Nursery suggesting child has ASD traits

[Glitter2707]

Not sure I'm in the right place here - but I'm really struggling and after some support from people who may have been in a similar situation. My girl is 3.5 years old and started school nursery in Sep. She has always been described as quiet and liking her own company, but with no concerns. However, last week her keyworker approached me out of the blue saying she was concerned about some of her 'behaviours' - not sitting on carpet for register, wrapping herself up in the toy car mat (while laughing), not playing with others.
I was totally gobsmacked as I had not noticed any behaviours myself, she is a sociable, happy, laid back little girl who yes, does have tantrums when she can't have a chocolate biscuit, but forgets about it after a couple of minutes. She wraps herself up in a mat as a game - she used to play a similar game when she was younger. I am cross about lack of communication from the nursery and the fact they haven't helped her to play with the mat 'properly" rather than wrapping in it.
Her keyworker has asked if the school SENCo can come to observe her, which I have agreed to. I am stressing massively about this as I feel right in my judgement that she does not have ASD - I look at checklists and she ticks maybe one of the boxes on the long list! But then I beat myself up as my brain says 'well her keyworker works with lots of 3 year olds so she must be very different'. I am a primary school teacher myself so do have some expertise in SEN. Her speech is very good and she plays beautifully with her little sister. I feel very sad that they are seeking to label my girl or that they think she is naughty :-( any words of wisdom gratefully received! Thank you x

Sounds like they know more about how girls present than you do to be honest. They are not seeking to label your daughter.

No harm in having someone with more knowledge take a look. 3.5 year olds behave like 3.5 year olds. If she is NT she will outgrow such behaviours and whatever issue they are seeing will go away.

DS is going through the assessment process with CAMHS (which is the route in our area for older children) and it has been clearly emphasised that we can withdraw at any time. I honestly think your DD has nothing to lose, and potentially a lot to gain, by following it up. It might cost you a few sleepless nights, is all.

Hi there - I'm in kind of a similar situation as my DD is also 3.5 and suspected ASC, despite excellent speech, no meltdowns, very loving to family and her baby brother (most of the time!), etc. However, she also tends to play alongside other children more than with them (just starting to play genuinely "with" more now at 3.5), or by herself, and had some other sensory traits in the past (little spells of walking on her heels, tensing her legs when excited, being very late to point and wave) and some "oddities" in her language development (reversing pronouns surprisingly late given how good the rest of her language was, and tending to use language to describe things rather than ask for her needs to be met - not a problem she has any more!!). These are things I would never have thought anything of, but our nanny picked up as worrying and seems to be pushing us towards an ASC diagnosis (ADOS due in Spring but we have been told to expect ASC). The thing they seem to pick up on in those assessments is DD's level of eye contact and engagement with the adult playing with her - which is far from zero, but less than they would expect. I think this kind of thing is incredibly hard to judge as a parent (especially given that your kids will always give you more eye contact and engagement than a stranger, so it's hard to notice unless you are an expert seeing children with these issues every day).

I know it's really hard and it feels like people are trying to put limits on your DD and who she can be, but the more I get used to the idea the more I feel that isn't the case. Your DD may well not be on the spectrum, but I think it's a really difficult thing to raise with parents and nobody would do it if they didn't really have concerns: so even if she doesn't have it, there may be things that she could do with help with (e.g. social skills) to help her fulfill all her potential (which in my view isn't any more or less than any other child). That's why I'm trying not to see our diagnosis in spring as a "zero/one" kind of thing ... everything we have learned about DD through this process suggests that she may find some things harder than her peers, and whether that gets a "label" or not we should do what we can to understand her and help her (and help her teachers do the same). I think of it like "parenting plus" - every parent has to do this, but with SEN it just becomes that bit more unconventional and important to really understand the particular needs of your child.

It is so easy to shoot the messenger when you don't see any signs of problems yourself (and honestly I still wouldn't have done, if my nanny hadn't raised it) but do bear in mind that as much as all ASC children are different girls are particularly different to the stereotypes. I think it's worth supporting this kind of investigation: even if nothing comes of it in the form of a diagnosis, you might learn some useful things about your DD and how she socialises that will help her as she gets older and socialising becomes more important to her and her peers?

Sorry, I meant to say, my DD also has a tendency not to join in. She will join in if asked, but it's not "natural" or "obvious" to her to do it. I always noticed at music classes etc. she would sing along less than the other children and be less keen to do the actions (despite knowing all the words and happily singing the songs at home), but like you I just thought she was shy (like I was as a child: but now I see I had quite a lot of ASC traits myself).