ADHD or ASD? Any advice please.

[Alittleloopy]

Hi everyone.

I recently have read several articles about ADHD/ADD and have surprisingly found that a lot of those symptoms ring true with my DD(4). The thing is we have suspected for a while now that dd has asd, so I didn't even consider ADHD. I think this stems back from when the health visitor saw my dd and asked the question "does your dd sleep well?" and she does and her response was that virtually no child with ADHD has a good sleeping pattern. Is this true?

Her problems are as follows(many of you will have read this bit before though)

Can be very restless, overexcited(sometimes), lack of attention, rather behind in her speech and understanding, behind with writing etc, can get very distressed at small things, still has rather large tantrums and can sometimes take a long time to settle down. Sometimes almost showing signs of split personality.

The plus sides are that she can be very loving and very adaptable and like I said before, she sleeps very well.

This is the first time I have really considered anything other than possibly being on the autistic spectrum, but the more research I do I realise she only ticks a few of the boxes.

Can anybody shed some light? Thanks for reading. :)

There are so many overlaps eith all these things tbh you need a developmental paed to help unravel the key issues. She sounds a lot like my DS who has a diagnosis finally of dyspraxia with ASD traits. He too is excitable and often distractable. he gets terribly upset by seemingly minor things but is flexible, adaptable and very loving with no eye contact problems. He too sleeps very well and always has. He also has verbal dyspraxia so is behind in speech/language although receptive language has not been a problem. But I do think an ASD diagnosis is appropriate for him.
Its often impossible to unpick the complexities of these children and as I said a developmental paed was essential for us.
HTH

ADHD presents itself with not necessarily just hyperactivity .. you can have the inattentive kind, but not be 'hyper' (more common in girls I was informed by paed). ADHD also has levels of a dx ie: mild, moderate or severe. My ds has a dx of mild/moderate ADHD. The questionnaires and assessments do cover ASD traits, but ds came out virtually non-existent in that area. There are social implication to ADHD as children can be 'in your face', over enthusiastic and lack personal space awareness. They can also be very loud, which can be intimidating to other children - usually in inappropriate situations . The paed discussed the 'over laps' and as ds had no repetitive behaviours, no obsessions, made 2-way conversation at ease, appropriate eye contact, socially aware and active, had friends, no sensory issues eg: with food, clothing or noise, never had melt downs and was compliable to quick change (takes breath) he did not fit that dx criteria. She also pointed out that 'the spectrum' alone may be the reason for a child's inattention and liveliness and not deserve a separate dx of ADHD. She was very anti adding labels when the behaviours may come under the one umbrella iyswim. We were also told that it was a developmental disorder and would change in how it presented itself over time ie: the hyperactivity will lessen (thank god!!) That was a bit of a ramble, hope I explained myself properly

one of the things you mention is sleep pattern unfortunately a lot of children with ASD have massive sleep problems , but most of the other things youve mentioned overlap so only person who can really help will be child development paed, oddgirls right good luck with your dx

Thanks for everyones replies.

I do realise that I am going to have to go through the paed route if school raise more concerns. So far she's been there a month and i've had a few concerns jotted down in her home/school book such as irratating other children at story time and a few tantrums, but I have not been pulled to one side since the first day. I'm not really sure what this means. I know that she's behind academically, but I have no idea how much. I'm pretty sure if I ask they will just say that at this stage they are more interested in their social skills etc, as it's still more of a nursery environment than a full on school environment.

I have to admit this last week I have noticed some real changes in her and they're no positive ones. I think I just assumed that with age things would improve. Rather dizzy mother of me I suppose.

She comes home from school happy, but when I ask her who she's played with today she always answers the same "NOBODY!!"Today she went on to say that "nobody liked her, nobody wanted her and she has no friends". She said it with a almost put on sad voice, but the saddest part or most concerning part was, I don't think she's that bothered. I had to really fight back the tears when she said that.

Also her tantrums seemed to have come back, but they've changed. She is becoming more irratating at very small things and is genuinely upset that I can't understand why I don't see them as big. She's also started hitting again, which is a big worry. I can only assume that she isn't doing this at school. Nothing has been written in her home/school book all week. Not sure how I should take that. I hope they're not just waiting til tomorrow to unload it all.

Sorry to have gone on. Any more advice or experiences would be really appreciated.

Thanks again.