Daughter referred for ASD - call from Senco

[cheesemongery]

Hi all,

Just wanted to post about my daughter (and a bit about me!)

I received a telephone call after school on Thursday from their welfare / SENCO lady.
I was quite shocked to be told that they had secretly been observing my DD 13 in lessons and think she should be referred for being on the spectrum.

Reasons being - away with the fairies, hiding behind her hair, twiddling with her pen and fidgeting legs.

I haven't told DD yet as I've never had any concerns - I mainly put behaviour changes down to teenage hormones.

Oddly, I have had an initial assessment for ASD and am awaiting a diagnoses appointment. In my case it does seem clear from my childhood early behaviour, but being child of the 70s and masking and being v intelligent, my life downfalls have always been treated as depression.

Obviously I am going to support their referral, but it is honestly something I didn't consider with my daughter.

Can anybody give me their thoughts on this please, and what would be the outcome if she is diagnosed?

Many thanks in advance!

Cheese.

My son got diagnosed at 13 and he got given a card at school to enable him to leave the class when he wanted and he got a laptop and extra time in exams.
He got access to lots of different counselling sessions at school too.

Every child is different though, the school assess them for their individual needs.

Hi @ofwarren thank you for your reply.

My DD has just started counselling and as a result also has a pass to leave class. She is also offered a laptop if needed.

I think that I'm just confused because I would never have recognised any symptoms in her. But then with me awaiting diagnoses, is it the blind leading the blind - so to speak?

Daughter is fine, she's just like me! D'oh. ☹️

And obviously I have no idea about how she appears at school.

That's what happened with me and my eldest. He got diagnosed first and then me second. I also never saw it in him as his behaviours were 'normal' to me.
Have you looked at how ASD presents specifically in girls? It's actually quite different than in boys.

www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/autism-females/

@ofwarren I haven't, this is all new. I shall have a look.

I've just randomly decided to paint the kitchen whilst DD at her dad's.
I'll update later, thank you xx

That was a name change fail surely 🤣 oh well.

Our board doesn't come up in active now so you are more hidden then normal thankfully

so I was diagnosed at 24 and basically queried why my parents never picked up on my behaviour.

We discussed various family members and basically concluded that the majority of my family are also likely ND and therefore my behaviours seem normal to them!

I now have a very NT husband and apparently my more autistic behaviours are very obvious to him!

sounds like you haven’t noticed things with your DD because it was a normal way of being for you! I don’t think it’s a bad thing for you though- you can tread the path together.