bright 5 year old but possibly also Asperger's? what could it be?

[sanam2010]

my 5 year old gifted in Maths DD has some odd behaviours that I have been looking into, would love to hear what this could be. She is always climbing chairs, our heating and moving around on the chairs, falls off her chair at the dinner table on a daily basis and knocks over her drinks more or less every day as well. This lead me to read about dyspraxia and there were a few more symptoms that matched (messy eating, preferring to eat with her hand, putting fingers in mouth)... but this is where the match with dyspraxia ended.
She has great fine motor skills, is very sporty, excellent at climbing, walked at 8 months (crawled and sat at 5 months), can read and write very well.
She is very anxious and extremely shy, definitely needs help making friends and seems to be on another planet than her peers some times, but on the other hand, she does have a great sense of humour and loves silly games and mischief as well, and plays well with children she is very familiar with. So doesn't fit the typical asperger's description either.
I am just curious where her issues at the beginning of the post could come from? School say she is okay in terms of getting changed for PE etc and have not mentioned anything about her falling off the chair at school, but I guess they are usually on the carpet and Reception is free flow, so I am not sure they actually sit a lot just yet. Maybe she is also more cautious in a school environment and not climbing the whole time. Would welcome anybody's thoughts whose DCs sound familiar?

Following this. As it matches my DD. She find socialising difficult and can be obsessive about some things so I was thinking (and still somewhat am) aspergers. However she isn't a neat fit as she's highly imaginative, no sensory issues.

For what it's worth we had an Ed Psych report done because of the concerns we had for her socially which included an IQ test. Her IQ came out as gifted (top 0.1%) and gifted in maths. The report basically said that it's fairly common for gifted children to be a bit delayed compared to their peers socially and emotionally (and in motor areas) and to find it difficult to relate to their peers so it could be normal within that context (you can look up the characteristics of gifted children to see if it matches your DD) on the other hand it made it clear that you should also seriously consider that there might be an issue (e.g. ASD) in addition to being gifted. So not really conclusive.

Sorry I can't be more helpful - I'm in a similar sounding position so will be following this thread.

hello, I think we are in a similar situation with my ds (10) he is being refereed for assessment of asd/as because his handwriting is poor and some concerns socially at school. he has some motor skill issues- can't ride a bike/swim but walked at 9 months and is always fidgeting, falling about, tapping things. he easily distracted in class. he does want to socialise but he seems little immature with his peers. he had a occupational therapist assessment. I really thought he was going to be dyspraxia but she actually ruled this out and suggested sensory disorder. he does seem v hypersensitive in his fingers too. his ed psych report shows him in top 1% population cognitive ability.99.3%centile using BAS 3. his passions are maths and science and anything with patterns rather than literacy,
we have suspected apergers since he was a tot. we have other family members with asd. but I have recently been reading about children who are twice exceptional and yes it seems that actually some children with such hlp can have these excitable/poor social skills, so I am wondering if the paed will decide if he is asd or maybe just hlp. I don't know. but I think it is worth our investigation into it .
I have no idea where he gets this cognitive ability from!! certainly not from us. its been quite overwhelming finding out. although I have always known he was different as a baby.

but in answer to your op - maybe your dd odd behaviour is just due to her v active mind, all those dense neurons firing off or maybe she is on the asd spectrum or dyspraxia. I think time will tell but maybe get the ball rolling sooner?
this I my first time on here and I was just hoping I would find other children with high iq and behaviours similar to my ds!

Thanks for your responses! It is good to hear there are others out there with a similar profile. I get the impression that a mother's gut instinct when the child was a tot is usually right. You can just tell they are different.
I have not had DD tested yet bc I am not sure I could get a reliable result yet due to her shyness and anxiety, but I will do it in 1 or 2 years. She is quite onviously mathematically gifted though and that has already been picked up at nursery and at school. Incredible memory as well, taught herself how to read the clock aged two (grandparents were shocked!), she just picked it up from a book I had bought for our eldest. So this is the aspect I have less doubts about, the sensory issues are a mystery to me!

I have two dcs who are gifted but have other issues. In all honesty, unless it is very clear cut, it is unlikely you will ever know which issue stems from which possible dx.
One has cerebral palsy - she’s the easy one. The brain damage is a bit of give away. But there was still no way to tell whether her sensory issues were/ are cp related, or are gifted-related a la Dabrowski’s over-excitabilities or whatever. We know her IQ wasn’t caused by CP (although interestingly have come across a few kids who DO present similarly with athetoid cp)
The other one is more of a conundrum. In the end we gave up as even the psych couldn’t work out what was what, and in reality it didn’t matter. His official dx is gifted, ADD, and ASD traits. No one will say ‘this behaviour is x, this is y’.
There are books you can read to try and figure it out, but mostly they just take you in a giant circle and you end up even more frustrated by not being able to tell . Just put ‘twice exceptional’ into amazon.
More than you could ever want. And a ton of online info.
(I gave up trying to figure it out eventually, and just treated each symptom as an individual issue - gross motor skills - physio, fine motor skills - OT, communication - SLT, emotions or behaviour - psych etc. They discussed between them where there was overlap, and a rudimentary diagnosis of anything was enough to use for involvement. School weren’t really interested for dc2 - they aren’t usually for dcs who are able to access the curriculum - so they weren’t really concerned, despite the assessment being suggested by a teacher. )
Good luck though! It’s a frustrating time.

My 5yo DS is exactly the same OP. Advanced reader (RA 10ish?) but major sensory issues.

My ds is older, and he was tested for ASD at age of 2. The results was inconclusive.
He is 10 now, but still has quirky nature and asd traits. He is totally enjoying school from the start, but had difficulty socialising early primary. He is still slightly different from others, but all the past teacher said he had no problem at school, always popular, invited to lots of parties, and now has close group of friends. Difficulty is always there for him, but not enough for me to pursue diagnosis now. I wouldn't hesitate if he did.

Girls hide it much better than boys which is why they are harder to diagnose. Also it’s a spectrum so it may be that she has some traits but not enough or severe enough to warrant a diagnosis.

DS1 (age 10) has ASD although on the milder end of the spectrum so copes well with everyday life to a certain degree. He also has hypermobility and poor muscle tone. He’s always falling over - mainly because he’s so caught up inside his head that he doesn’t look what he’s doing physically! He’s had a few stitches head wounds!
He’s also very gifted (was reading age 14+ when he was 4) but he also has very poor fine motor skills.
He also was a wry early Walker - 9 months but that doesn’t seem to have helped his physical ability! He can’t ride a bike for example or even catch a ball
When he was in infants he was not sociable AT ALL, he would go on play dates as all us parents were friends but he would sit in a corner reading a book, once he even stood in a paddling pool reading a book! Luckily his class have all gone to Playschool together and so the other kids kept persevering and now In Year 6 he has a small but lovely group of friends who he gets on well with.

I feel like I’ve rambled a bit but my point is that your DD could have some traits but not all, it’s really complex but I found reading up on it and picking the bits that were applicable to DS really helped, in a few years we’ve gone from multiple meltdowns a day to maybe one a week which is much more manageable and much less stressful

thanks for all your comments. It sounds like not worrying about a clear diagnosis and simply working on specific issues is a good approach. It is already very helpful to hear that we are not alone and there are many others out there with a similar profile. I will watch it over the next years, it still seems too early to diagnose anything, and she is also slowly getting better, I still somehow hope it will all resolve on its own.

update from my side (OP). DD now 6 has been diagnosed as having high functioning autism (ASD / Asperger's). Doing brilliantly at school still in academic terms, still struggles with making friends but is maturing at her own pace.

Lovely when the OP comes back after such a break! We had a similar trajectory with DS, who is also autistic. You've done well to get her diagnosed so early - we only sought assessment after things fell apart in the transition to Y3.

sanam2019 great to read your update - I replied to your original post all those months ago and we also now have a diagnosis of asd (high functioning) for my son too. He sounds so similar to your dd. how is she getting on? My son has just started at a selective school. He has not made friends yet but he is under the Senco's radar should he have any problems. I think having the diagnosis means the school have to monitor him closely so I am glad we went for the assessment.