My DD is 4.2 years old. I have posted about her before, but wondered if I could have the collective wisdom of Mumsnet special needs as I just can?t shake the feeling that she might have ASD.
She has been seen by a wide variety of professionals and at the moment she has a ?diagnosis? of Speech and language disorder, moderate learning difficulties and hypermobility. She has since been seen by an OT who says her play is very much behind where it should be and she has motor planning problems.
She was seen by an EP last June who heavily hinted that she thought she was on the spectrum and referred her to the social and communication team. She was then seen by SALT (both NHS and private) and they both laughed at this idea as she is ?too communicative? to be ASD and the referral was cancelled.
A different EP is due to see her soon in nursery and we are hoping she will refer her to the SEN team for a statutory assessment. So that is where we are with her. No one really wants to talk about ASD. I get the impression that it is not clear cut and they are not going to diagnose a child at 4.2 unless it is obvious.
So if I describe what she is like could people please give me their thoughts? I honestly trust what you guys say more than a professional.
As a baby she was very hard to engage with. She didn?t socially smile at all and would stare at me and others blankly. However she loves touch and we could interact with lots of physical play and she has always been very cuddly.
She has always slept badly. We have periods where she will sleep through the night every night, and then we have times where she wakes up and is awake for ages.
She is sensory seeking. Still puts everything in her mouth. Sand being one of her favourites. She fills her mouth with food. She still loves cuddling and rough play and being swung around.
She has very poor motor planning skills. Can do a simple two piece puzzle, but that is all. She does like playing with her train track and will make one with support, but will then destroy it. Holds pen in fist grip. Runs badly (although getting better). Cannot yet hop or jump.
Her speech is behind and she seems to still be very ?scripted?. This is getting better with SALT, but she seems to need to ?learn? all speech rather than acquiring it. So we are learning to understand ?why? at the moment (in SALT therapy). We look at a picture and say the boy is sad (or whatever) and then we say why is the boy sad DD? (show her another picture) And then we prompt with ?because??.. Then in normal conversation I need to do the ?because? thing to get her to answer why.
She says sorry, thank you, I love you. So for example I say ?I love you? and she says ?I love you too?. This morning she was hugging me and said ?I love you too?. But she should have said ?I love you? because I hadn?t said it first. She says sorry all the time, but I am not convinced it has meaning.
She is lovely and happy and ?sociable?, but it is very shallow. She won?t initiate with children, but she loves being in their space and loves nursery etc. So people say she is communicative, but it is like a little script which she follows. The EP said she enjoyed people?s reactions to her more than enjoying the people themselves. But she does genuinely enjoy people and will run up to someone to give them a cuddle and hold their hand etc (this is adults not children).
Finally ? she can be very screechy and floppy and it can be very hard to get her to comply with anything. She will do something if she wants to, but not if she doesn?t. She won?t do stuff to please others as other children do.
Oh yes ? one more thing. She isn?t set in a routine; however I also know that there are things that will set her off. So she should take her book to get changed at nursery on Friday?s. I told her Friday morning to pick up her book and she said no (getting quite distressed), I tried to gently persuade her, but she didn?t want to and I know there is no point in trying to convince her and she would get very upset if I had taken the book in. This morning however we took the book happily in as today she decided to change it.
She also gets very distressed if things are given to the ?wrong? people or if someone takes something from our house.
So ? does anyone have any input? I guess I just want to know if I should just forget ASD or if I should keep it in the back of my mind as something which might be diagnosed at a later date?