Autism in a teenager?

[Boremance]

My daughter is 13 and has never been able to make friends. Right from nursery she has always spent her time by herself, rejecting friendship and becoming easily upset. She's now in secondary school and its the same but she's had other odd behaviour too like the tendancy to get REALLY obsessed with things. From when she could walk all the way up to being around 9 years old she was obsessed with Barney the Dinosaur but it wasn't obsessed like most kids get, it was true obsession. She would take the teddy EVERYWHERE with her, talk to it (even when she was 8 and 9) blame it for things, get upset if it got dropped, she would go on and on about it to people...in the end I took it off her and she became obsessed with the dreamcast console, talking to it, sat staring at it, laughing at it...rarely actually playing it properly, just "communicating" with it. This went on until she was about 11. Then we got burgled and it was stolen and she was physically sick with anquish over it, more than once she threw up.

Then she moved onto the crazy frog and would carry a teddy around with her, again talk to it, "Nurse" it, tell people it was looking at them, pretend to stroke people with it...the frightening thing is she is STILL on this obsessed at the age of 13 and would take the frog teddy to school if I let her. She doesn't seem to realise when she is boring people going on about it or when they're giving her funny looks...its like it doesn't register with her.

Anyway its come to a head now, she has always had another obsession with TV adverts, when she was around 5 she was obsessed with a norwich union advert and would sit with it being replayed over and over again for hours, just sat watching it, the same advert over and over again.

I thought she'd got out of that now but my other daughter has just found her youtube account and on it she has said that she enjoys watching the credits at the end of programs and she has actually videoed the credits going up the screen on our TV and put them on youtube ... ??? and then theres videos she's uploaded of production logos such as Dic etc... why would she do this??

She gets up at 4am just to watch Ben 10 and she has Cartoon Netwok posters on her walls etc...

My other daughter insists she has symptoms of autism?

Sorry, don't really have an answer,really just bumping as I'd be interested to see what people say. I think my dd1 has a mild form of Aspergers,she's intelligent, obessive,atm it's Harry potter and Dr Who. She knows everything about them, talks incessantly about them, is very emotional and I swear she has never told a lie in her life!

She does have symptoms of autism (ASD)- that doesn't mean she HAS ASD you understand, as its a complex diagnosis, but certainly she could be on the spectrum.

have a look on the website of the National Autistic Society, and search for the Triad of Impairments to see how she fits that- if she does, i would suggest seeing your GP and asking for a referral, beinga ware that it can tkae ages to get any answers whatsoever of course!

Also realise that its a wide spectrum- many poeple associate ASD with rainman and the like, most ASD kids are distinctly NOT like that at all, many are just a bit quirky and go on to have full, happy lives but can need helpa round things like obsessions to get there.