Traits in DD6 - ND, autism, ADHD, dyslexia/ dyspraxia or something else?

[Leopardpj]

Hi all, really looking for some assistance with my DD, age 6 who I am starting to suspect is ND in some way but it seems such an unclear picture. Would love to know if anyone has experienced similar/ can offer any advice.

I am planning to go to the school for help but a) I don't know what condition I'm asking about, if any and b) I am convinced that because she is so well behaved, compliant etc in school, they will say there is no issue. Also, academically, she is meeting the average standard at school so they feel she is doing fine (and obviously, when I've hinted tat I think she is really bright and should be doing better/ is definitely not meeting her full potential, I just sound like I'm deranged/ deluded/ think my child is cleverer than she is)

Here goes:

DD6 still has toddler-style 'meltdowns' at home, usually after school. I have always heard from teachers that her behaviour is very good at school - however at the end of the day, she is like a shaken-up coke bottle and can explode into tears/ tantrums. It's obvious during these moments that she is confused/ frightened but she will say repeatedly 'I can't calm down, I can't calm down' as she doesn't know how to manage her feelings.

If DD does have these tantrums in public she is very upset/ mortified by it so I can well imagine what an effort she is making to ensure it doesn't happen at school.

DD also has these sorts of tantrums if she has to attend birthday parties. She finds loud/ busy situations like these very overwhelming.

DD rarely feels enthusiastic about the idea of going to a birthday party especially in a noisy environment, and sometimes begs not to go.

Also seems to feel unusually anxious - compared to peers the same age - about starting new activities/ holiday clubs/ any new situations really.

DD finds loud noises very distressing- including hand dryers and motorbikes.

DD is really sensitive about things like her hair being in a ponytail- she hates her hair being washed or brushed but won't have it cut (which is so annoying!) I've recently told her that due to nits etc, she has to have a ponytail to school or have her hair cut so she has reluctantly agreed to the ponytail but it's a battle every morning.

At home, DD fidgets constantly. She has also recently started chewing her hair/ chewing blankets for comfort.

Doesn't sleep more than 9 hours most nights and struggles to settle/ get to sleep. She needs to do about an hour of drawing before she can go to sleep (she finds drawing very therapeutic/ calming).

Often struggles with eye contact. During the holidays when we would encounter other children, we noticed she would sometimes let/ encourage her sister (who is only three!) to talk on her behalf

DD feels anxious about unscheduled visitors to our house.

Finds change extremely difficult - has wept buckets over the fact we are having our kitchen renovated, for example, and when we sold our tatty old sofas.

While she does have friends, we have noticed that she tends to be submissive in those friendships and struggles to assert herself. She can become very infatuated by other girls especially older girls and struggles to understand boundaries like "she has to go home to her house now as it's time for her to see her own family" etc

Tends to 'mimic' the speech/ language patterns or behaviours of other children.

Can often be anxious and moody, she sometimes says she is feeling 'sick' with no obvious cause and I worry that what she is talking about is anxiety.

Bright, but is finding reading really difficult and struggling to progress with it at the speed of many of her friends. I have looked into this a bit and it feels to me that she lacks good "working memory" which slows her down in reading. For example, she got 40/40 in her year one phonics screening, so she knows the sounds - but she is incredibly slow at reading because by the time she gets to the end of a word she is sounding out, she has forgotten the first sound she sounded. This is why, in my opinion, she can't seem to progress with her reading fluency. The same thing happens with sums, she struggles to keep a number in her head. I understand this is to do with 'working memory' which is part of executive function in the brain and issues with this can be linked to ASD and also ADHD?

Is still reversing numbers and letters and doing 'mirror writing' on occasion.

Is quite clumsy and struggles with balance - attempts to learn to ride a bike have been unsuccessful and she also struggles with swimming compared to other six year olds.

Is very artistic and her main interest is drawing - especially designing clothes - and she will do this for hours on end to a high level, she prefers this to all other activities.

Sorry for the hugely long post. Any advice hugely appreciated. I so want to help my DD xx

Your daughter sounds very much like my son.

We changed his school after Year 1 due to the lack of support. He now has a diagnosis of dyslexia, which we self funded after lockdown and his school have asked us to arrange to have him assessed by a speech and language therapist. He's now in Year 6 and thriving in maths and amazingly reading. I also think we should look into ADD.

What worked for him was when he returned home from school quiet time (of his choosing) to decompress, ear defenders in a bag for whenever we thought a place would be loud, no outside clubs apart from swimming and when he went to birthday parties no pressure to join in.

He's like a different child now - takes part in millions of activities of his choosing although he finds it difficult when he starts with new people, volunteers for roles in school and is proud of his achievements.

I'd suggest arranging a meeting with the class teacher and Sendco (I'm also a teacher and would happily meet with any parent), maybe explain what a typical day/week is like. If this doesn't work/help then speak to your GP. If you're on Facebook there should be local groups that should be able offer local advice.

Thank you so much for the reply @amibeth1 (sorry that my username has changed slightly something weird happening between phone and laptop!) I will definitely ask to speak to the school SENDCO as a first step. Can I ask you how you sent about self funding the process of getting him diagnosed with dyslexia? And can you tell me more about his struggles with reading? My daughter clearly has some sort of ‘block’ with it but she isn’t saying the classic things about letters jumping around etc.

For his assessment we went on the Patoss website ( it's the association for teachers of students with specific learning difficulties) and looked for a assessor within an hour for us. The school and ourselves filled in many questionnaires and the assessment took about four hours. The school wanted to know why we wanted the assessment and what our expectations would be afterwards- for you to help our child! The report gave suggestions on areas we could work on/ that our son found difficult. My husband was very surprised by the results and now is more able to support our son better (homework was a major issue but it has now improved slightly - we encourage him to type or voice record, have set days to complete and short bursts of spellings each day, he'll get most right in the test but then cannot remember them at a later date or common words such a said).

With his reading he found it difficult to remember sounds (took until Year 3 to pass the phonics screening check), when blending words that he knew the sounds of he would muddle the order, lots of reversal of d and b, g and a and other similar letters, including his brother's name, would sound out words such as ball, bag, bench etc and they all would be bat because that was a b word he knew. What has helped him is any books he's been learning about at school to get an audio version for at home and to try to listen to it with him, reading to him all and every book that he wanted to, discussing class topics and watching clips on them so he'd be more confident joining in with class discussions and there's a publisher called Barrington Stoke who specialises in books for children with dyslexia (the fonts and are low demand high interest).

He also didn't say the letters moved around and his assessment said that he had a poor working memory.
If you suspect ADHD or ASD you maybe better off finding an educational psychologist to assess as they can assess a cross a broader field than for example a dyslexia assessor and provide recommendations too.