Paediatrician said some ASD traits but not a diagnosis

[MuddyMessyMuddle]

Not sure why it bothers me but I'd like to know if he has it or he doesn't!

My DS is nearly 6.

Some of his little ways:

-Turning lights on and off
-Opening and shutting doors
-Picking up things from the floor, especially stones, and getting attached to them, bringing them into the house, putting them in his bed.
-Talking about the same thing, usually gibberish, over and over again and you can't get him to change the subject.
-Being oversensitive to every little thing and getting very angry and aggressive.
-having little things he feels he must do, which often hold us up when we are trying to get somewhere, but he goes mad if you try to stop him.
-getting distracted in the middle of simple tasks so not being able to do the simplest thing you ask him to do.
-taking forever to eat anything, and then eating it with his fingers, pulling it apart, wiping it in his hair and over everything around him.
-Going mad if you give him a consequence for bad behaviour and not understanding that he did wrong, just wanting revenge on you for punishing him.
-failing to understand that if he does x, the consequence will be y, and still doing it.
-not being able to trust him not to run into the road or launch himself headfirst into a pond (just caught him in time the other day). Yet he isn't fearless, he is quite cautious when he is actually thinking about what he is doing.
-shouting all the time and you can't get him to stop.
-not much co-ordination, struggles with writing and drawing.
-likes to be left alone to play on his own and do his own thing and doesn't like anyone interfering in what he is doing.
-breaks things and doesn't understand that if you are rough with things they will break.

But he is also incredibly affectionate - the most affectionate child I've ever met, very loving, loves people, lots of eye contact, not at all shy. He doesn't do any of that lining things up and keeping things tidy - his room is a horrific state! These things seem to go against him having ASD.

His teachers asked us to take him to the paediatrician because they were finding him difficult to teach and have had the speech therapist involved with him and booked their person who comes in to look at children with ASD to see him (teacher only told me after we'd seen the paediatrician so they already suspected ASD but didn't want to tell me before).

I thought he was just 'a handful' at home til school asked me to take him to see someone.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?

Was it some ASD traits and no diagnosis, but we'll see him again? or just no diagnosis, bye?

Hi. Have you only just been to the paediatrician? Did they say they where going to do anymore tests? My ds has been said to have 'autistic traits' till he has neurodegenerate disorder ruled out as he was fine and regressed at the age of 3.

If ur just at the start of the process be patient... It takes years :(

The paediatrician said she will talk further with the school and see DS again, and that it could take a long time to diagnose anything and she needs to see him more than just once. I know this is obvious and what I should have expected yet I still feel frustrated.

Try not to get frustrated. It's such a long long process... My ds was sent to a paed in June last year and we still no further along. Except now he has funding for 1:1 in school and is going in for statementing. It's all a waiting (and fighting) game now

ah, yep that's how it goes I'm afraid...

It does often take years, the most useful way to look at it is that the paed is seeing something along the lines of ASD and what they want to do is to see if they can narrow it down to name it exactly, but what that name is is actually not so important in the grand scheme of things - what is important is that there's acknowledgment that there is an issue and that your son gets appropriate support

you don't need a diagnosis for that, even though it is frustrating for you

can when you see her next ask can she get the ball rolling sending to SLT, EP and do ADOS test on yr DS and yes all sounds very familiar this is their dx team not nec (depends where you live) the same ones school sent you too as my DS saw ones via school and ones at the child development clinic and had his ADOS done there too

It does feel a bit better to know that it is the norm for it to be like this, thank you.

Also, now that the school are 'thinking' about him, I may be able to get some good advice, eg they have a behaviour person who comes into the school who they suggested I could talk to, because I often feel unsure of the right way to handle him.

I feel a bit guilty that he is more work for his teacher than the other kids as eg. every few moments when she is talking to them all, she questions him on what she has said to make sure he is listening and hasn't just zoned out. They are working hard with him and being very good.

Don't feel bad it's their job ( I'm a teacher it's my job too) he won't be the first or the last with additional needs

He could easily get a dx in 6 months.

That's pretty much what my paed said to me - that he had some traits and he would see DS in 6 months. In 6 months he easily gave DS a dx.

Part of the dx criteria is that they exhibit these behaviours for a long time, so they have to see them 6 months apart....

The paed also got the EP and OT to assess him in the meantime.

For the moment the best thing to do is to assume he does have ASD and to start researching it, and finding out what does and doesn't help.....

Thank you all. We've just had an interesting incident. DD (7) was doing wool weaving with her kit and me and DS were 'helping'. DS for some reason got fixated on the idea that the last coloured stripe we must do has to be green because he wanted green to 'win', then he wouldn't give DD the green back. He couldn't understand that it wasn't anything to do with winning and losing, we were just making something. He couldn't let go of the idea that green must be last. Then he got into a temper and started sword fighting us with the wooden bits and pieces and broke one of them (then I had to remove him from the area). This doesn't strike me as being normal behaviour, but perhaps it is? I've only ever had one boy so I don't know.

No I wouldn't say that was normal behaviour for a 6 year old from my experience... Although the word normal is misleading. It's normal for him :) if he wanted green to win I would have let it win lol, who cares?

I have two DS with high functioning Asperger (AS). From what you say, it seems your DS has the problem with changes and rigid thinking which might be AS/ASD traits.
We had a very protracted 5 years dx process. The problems started at 5 yo but they could not figure out what was the problem until he turned 10. That?s because DS1 is very high functioning, affectionate, articulate etc. All this time his behavioural problems at home and at school were driving us mad up the wall. The thing is that for an AS child what does not look as an obvious problem at 6, is likely to become a big problem later, especially in secondary school. In the Juniour school the demands on his English, his writing, organisation, planning and social skills will increase dramatically.
So I would advise to encourage the school to look at his writing, imagination, organisation, walking in a team and especially social skills. Also how is he coping with sensory issues like a noisy crowds and assembly? If he has ASD, these would be the indicators.

So I would advise to encourage the school to look at his writing, imagination, organisation, walking in a team and espesially social skills, also how is he coping with sensory issues like a noisy crouds and assembly. If he has ASD, these would be the indicators.

If it turns out that he has ASD, you would want him to have a statement of special needs by the time he is 11, before the secondary school transfer. The dx and statement can take years.

Haha Hanaka88, I could have let green win, it just didn't seem fair to not let DD choose what order she wanted the colours to be in when it was her toy and her creation. After watching Baby Looney Tunes for a couple of mins DS came and cuddled me and said "You can have the green now". Then he tried to mend the thing he broke and it ended up in 3 pieces instead of 2 haha. I can't help finding him cute even if he is 'naughty'.

I don't think he does cope very well with lots of noise and people Lokovatoress. When I've taken him to nursery and to school since he has been older he has looked bewildered and dazed and seems to 'zone out' in order to deal with all the stimulation and I've felt worried about leaving him there.

I think you're right about things becoming a bigger problem as children get older because his ways have seemed worse to me as he has got older and I've expected him to grow out of them but he hasn't.

It's interesting that your DS is affectionate but has Aspergers as I used to think that anyone with AS was not affectionate. Two other people, and you, have told me this isn't necessarily true, from the way their children (with ASD) are.

Reading all this, I'm glad I listened to the school and got on with getting him seen if there are things he is going to need which are going to take so long to get organised!