Querying Aspergers... anyone share there stories of traits etc

[Darklava09]

Hi all,

My DS is almost 7. I queried a few years ago if he may have possible ASD but never pursued it.

However, last year he changed schools who noticed he was struggling and they referred to the OT who diagnosed low muscle tone in the upper body, hypermobile fingers and low self esteem.

Anyways he was dicharged after some therapy. So now the school have raised some concerns again saying he is falling behind. He struggles with writing- cannot do finger spaces, letter formation and then remembering where to place everything. They also said he lacks self esteem and confidence in class. They are taking him out for some intervention and he has had 2 terms of get moving for his mobility with little impact.
They also said socially and emotionally he struggles. He is polite and well mannered but I have issues with him and other children his age. He is so literal and struggles to understand jokes, he internalises nasty comments and gets very worked up about them, he doesn’t like children to touch his stuff if they play with them wrong, mix characters up etc.

He can come across as abit controlling as he is very intelligent so he will correct both adults and children.

The GP referred to paeds and also queried dyspraxia to me. Which makes sense as he is always falling over or bumping into things. I get 1-2 accident slips a week from school. The school are going to do observations and are willing to look into the ed psych. I know ed psych is hard to get so surely they must feel it’s justified.

I have no issues with behaviour, sleep, eye contact but we have all the sensory issues taste, touch, smells, sounds.

Sorry for the essay but any advice or can share similar experiences.

Sorry, it's not clear what you're asking, is it about the diagnostic process itself, or what conditions your son may have?

If it's the name of the conditions he may have according to the traits you've described, let the professionals unpick that It's common for a lot of the traits of several conditions to overlap and it's also common for people to have several of those conditions co-exist.

Sounds as though school are really on the ball and you're already under a Paed and Ed Psych so your son should be properly assessed.

Does this help?
the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

I think maybe both. How many appointment do people have usually with the paediatrician and what sort of observations would they do.

There isn't a single system, no single process to go through from start to finish. It depends on the area you live in, as well as if there's support from school, whether the child has a very straightforward presentation of one condition or a mixture of several, child's age, how many professionals are involved, often it's Paed, Ed Psych, SLT and often SensoryOT (although a lot of areas no longer have any Sensory OT). then after they've individually done their assessments, they all get together and have a discussion and decide on a diagnosis which can include more than one condition.

Their report will give you their conclusions and recommendations for interventions at school and home.

From memory, assessments vary from observation in a clinic or in class, observation in the playground, 1 to 1 "fun" tasks for the child that are really diagnostic like drawing, writing, talking, listening, moving, sitting, balancing, tying knots, cutting shapes out with scissors, picking beads out of a jar, comparing shapes, choosing words to go with a picture, describing cartoon facial expressions, explaining a simple picture, answering questions about a story and a host of stuff along those lines as well as parental questionnaires. They are usually about birth through early development to starting school, so if you've not done that yet, try and remember as much as you can, or jot a few notes down about how any of his behaviour was possibly different to his peers and at what age.

Diagnostic services are overburdened as it is, so the waitlist between appointments can be months. Time from initial GP referral to diagnosis in many areas is 18 months to 2 years. The number of appointments and how many professionals are involved varies too.

Many parents are fobbed off at every turn, you may not realise but you are very fortunate to be in the position you are in with a helpful school and a helpful GP.