Hi, I’m hoping some other parents of ND teens can help. (Sorry in advance it’s so long)
My teenage son has a diagnosis of adhd (diagnosed age 7 and he takes medikinet). His school are having real problems with him at the moment and we are seeing some issue at home. School have asked if there is a possibility of autism and have sent home the forms for me to fill in to start the referral process.
So a bit about my lad.
He collects everything - rocks and animal figures when he was little, coins, football cards, pokemon cards, funko pops, and aside from the rocks and animal figures he pretty much adds to the rest of these collections fairly regularly. He takes them out orders them, tidies them up and puts them away again in order.
He struggles with lack of routine or if plans change. He needs to know what is happening each day, down to small details and gets upset if the bigger aspects of the day changes plans, he used to struggle with every aspect of the day ahead, but now can be a little more flexible with, for example, the time he cleans his teeth if someone else is in the bathroom, or the route to school if there are roadworks
He struggles with being on time, as in he gets upset if he’s late for anything. And he is also totally blind to how long things take (which I know is an adhd trait)
He doesn’t have friends at school, and most people would consider him to be “the annoying kid who has to be right”. His thinking is very black and white in that there is either right or wrong and no middle ground. And he definitely struggles with social cues to this aspect.
He does have empathy (and I
know many people with autism are empathetic, so I know this shouldn’t exclude a diagnosis, I just mention it here for context) and he does get inference as in sarcasm, but may not link it in written work, such as reading a book that says the day was stormy and grey and suited the man’s mood… he may not know that mean the man felt angry or sad. He does understand our feelings if I say someone I care about has died he will give us a hug and then within 5 minutes he forgets that and gets angry at us for something we have forgotten to tell him and then will scream/shout or bag his hands on the side in frustration.
At school he is struggling if a teacher asks him to do something like “go to the office” and another teacher approaches him in the corridor and says they will go for him and he is to go back to lesson, then it’s like he is totally conflicted as two people have given him information to do two different things and it’s like he gets stuck and then melts down.
He does get very anxious about things, but most of the time cannot tell us what is making him feel this way.
Just to add, he had speech and language therapy in nursery/primary school due to delayed speech sounds (as in was talking and having conversations but stick would have been said as dick, gog instead of frog, dau-jidge instead of sausage) but speech therapy helped correct that by about age 5/6. he also had issues around poo- holding until he was about 11, food issues that have now mostly been resolved (in fact now he will eat anything except baked beans and mushrooms), he will still ask for plain pasta with grated cheese on bad days. And he had melatonin to help him sleep from the ages of 7-13 (he actually still needs it but refuses to take it and insists he is sleeping, when I know he get 5-6 hours sleep a night.. but this could be an adhd trait also)
He also has a tic disorder diagnosis -mostly physical tics, (but could be stims) for as long as I can remember he has always smelled his food before eating and does have a jaw tic that has been consistent for many years, and not transient at all. - he opens his mouth and moves his chin as if realigning his jaw. This is regular throughout the day and he doesn’t realise he does it. Other tics have come and go such as punching the air above his head (lasted about 4 weeks) and foot rolling (again about 4 weeks). he went through a phase of repeating everything he heard too, but that only last a month or two and then hasn’t resurfaced.
Basically, what I want to know is…. From your experiences as parents of autistic children/teens, especially those with a combined diagnosis or autism/adhd, is this likely to be a co-morbid diagnosis or are these just adhd traits and in line with his current diagnosis?
AND if you read all this - thank you!