Normal 7 year old worries? | Autism PDD
After thinking about it for awhile, it reminded me of another series of incidents with my son. He would literally curse the sun if he didn't like the weather or because he couldn't accept that the sun said daytime when it was really nighttime (the summer sun sets in the middle of the night here).
For him, it was a CONTROL issue. So I was thinking that maybe your son is just as upset by the lack of control he has, as the injustice of the situations you described. He has no control over the moon and the neighbor's house, and they might somehow represent for him his general desire for more control over his environment (sensory stuff, etc.)
Just a thought.
It sounds to me like an anxiety issue, and something you might see in NT kids with anxiety.
My son doesn't seem to have much anxiety, but we did have a similar incident once on the way to school. He suddenly started obsessing about the Israelite babies getting killed (Moses story, he had seen the movie "Prince of Egypt"). I couldn't get him unstuck or get him to let go of those feelings and unfurrow his brow. It came totally out of the blue. He hadn't seen the movie for weeks. Luckily it went away after his school day started.
Good luck with everything.
So many times I really do not know what is typical of a seven year old andwhat falls under the asd category. My son is just my son and therefor all
he does is normal to me. In many cases it does not really matter if it is
typical or asd as long as it does not cause problems for him.
But here is an example of something that does cause him upset :
My son gets stuck on some 'injustices' (more so when tired). Reaccuring
topics are (delivered in tearful, upset voice):
"Why don't our neighbors paint their house - don't they know that it
brings our property value down if their house looks bad?"
"Why don't people care that the moon does not have an atmosphere and
is unprotected from comets. Don't they know that life on earth depends
on the moon?'
Now I think his topics of choice - property values and astrological
worries - are not the things most 7 year olds get upset and worried
about.(Or do they?) But do most seven year olds get worked up about
whatever and keep going on about it for thirty + minutes?
He started this about 1 year ago and in the beginning I kind of got a kick
out of the things he picked to worry about. (Really, I do not care if our
neighbors paint their house or not!). But it is really hard/almost
impossible to redirect him once he starts and he does get very very upset
about these things.
Do any of your kids (asd or nt) get upset like that? What do they worry
about? Interesting. Sounds like typical Asperger-type fears to me.
Have you tried just explaining to him why any of his concerns are not such a big deal?
In other words (just hypothetically) instead of saying "don't worry about the moon," explain that the comets and meteors that an atmosphere would provide protection from are much smaller than the moon and so they cannot do enough damage to the moon to remove it from our sky. And since nothing lives on the moon, the impacts won't be able to hurt anything alive.
Giving him details like that can fill in some of the gaps and holes he has in his information, that way he can be satisfied in not worrying so much about them. You might even show him, if you can find it, the average size of a meteor versus the diameter of the moon.
Worries like that are similar to phobias in that they sometimes form from bits of information that the child inadvertently sees or overhears and doesn't understand that he needs to take into consideration the context in which he heard it. For example, the deal about your neighbors painting their house may have arisen from him overhearing you (or someone else in the house), in a bad mood, gripe about how ugly the neighbors' house was and how it defaces your property. He may have sensed your distress at the situation and since it hasn't been resolved (i.e. the house hasn't been repainted), he may think that you are still that upset over it, not realizing that you got over it five minutes after you said it. People with autism often don't realize that people's emotions can swing drastically from moment to moment, so if they sense distress in someone they are close to, they will sometimes absorb the distress (empathize) and not be able to settle down about it until the perceived problem is fixed, because they do not realize that it is not an obsession for you the way it might be for them. If your son is Asperger's, he will be very logical, even as young as he is. You might be able to show him something on paper or come up with something to say that convinces him that you found out that the way the neighbor's house looks will not affect your property at all. You'll just have to be really convincing, because I'll be willing to bet that he'll be too smart (or at least too set in his beliefs) to change his view without some sort of convincing evidence.
I've had some unnatural concerns and worries throughout my lifetime, and most of the time they could be eliminated by seeing hard evidence that my worries were unfounded. Now, when that happens I will research whatever it is, so I will be able to see in writing whether or not what I fear is actually real.
Good luck.
I have a 13 and 9 yr old NT sons' and I can't ever remember them having worries like this...when they were younger they took things a lot more literal, for example one time my son saw a sign that said open 24 hours, and asked me what happens to the store after the 24 hours...but never got obsessed or worried about it, and was fine with my explanation of that meaning it's always open. He was about 4 when he did that.
So in my experience these types of things seem more ASD to me than NT.
Hope that helps.
ETA: I don't think either of them even know what property value is, lol.
My son is 7.5y and doesn't talk like that, He is dx'd with HFA. He does not have the worries like that---but he is dx'd with anxiety/ocd. He has a language delay--so he really doesn't "talk" much as in converstions. He would never bring anything like that up.
Off topic question----why did your son get the PDD-NOS dx just because of the speech delay and not HFA? This is why my son didn't get dx'd Aspergers--because of the language delay--but he is HFA.
I do have unnatural worries still, but I usually try to mske myself ignore them unless I see a good opportunity to investigate on one of them. If I can't ignore them, sometimes they make it very difficult to get business taken care of.BTW just because your son does not have an AS diagnosis (or does not fall on the AS end at all) does not mean that he can't exhibit some AS characteristics. Anyone who falls anywhere on the spectrum can exhibit pretty much any combination of the symptoms. It's all in how he's put together. The empathy factor is usually at play in what you are describing, so the key will be finding an effective way to dispel his perception of someone else's problem that may not actually exist. If he's like me, he will not be able to control his empathy, but sometimes there are ways of managing it. You'll probably have to work together with him to find a way that works for him.
HFA is not a diagnosis - there are only 5 categories of diagnosis. PDD-NOS is one of them along with autism (classic), Asperger's Syndrome, Rett's Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.
HFA is a term that a lot of docs use to indicate that child has autism, but is high-functioning in terms of skills and/or academics. My son is diagnosed with PDD-NOS and the doc said he leans more toward autism (but very high-functioning) than Asperger's because he deals better with non-verbal tasks than verbal tasks. That is just his theory. My ds did not have a language delay either.
Every doc is different - but the DSM does not have a diagnosis of HFA and that is what everyone is required to go by (for insurance and classification purposes).
Thanks Stickboy,my son does not have an AS diagnosis, he was slightly speech delayed
and even though that post makes him sound like a little grown-up, he
really comes accross as very immature most of the time.
I think you are right about his tendency to have 'unnatural concerns' and
I think maybe it's his version of an anxious meltdown. When it is
happening there is no way of talking him out of it - it is really like a
meltdown in that way. But I will try catching him in a good spot and
explain some of his worries away.
Do you still have unnatural worries? Do you think they are about anxiety
needing an outlet or something else?Thanks all for the insights!
Norway Mom - I think you could be right about it being about control, I
kind of think control issues and anxiety are very closely related.
Holly- my ds is considered speech delayed because he did not put words
together until his 3 birthday. He did have single words at 11 month. In
retrospect I realize that he had a very big delay with receptive language
(and still has auditory processing issues) but he did test as having age
appropriate language skills this year. The other reason the doc told me
he was not AS was because his gross motor skills are not delayed (tough I
have not read that this is a disqualifier for AS). All in all the doc who
diagnosed him was not a specialist (just a regular psychologist) and
though my son is clearly on the spectrum I don't think he is an obvious
case for any of the asd dx and the doc was lazy and called it pdd-nos. I
think in a few years when we see a new doc for a reassessment he might
get an autism dx or an AS dx. For now I think stickboy is right - he has
features from all over the spectrum.
I think the things he is thinking about are far advanced for most seven year olds. There's a well known phenomena in gifted children called 'asynchronous development' - which, basically, means that the kids are often very advanced in one or a few areas while age level or even delayed in others. This often leads to misunderstandings - misunderstandings such as too much maturity being expected of the child because their topics of conversation or their language or cognative skills make the seem very mature, however, their emotional development might be age level or delayed. This incongruity makes the age appropriate or delayed behavior stand out in stark contrast against the backdrop of overall precociousness. I could imagine a gifted seven year old worrying about property values and becoming emotional about it.
I have a seven year old, too. He is very sensitive. When he saw his teacher from last year at his 2nd grade orientation today, he got choked up and gave her a big hug and started bawling. He cried the other day because he read the word "died" and thought of his now deceased grandmother. He cried in class last year when the principal commemerated the VA Tech shootings with a moment of silence over the PA system. He's seems to be fairly bright boy, but has never thought about propery values or atmospheres of celestial bodies, etc. I think these are very advanced things for a seven year old to be contemplating.
There are other less pejorative takes on this behavior. If you google terms such as 'the highly senstive child' or 'spirited children' you will receieve links explaining kids who might seem similar to yours - who are described as different, even challenging, but not disordered. Supposedly, 10-15% of kids are in this 'highly sensitive' group. A parent who is thinking ASD will likely view quirks found in these sensitive children as pathological while those who do not think about ASDs will view these children as simply sensitive and often see their differences in a more positive light. You might want to look into these views of children who react differently to emotional or sensory input, as you might see a lot of your child there, and the non-negative view of these children is nice for a change.
is bright.
. And I do think he has a good brain for some things but I
do not really think that he is gifted. There is some overlapp between
gifted kids and asd but all in all my ds fits pretty securely within the
spectrum group.
Still - I have hope that between his knack for math and his 'out-of-the-
box-thinking' he might be able to find his nitch.
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