Semantic Pragmatic

[jenk1]

Today DS Psych came to see him and he stayed for a couple of hours and we got around to talking about me and my dx (AS) and i said to him that i was thinking that i was possibly not AS and that i was HFA, he said that from meeting me 4 times and talking and emailing he thinks that i have semantic pragmatic but that i have symptoms of AS as well but that he would put me under the umbrella of AS.

I dont really know anything about Semantic Pragmatic and what ive read on the internet i dont really understand, but i feel really teary this afternoon and i dont know WHY
He also said that i have a lot of anger in me and that maybe i should think about getting some therapy for it either through the NHS or he can do it.
I would prefer for him to do it as he is brill and knows everything there is to know about ASD.

So you mums of children with Semantic Pragmatic please can you tell me what it is etc if you dont mind!!!

Hi there I have a son with semantic pragmatic communication disorder he is 15 ,there were questions about his diagnosis and it was double checked to see if he had AS but no definately semantic pragmatic ,he struggles with day to day language ,sometimes he calls he shes and totaly forgets the names of stuff he cannot deal with long instructions and finds it hard to hold a conversation with his peers , he is a loner struggles with anything abstract as it says he struggles with the semantics and pragmatics of language anything else i can help with dont know how much detail you wanted me to go into ?

Thanks for that Dee31, i just wanted to know what being semantic pragmatic entails and you have provided the answer.

Very good article here on spd jenk spdinfo

I am surprised that an adult would be dx with spd tbh. Spd is an asd and I think they are trying to phase out that dx and just say asd.

My own dd was originally dx with this but tbh it is almost identical to Aspergers anyway!

thats exactly what the psych was saying BH, that i have sematic pragmatic but that i have the other symptoms that make up AS and that if i had gone to him to be dx,d he would have dx.d me as AS as he cant really dx an adult as SPD.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

OMg you have just diagnosed my son.
I have just read that link and am in tears. Ds is coming up 6 and as yet has no Dx.

when he was first seen by an Ed Psych she thought he may have had AS but as he grew older he began to understand emotion, would point, reasonable eye contact etc. so this was ruled out.

we have always considered that he is on the Autistic spectrum somewhere...of the milder end...but no one has ever been able to give us a definition that actually fits properly.

That link could have been written about DS. it is him to a T.
it ebven picks up on things that i have notices but find really difficult to explain to the proffessionals...like the fact that he [lays in an apparantly creative way but in actual fact he is just opying what he has seen other people doing or from the TV.

And the copying adultlanguage is spot on. he sometmes speaks with an accent (family used to make fun by saying i musthave had some foreign lovers at home ) but no one until now could explain why this was.....i thought maybe verbal dyspraxia??

i cannot wait until his next appointment with the consultant. i have printed that off and will be taking it with me.

Thank you

wow, thanks BH i have just read that link and that is me.
I memorise routes, eg when we went on holiday to Torquay this year despite having not been there since i was 10 i knew the way and didnt refer to maps, (DH has always thought this weird but i have always thought that its weird that people dont remember routes like i do)
Hyperlexia-i can read a book extremely fast but not always understand what its going on about.
I have always had trouble with making my handwriting neat and creative writing- i used to "borrow" stories from authors as i just couldnt do it at school.
I could go on and on but dont want to bore you!!!

My dd is spd to a T too. As the cp who dx'd dd this year said that almost every child dx with that goes on to get an AS dx.

I am going to find you another really interesting article about autism, Aspergers and spd and how they cross.

The article is here

This sounds very much like my dd2 but she does play games with dd1 (usually based on tv/books) she has trouble in large groups (was fine at playschool as there was only 12 max and usually less) , hosp/salt/school want to see how she gets on in reception.
She has a fantastic memory for routes and has been anxious when we have been to a new place or she has forgotten the route somewhere.
I have thought in the past she was AS (have thought at times I am too) but it never quite clicks.
Have saved that link for future reference.

I read incredibly fast too, missed that bit before.looking back on me at primary school now, I was on my own a lot, and I never remember feeling alone,Dd2 is certainly more sociable but there is just something that doesn't quite click into place and is mainly in large groups or busy noisy places.She also is getting better as she gets older.

hope this isn't too much of a hijack, but is there a milder version of semantic pragmatic disorder? The social aspects described in that article sound like me as a child, but I didn't have any specific speech/language problems, just a general oddness and lack of fluency I think. And I've got lost plenty of times .

I've ended up having to study people quite carefully to learn the "right" way to act socially, which phrases to use when etc, and I find being in a group of more than three or four a real strain. Surely this isn't normal??

Sounds like DS1 too! Especially the developmental part - he really is getting better at all the things he finds hard as he gets older. Always has done really - so since he was a very small child he has always ended up at the lower end of the 'normal' range for gross/fine motor skills (and I suspect for social/play skills as well). He's just scored very highly in a formal language assessment our SALT did with him - came out as 2-3 years above his age (5) in some things. It puzzled me because it wasn't what I expected at all- it doesn't reflect the difficulties he has in retelling an event, in commenting on the 'underlying' meanings in a story or in taking the listener into account when he's talking.

Interesting - we're having him assessed by an OT for possible dyspraxia but I'll definitely book mark this link. The suggestions on 'how to help' are really useful for DS1, whether he's got SPD or not!