Feeling worried about DD as she gets older

[PatsyCline]

Hi,

My eldest daughter (8) was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified). She has particular difficulties with noise and finds it hard to speak fluently when she feels pressured.

As she gets older the gap between her social skills and that of her peers seems to be widening. Unfortunately her best friend (who had similar problems) moved away and DD1 seems to be finding school increasingly hard. She often plays on her own (sometimes she is happy to do this, but often is not) and she finds the behaviour of some of her classmates really distracting. She ehrself is a great one for learning rules and sticking to them.

As a result of all the above she finds it hard to sleep and today she was so run down that I had to let her stay off school.

I feel really concerned that as she moves into larger schools her difficulties will any get worse. Does anyone have any experience/ideas to offer me?

Thanks in advance,

Patsy

have you read bullet's posts on the special needs 'i need inspiring' current thread? i found them quite comforting.

My own experience is of myself growing up - I feel that I am somewhere very close to the NT/AS border. I would suggest:-

1.encourage interests outside school - even better if they are sociable type ones - guides/ballet/drama whatever.

2.don't send her to a single sex high school - I found the jump from rough and tumble junior school to girly chat high school very hard.

Thank you luckylady .
PatsyCline, you could have been writing about me as a child in your OP. I'm Aspergers but what you described fitted me so well and still does to a large extent.
Are there any ASD groups aimed at children and teenagers your dd could join? I can recommend one up and coming place, started by a man quite famous in the autism spectrum world, called Thomas McKean. It is primarily aimed at adults, but there is a section for children and teenagers if your dd would be ok with that. If not, you could get some more help as well (besides this place). It's:
neurointegrity.com/forums/

Thanks everyone. I haven't been able to get on line tonight as I have had guests. I shall follow up on Bullet's threads tomorrow.

TC, my DD does lots of out of school activities now (I had thought they might be too much for her but her psych team recommended it)and I have seen her confidence grow tremendously over the past year. She loves piano, ballet, taekwando and Brownies.

Size of school is an issue. She went to a small village school for one year (it was closed down) and she still talks about how happy she was there. Her current school is relatively small but she will move to middle school in Year 5 and that's going to be a real challenge for her I think.

Thanks to all of you for responding so quickly.

Patsy

Bullet, your postings were enormously useful re my DD. So much of what you remember seems to be precisely what she has been trying to communicate to me.

I have called the health visitor today to see if we can get in touch with some local families in the same boat.

DD1 is such a wonderful girl and I just want her to be happy. I am now much more optimistic that she will be.

Patsy x