Possible Aspergers please help | Autism PDD

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Daniel never got asked to other's home when in school. He was looked at as a geak to others.

Parent's/kids are heartless these days.

We pulled our older dd out of soccer after 2 seasons. She was having
meltdowns & just not having fun on the field. Now, if you asked her about
it, she'd also appear to enjoy it. We decided it was not worth the crying
before each game. She is in gymnastics right now...just recreational. She
does okay...not too coordinated (thanks to me!) & at times is in her own
world. I have a feeling we will try swimming next, and she's had some
interest in piano. There's many alternatives for her & for your son--science
clubs, cooking classes, instruments, art, etc. I thought it would be great for
dd to learn about being on a team & all, but to be honest, I don't think she
learned really anything from it.My daughter is 6 and has apergers. Her apt was yesterday by dev ped.  I normally use postive reminders in public but not this time. I needed Dr.  to see her TRUE self.  I told her just be yourself. She went wild, as soon as she was in the private room. She was pacing, spinning in the stool and running in circles. Speech rep. 5 different phrases.  Interrupting me over/over (same question)when I told her adult are talking. Wow, I was a little blown back but nurse saw her first hand and the Dr. was already with papers when he came in the room.
I have spoken with a few people about an IEP and my school district will give it to him since he is having issues. I just wish he could be tested on science all day and we would score like mad. My husband says it is very upsetting watching his son on the field. Not because they are not winning but because our son looks so confused. (even w/ him being the coach he is having a hard time making him focus) He says he likes soccer however, Connor is a people pleaser. Always wants to be liked. We wanted to try a few seasons so we at least teach him to try something a few times before making the choice to not participate.

I would suggest this book for anyone with a possible AS/NLD child. It pinpoints the deficits clearly and is invaluable to getting an IEP that covers the bases. Especially, for a child who appears academically/verbally superior than peers.

http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Nonverbal-Learning-Disorder-As pergers/dp/1572245263/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-1486190-6973622?ie=UT F8&s=books&qid=1187906376&sr=8-2

My school system will NOT give my son and IEP because he is not a behavior problem and like Carter's Mom our school system relies heavily on tests (which he passes). Many times the tests are given by an adult with few if not one child at a time-and what ASD child does not like adult attention! Just to let you guys know, inferences (a major issue for our kids - very tough) are so used in the second grade level testing.

After reading many of your replies, I hate birthday parties, My son gets invited but he then plays alone away from the others or just does not get the "magician" that was hired. I get so sad seeing that my son is different. There is no typical communication either.

Micki, my son did t-ball this year. It is like funniest home videos, half the time he is out on the field flapping his hand in the sun shadow (but then again the other half of the kids are picking flowers!). He asked me when it starts again, I did not think he liked it. I will have him do it again this year instead of pitch-not ready for it. I told them he has autism so they will put him anywhere I request. Ask your child if he likes soccer. If he does let him do the same type of team again, he just might need more practice with the team. You talked about tennis, my son started skiing this year (don't know if you have it where you live) and loves it. Not all kids are team sports kids - my typical daughter 14 has never played a team sport.

Good luck to you all, I don't feel alone reading this site.

I agree w/ Fred with regard to the *need* for an evaluation. Our older dd
fits a lot of the AS criteria, has sensory issues, some inappropriate
behaviors, she wants to control the conversation & talks nonstop (about
unusual topics like politics--she is 6!). We noticed some minor issues
last year in 1/2 day kindergarten. She just began full day 1st grade. So
far, she is doing okay. But, she is spending a lot of time alone during
recess. I am on top of things, finding out about any friends & recess etc.
While most kids her age have had playdates, our dd has had zero. She
was invited to a couple of bday parties last year, but was left out of a few
(I HATE mean girls!!). Most importantly, she's not bothered it. Which,
makes me feel better on one hand, but on the other, this too fits more w/
AS. She often chooses to be an outcast.

Should issues arise, or some of her minor problems affect her more, then
we would seek out a dx & evaluation. If for nothing else but to help her
in school, should she need accomodations. For now, she is gifted &
quirky. What I have done, a lot of the things I was doing for our younger
dd, I've started w/ her sister. For school, I have a big schedule posted in
the hallway (so she knows what to do to get ready for school & for
bedtime), using more visual cues, giving her more time to get ready or
complete tasks, etc.

Connor had alot of sensory issues and still does. Not as bad however they come up here and there. He does not engage alot of conversation unless it is about something he needs/wants or a discovery channel show or where's waldo book. He asks to play with friends on the block however, he only plays with kidergarden and 1st graders. He to was only invited to 1 b-day party last year. It seems that he has grown with certain topics of interest however, his play skills never matured past the age of 5. He talks one sided alot and we have noticed that when he does play with his friends he does not listen to them often.

We need the eval for school purposes. We live in a town that focuses on test scores ect. Connor has issues that are moderate enough to be pushed aside and these issues are the ones that will hinder in him the future. The key thing that we have noticed is that once again as his social interactions become more complex he is starting to seem more lost.

 

 

We go to the Univ. of Iowa Med center for our 7 yr old on Tuesday. We have him lined up to see ped pysch for 2 hours, OT, Audiation, and Education specialist. Hopefully we can see if they can help and get us on an IEP with school. His anxiety with school starting has increased. Soccer this year is not going well and my husband is even coaching this year. He says the grass confuses him??? We think there is to many rules and to much going on the field. Maybe team sports are not his thing yet. He really enjoys tennis and does well at it. However, that is a one one one sport. 2.5 is really young to be dx'd with asperger's. The delays are more subtle
than in classic autism, and sometimes aren't even really outside the
bounds of normal development until 3 years old. (for instance, some
normal 2.5 year olds are still playing side by side or independently--
hardly any NT 3 yr olds aren't engaging with other kids)

I think it's important to have your child evaluated, especially since he has
an ASD sibling. My son has made so much progress in his pre-school
setting, and the services he receives are helping to insure his success
later. Many kids with asperger's don't have obviuos behavior problems,
but many have the sensory and processing problems that will make
school difficult for them. Even a high IQ can only 'cover' for these issues
for so long.

at 2.5, I think your best bet is to get the necessary supports in place.
There is no way to know if your son is going to grow up to be one of the
more sub-clinical cases with just a few traits, but no serious impairments
or have serious difficulties.

My child was first referred at 2.5, properly dx'd at 3, and given a firmer
dx of asperger's only this year. (at 4.5) he had no speech delay, just odd
use of pragmatics at times, and didn't really show his pretty extreme
social and gross motor skills delays until almost 3. He has "full-blown"
SIDS, and does not play with his peers at all. (just to compare notes..)My ds was diagnosed the week of his 7th birthday. (8 month ago). He has
started to say things like 'I think I am very different from other kids'.Most
kids will know that they are different in some ways and I think it is
important to tell them the truth so they do not think it is something bad. I
have been telling my ds that his brain learns things a little different from
most kids and that he is smart and some things that are hard for other
kids will be easy for him and some things that are easy for other kids will
be harder for him. He is happy with that for no but I will introduce the A
word in the next few weeks.
It is important to me that he learns to advocate for himself ( I actually just
wrote a letter to the resource room about that because I want that in
some form in his IEP). I also found this wonderful woman who does
presentations to classes about autism and since there are several kids
with it in his school we are working to have her meet with the staff and
students. Very exciting!! There are also some great books for kids with
aspergers written by kids with AS:

'Freaks , geeks and asperger syndrome' by Luke Jackson
'Asperger Syndrome the universe and everything' by kenneth Hall
'Autism and me' by Rory Hoy (A short film on dvd made by him)
'what autism means to me' by Caspian Banki

And there are two kid fiction books by kathy hoopmann about an
asperger kid
'The blue bottle mystery - an asperger adventure'
'Of mice and aliens' - an asperger adventuremicki39333.3045138889

I guess im backwards we started off with a Dx of AS ,with our local pede but got a PDD dx From a Dev pede ,a Two years later.

I say he has Autism,and leave it at that

Linda

My son sounds so much like parts of all the children described. I just found out that without my knowledge my Autistic Disorder-Mild, Anxiety state son now has a label of Aspergers. I was told by my Neutrodevelopmental Physchol. Pediatric Dr. that she wanted to test him for it in Dec. and now it is being put on his chart for the psychologists that deal with giving us a TSS helper for him.

I am so crushed........I dealt with sensory integration and then being PDD-NOS, and more recently Autistic Disorder. I am so fearful of Aspergers and the thought of my son not having friends. My fears are also based on the fact that I have not researched it very much but I was told by the director of our agency that I could get more help for my son with the diagnosis.

Aspy Mom's and dad's I look forward to hearing what your input is to the writer of the forum topic too.

I have heard that it is not uncommon for kid to be dx'd with Asperger's when they are older.  Because Aspie's speak on time, and tend to have above average intelligence, the issues sometimes don't come to light until the kids are in school full time.

A friend of mine just got an Asperger's dx a few weeks ago and her son is 6 1/2.  She had him tested when he was younger but they told her that he seemed normal other than he was very gifted and some of the quirks she was observing were a function of him being so highly intelligent.  However, it all fell apart this year at the end of kindergarten (behavior issues, sensory defensiveness, social issues) so they did the evaluation privately this summer and are now getting an IEP in place for fall.

I think there are some great books and social stories out there to talk to your child about Asperger's.  I've seen posts on this in the past.  I'm guessing someone else that has went through it will post the links.

When we were going through this with my older son, I was told kids with AS typically weren't diagnosed until around 5-7 years of age.  My oldest son was not evaluated until the end of Kindergarten.  My nephew's best friend wasn't diagnosed until he was in 1st grade. 

Two separate friends of mine have sons who are each turning 9 in a month. Both just got diagnoses of Asperger's for their children within the last month.

I don't know how much I would tell him at this age - for one good reason - because you don't know if he has it yet. The fact that he is socializing is a positive sign, though! Maybe you could just say that you are going for a screening to see how well he does certain things? Which isn't a lie - that is exactly what they are doing!

Well as we further researched our 2 yr olds issues we noticed that all the issues my older son had when he was 2-5 were signs of autism. he is much better however still extremly sensitive! He also is repetitive with language. Plays with only the 5 yr olds on the block and has not made a huge connection with just one kid that he can call his Best Friend! We have him scheduled for a review with a dr. this friday to see if Aspergers is what he might have!

Has anyone had to deal with this at such an older age and what did you tell him so he would not think he was different? We want to make sure that he will be ok when we take him for the eval.

 

 

My son has issues talking to people and starting out conversations with hi, instead he starts it out with my fish died or something else that happened to him that day. He also gets so anxious that we have to pull him aside and talk with him. His 1st grade teacher said to us about 2 months after class started  that something was just not right. I have always been a full time working mom until this year and now that I have spent the summer with him the truth is coming out.

We use to have to cut out the tags in his shirts until he was 5, he use to line cars up all the time, if a child walked next to him he cried because he thought they hit him. (speech and OT helped out in this department) If he gets injured we hear about it for days. We have noticed that as his social situations get more complex he gets more stressed. We are mainly doing this because we need to make sure this is what it is and not some other underlying issue.

I to thought that all Aspergers kids were brainiacs however, from what I have read and have been told that is not the case. Most have a favorite subject they excell in. My sons is science. He looks at Waldo books and plays legos all the time if we do not have him working on something else.

 

My son has traits - and he had lots of the red flag behaviors as toddler.  Currently, he had a successful run in first grade and had a few pals and no social problems according to the teacher, and even got notes sent home a few times for goofing around out of turn with other kids, so it appears that socially he's doing ok at the moment.  He enjoys other people and enjoys school and summer camp.  His language is fine, though he can be literal minded, though he is only seven, so I don't expect a Steven Wright level of irony from him.  My opinion on this is that if he's not being impacted by his quirks, don't bother with the evaluation. 

If you have reason to believe that he's being impacted by his traits (i.e. language problems getting in the way of him learning, sensory problems getting in the way of his learning, social problems making him dread school, etc.) then I might pursue and IEP (and neccessarily an evaluation) - but if he's doing fine and happy, why bother?  Lots of kids have quirks, but quirks do not become a disorder until there is a qualitative 'impairment' - in the absence of a true impairment, quirks are just quirks, and we need people with quirks to make life interesting.  There's appears to be a genetic component to most cases of autism, and it's apparently not uncommon to find traits of the 'Broader Autistic Phenotype' in relatives of autistic people - these are autistic like traits that do not impact the person in a negative way so do not rise to the level of a disorder.  It's definitely true in my family, so I just consider my son (and myself and his mother for that matter) to be part of the BAP, and try not to worry about it. 

fred39301.3211458333My son was diagnosed just after turning 7, and we just said that he has a smart and special brain that the experts were interested in.  He seemed to accept that without questioning, but each kid is different.  Later when he got an EEG and MRI we called it "happy brain day" and he got candles on his breakfast, prizes for cooperating, dinner at McDonalds...question for those of you who had older kids that were dx's as Aspies in early grade school - were the kids in question having actual, real problems in their day to day functioning that caused the parents to pursue these evaluations or was it more a preemptery move (they noticed that the kid was a little different and wanted to get him help sooner rather than wait for problems to show up)?

Fred,  we have a 13 year old BAP.  Major red flags as a toddler.  Sensory issues continued throughout 2nd grade.  Social issues were so apparent that I kept him back in kindergarden.

He is now 13, plays baseball and football and has several good friends.  He is a first to second honors student with highest grades in math and social studies. 

He has a great personality and is extremely funny.  He is a wonderful guy who provides my younger ones with hours of crazy entertainment.

He has no problems in his daily functioning.  Therefore, I have not had any reason to have him evaluated. 

YepperBepper39301.3414236111My cousin's son just got diagnosed last year at 12 years old..always been in gifted program and behaviorally he is pretty good..under age 7 he got labels of ODD, ADHD and dyslexia, speech delays....some sensory issues too but mom never had him evaluated for ASD. The school noticed he had no peer relations and had him evaluated for aspergers..he is:) I knew for years & mom felt so too but he was already getting help with these issues so she never got a diagnoses. I just had him for 3 days and noticed he doesnt have conversations and seems to be hyperfocused on gameboy, Wii, playstation..ect. and tunes out for hours if you let him..His language is very stoic and choppy for a 12 year old and doesnt match his intellence..much more immature than his peers.  The school is going to start speech again and pull out for social skills with others like him.  He is very literal minded too..hard to follow movies without us explaining certain scenes..

We first noticed with Daniel something was different at 4 months. He is 11 and still no asd dx but I believe the dr.'s are both wrong in our case. He has been in st/si therapy since age 1 cause of loss of speech then. He was sensory defensive then also. To touchy now. He  hated normal play in toddler hood. He had ot but not anymore scores to high now. Low muscle tone in upper body. Me also!

We wanted early help so he could do better in home/school/life.

Daniel's eeg at 5 showed  a intertmintent slowing in his left side posterial area.

My understand is asd people tend to think literally. I bet both of us parent's may have a form of asd and even maybe paternal gm also.


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