Hi there - my DS is currently being screened for ADHD and ASD by CAHMS but we’ve been told that it’s unlikely that he has enough traits to receive a formal diagnosis for either condition. All of the professionals (senco, clinical psychologists, educational psychologists) are completely baffled by him. A frequent comment is that he’s ‘all over the place’ and that they’ve never met a child like him before (this obviously isn’t very helpful or reassuring for us :-/ !). He is 6yrs old and on year 1 at primary school.
In short, my son presents as NT in non-school settings. He has several friends that he’s known since he was a baby and we have regular play dates with them at weekends and during scjool holidays (they’re at different schools to him). He is very much the same as them in terms of being a ‘typical’ 6yr old. He’s a friendly and very social boy who isn’t argumentative or aggressive with his peers in the home setting. In the home setting, he’s also a keen learner who willingly does his homework plus extra educational exercises from KS1 workbooks etc. He does get giddy/hyper but this is on a par with his friends (they usually get very overexcited when they play together). He also doesn’t always listen to commands/instructions the first time, but again, this is nothing different to the childlike disobedience/stubbornness displayed by his friends.
In school, we’re hearing a totally different picture. He’s reluctant to do his schoolwork, has difficulties engaging with his peers and finds it difficult to focus/engage in class. He is often disruptive and challenging in class and the teachers find it difficult to manage him because he doesn’t respond to their reward systems. In terms of his feelings, he goes into school quite happily each morning and says that he likes his teachers. However, he does say that school/schoolwork is ‘boring’ but not to the extent that he’s distressed or a school refuser.
Despite all this, he has learned to read in the school setting and is now on the free reading programme in year 1. He has phonics classes with a year 2 class. However, besides reading/phonics, he’s not meeting his age related expectations for writing or maths because the teachers struggle to get him to do his school work. They’ve recently provided him with a 1:1 TA and he’s improved but he’s still displaying challenging behaviour. At home, he quite happily will do maths exercises but he is more reluctant to write even though he has a good grasp of grammar rules/concepts when he does write.
The boy that the teachers describe at school is so completely different to the boy that I know at home. We often tell him that it’s important to focus at school, be respectful to his teachers etc but this has no impact on his behaviour there. It’s almost as though he regresses into some sort of primal feral state when he crosses into his classroom door and then pings back into being our ‘normal’ boy again once he’s home.
We don’t understand what’s going on with him at school and neither do the teachers or psychologists. Anyone had any similar experiences???