Does he have SN or is it just 'him'?

[neverputasockinatoaster]

Hi, I'm a newbie but I have been lurking for a while, mostly on AIBU but here as well.

I have a 6YO Ds and a 3 YO dd as well as an OH.
My 6Yo is puzzling/worrying me but its not new, he has doen since he was about 18 months old!
A bit of back ground.... the man I married comes from a family with a high incidence of ASD and my OH definitly displays a serious level of traits although he has no diagnosis. (he's lovely BTW but he has his 'ways') My father too displays a number of ASD traits. I work in education and have taught several children with a rainge of different ASD disorders. Being me I have done a lot of research into the way I can help my pupils to the best.
My son is lovely but there are times when I am frightened for him/me/us. He talked early and has always looked and sounded a lot older than he is which has often led to people expecting him to behave in a more mature way than he does/did.
Anyway, I am wondering if he has ASD traits or if it is down to bad parenting IYSWIM.

Where to start? he has a serious problem with authority... he does truely believe he is in charge and responds explosively when we reaquaint him with the reality of the world. He is rule driven.... and finds it hard to cope if a 'rule' is broken. He has amazing tantrums when life does not go his way. He seems to believe he has to 'collect' everything in a set eg he likes Thomas and has recently become obsessed with the duplo sets which he seems to think he needs! He is very immature for his age too. He also makes no connection between his behaviour and what happens next... he doesn't respond to the threat of a sanction and seems genuinely at a loss if the sanction is carried through.
However he is loving and caring, he has a high level of communication and will caht to all and sundry if allowed, he has a great imagination, he reads with amazing expression, he makes up stories and plays.....
Last week he frightened me in our supermarket when he hit and kicked me with such violence because I followed through with a threat.
In our house 'no' means 'no'. It always has and it always will but whenever I have sought help with him the same old speil about holding firm, he'll soon realise who is in charge.... is trotted out.
We did discover that he has a problem with low blood sugar as in when his blood sugar is low he responds with violence, aggression and irrationality... he can't sit still if he is on a low. However we keep his diet on an even keel and we are OK.
I really do think I've done something wrong and that if he ends up being a wife beater it will be my fault.
Does he seem ASD to you good people or is he just an unholy terror who needs a better and stronger mum than me?

does he have the three triads of impairment do you think? , you mentioned he has great imagination when playing so i dont know ,but if your worried what have school said they thinkc & and have you spoken to anyone about his low blood sugar level could this need further investigation?,without a lot more information its impossible to say as you know there could be many things causing his behaviour or it could be nothing had you thought about asking the GP for a referal to the child development clinic?a lot of children collect things this in itself can mean nothing but how obsessive they are about them is what makes this not so usual ie; my son used to spend 24/7 playing and collection pokemon cards and yu gi oh card drove me nuts but what makes it more obsession than just collecting is he would lay them on the floor and expect you to not move them for days on end and he would know if one was slightly moved at all (no hope of hoovering ) lol not that i mind thatso my only advice is you know him best so if your worried see your gp HTH

Thanks betty
The blood sugar thing has been looked at by our GP... it came about because he was almost excluded from the nursery he attended for behaviour. We kept a log of the incidents and they all seemed to happen near to a meal time so I talked to my GP and he looked into it. We saw a dietician and we devised a plan of snacks and meals that keep him stable most of the time. This does cause problems as he sometimes gets told his lunch isn't healthy as he has cheddars (high in fat) as the fat helps to keep his sugar levels stable. He can't eat children's yoghurts as they are stupidly high in sugar and he gets a spike in blood sugar followed by an epic 'crash'
The triad of impairments:
Social and Emotional: he has loads of friends and seems popular at school although he does adore one boy I cannot stand (but that's another issue!) Given warning he can handle unstructured time but he does love routine... that's why he does better at school than at nursery as his school has a very structured approach and he can work co operatively with others although he does like to be in charge!
Language and Communication: often has to check if we are joking.... 'you're teasing aren't you mummy?'
Flexibility of thought:Does struggle to cope with changes unless he is given plenty of warning, don't know about empathy, and not sure about generalisation
He seems full of rage soemtimes

When you say he has good imagination, is it original or is he just copying, for example, scenes from films?
For the record I have a very good and very vivid imagination, but I can not imagine myself to be another person. My imagination almost always follows the same lines, I can have the same daydreams, with the same plots for years.

Thanks zzzzz!
Now I look at it in black and white as it were it doesn't seem like classic ASD to me either.
You are right about our family mind set and he is frighteningly clever in some aspects ( reading and comprehension age is currently over 12) but so not clever in others.
I can see a link between what he eats and how he behaves as well as his levels of tiredness.
Today I took my dd to a party and when I got home ds presented me with a present he'd asked Oh to help him buy as I was 'the best mummy in the world'. OH said it all came from ds.
Thanks for all the advice. I shall be off to the GP over half term for some advice and take it from there.

bullet234

His play is based on stories that he knows ie characters he knows but he then puts them in new situations and he will mix characters together...
He loves the Gruffalo story and the other day retold it with his friends in rather than the mouse.
He loves the octonauts and will frequently make up new stories for them
HOWEVER.... if we play Kerwhizz in the car we have to play it 'right' and I'm always getting 'told off' for using the wrong pod mods in the wrong races!

He def could have ASD. You need a referral to a paed - if nothing else, to put your mind at rest.

But it is highly unlikely to be bad parenting. If it isn't ASD it is probably some other variation.....

As a parent you can't always tell. You need an expert to get a dx.....

I will confirm once and for all that it is not bad parenting - you obviously love your son and are doing your absolute best for him.

On the other stuff, what everyone else said ^ ask GP for a referral

The big red flag on this is that your asking.. And obviously trying to work out what the heck is going on.. That added go you have obviously worked with a lot of children so in theory you have a good idea of the scope of children and their behaviours.

You really would do well to pop to the gp... List your concerns, typical behaviours or take a diary of a typical week.. Including sleep and foods.

Also keep a STAR log ( I harp on about this.. But it is very good lol).. Google star behaviour log and a good explination should come up.. But basically your looking at ..Setting.. Trigger...Action and Response... Not only for bad moments.. But keep a few good ones as well... As you maybe able to see a pattern of what is going on.

neverputasock.. You could be describing my DS1 absolutely! I'm a teacher too, and I too blamed myself for years (well, sometimes myself, sometimes DH ).

My DS1 has a Dx of autism, but that's a bit misleading as in our camhs team they have a policy of diagnosing asd for ALL DCs on the spectrum and not specifying the type (asperger's or classic/kanners).

His ASD would probably be considered to be High Functioning or Aspergers, but he is atypical even of those. He, too, has alot of empathy and is very aware of how his actions will affect others (often using behaviours to 'manipulate' others). He has a fantastic imagination, which is based on a wide variety of sources (like most children, but not most children with ASD), but he can also be impossibly rigid in his play, for instance, he will only allow his Playmobil Pirates to be played with together with the objects that came in the same set. He has two or three Pirate themed Playmo sets, but he sets them up at a distance from each other and plays with each as a separate entity. Woe betide anyone who boards the ship with a pirate from the Captain's Table set! DS1 is also rageful and has often seemed to sink into depression (not what you want to see in a 7 year old! )

The clinical psych who headed the multi-disciplinary team was always a bit unsure of what the Dx should be. He would be certain of ASD on one visit, then certain it wasn't ASD the next. He is very experienced and well respected in the field, and his comment to me one day when I asked him what he thought the Dx should be (about a week before the 'official' Dx meeting) was "well, it beats the hell out of me!". In the end, we were given the ASD dx, but he has remained involved and interested.

18 months, two schools and a shed load of trouble later, he has finally come up with this . It might be useful to have a read. As it says, PDA is increasingly being recognised as being part of the spectrum. Unfortunately there are still many people who believe it is just an excuse for 'letting the DCs get away with it'. Since that is what most teachers I have come across think I'm asking them to do, I'm happy to show them a piece of paper that proves I'm not the only one who thinks this, but before you mention this Dx to a GP, you might want to look into general ASD things first and start from there. Many Gps have never heard of PDA.

I was just about to mention PDA . There's a fairly long current thread in SN about it here, I've not followed it all but I think there are some useful links.

My DS doesn't have it but it was suggested by an EP that he might, so I've read a bit about it.

My understanding is that there are very few places that will dx it; as amistillsexy says, many GPs haven't heard of it.

My CAHMS team have refused to fund an assessment, which would have to be at the ELizabeth Newson Centre in Nottingham, because of their 'blanket diagnosis' policy.

However, our Clinical Psych is going to push for this policy to be changed in the light of more recent research which is giving much more precise and accurate Dxs, along with more tailored advice and support packages. This is really necessary in the case of PDA, as the way the child needs to be dealt with is often totally counter to most advice for AS or Autism.

Meant to add that our GP has agreed to put our case before an 'extraordinary needs' team (or something like that!), who will look at the reasons for wanting the assessment and decide on each case onits own merits (and the amount of cash left in the pot, no doubt [unsure] ).