some assessments.

This sounds so similar to a point. It’s really great to hear it has all worked out for you.

I’ll definitely get some assessments done. I’m disappointed that I haven’t gone down this route already, I guess it all just seemed a bit ambiguous and I hoped it would sort it selves out.

Thank you. I won’t delay any further.

Thank you. My DD’s speech delay was slightly different. She said words, but some of it was hard to decipher and she was late forming sentences. Certain sounds were harder.

@Frustratedgirl my dd didn’t have a speech delay but she did consistently mispronounce words when she was younger. What I didn’t realise was that she struggles with auditory phonics recognition, which is part of her dyslexia. She still mispronounces unfamiliar words and needs reinforcement to establish the correct pronunciation. It’s usually quite close to how the word should sound so not very obvious.

Also my dd didn’t have her dyslexia assessment until she was at the end of year 5. She had her visual assessment assessment first and school put in support measures (iPad/chrome book) on the recommendations from that assessment.

My daughter was like this. I really recognise the frustration when learning thing.

She was later diagnosed as ASD.

l see someone linked to the AutitsicGirls Network. The white paper on there called ‘Keeping it all inside’ was mind blowing.