Hi! I am mother to an amazing and brilliant 5-year-old girl who is not dx with an asd, but probably falls somewhere on the aspie end of the spectrum.
My daughter is very bright, likely gifted. She started talking at 7 months, has always been 1-2 years ahead for speech & language. She's ahead in other cognitive areas too, loves numbers (self-taught how to add, subtract, and multiply), elaborate pretend play, fabulous imagination, amazing memory for facts.
She has significant spd, which caused some physical delays as a baby (she's since outgrown them). She's a super-sensitive kid and a deep thinker - she definitely lives in her own head a lot and I don't always know what's bothering her as she's innately private about her thoughts and worries.
We haven't pursued any sort of diagnosis beyond the spd as, so far, there's no impairment. Her brain works a little differently from her peers, but so far, that difference isn't a disability, iykwim.
One thing I'd love some input about is her stimming. She's had several tics or stims over the past year. I was inclined to call them tics, as she seems unable to control them. A really persistent one was throat clearing, and even when offered a huge motivator to control it briefly ($5 if you can not do it for 5 minutes), she was unable (I did still end up giving her the $ for trying). The fact that she couldn't stop, and even did it in her sleep sometimes, made me think tic. Her Dr was a joke - said she has postnasal drip and tried scaring her into stopping by saying she was going to damage her throat. Anyway, that one eventually faded, but the new one is an echolalic muttering that she seems unaware of. When she's watching tv, or if I'm reading to her, she will quietly mutter under her breath what you're saying half a second after you're saying it. When I've asked her to repeat herself, she says she didn't say anything. Yesterday, we had an argument about it: I was doing her nails for her as she watched TV, and she was muttering an echo of the show. There were definite clear words in it. I asked her what that was about, and she denied doing it, said she was just making a moaning noise, because she feels like she needs to. I said it was fine that she's echoing, but to please not lie and say she wasn't. She was adamant, I was adamant. It was frustrating for me, as lying has been a real issue lately (she lies about the silliest things for reasons I can't understand), and I even gave her the out of "maybe you didn't realize you were doing it?", but she was insistent that she did NOT say any words. Finally, she started bawling and said she was embarrassed.
I know I handled this badly, I did NOT want her to feel ashamed or like she was doing something wrong.
I *do* want to understand why she's doing this echoing thing, and if she knows she's doing it or if it's completely unconscious.
I worry about teasing from classmates
I was really bullied in elementary school and she is such a little mini-me I'm worried she will be too.
Would love ideas on how to talk to her about this too. She is horrified at the idea of being different, was very upset when she first realized she has spd (sobbing "I don't want to be different, I want to be like everybody else"), although that's gotten better with lots of pointing out how her differences make her great, and how we are all different. Autism is an extra-big trigger for her - her older brother (adopted) is autistic and there's a lot of trauma there. He doesn't live at home anymore because it was miserable for everyone, and he was/is mean to her. She has a friend who has HFA and when her dad recently mentioned her friend was autistic, my daughter EXPLODED. "No he's not!" "Don't say that about him", etc. Caught us by surprise as she has positive people with autism in her life too (we used to provide respite for a young man with autism, and currently do respite with two boys with Fragile X who she likes).
Sorry it's so long!
My daughter is very bright, likely gifted. She started talking at 7 months, has always been 1-2 years ahead for speech & language. She's ahead in other cognitive areas too, loves numbers (self-taught how to add, subtract, and multiply), elaborate pretend play, fabulous imagination, amazing memory for facts.
She has significant spd, which caused some physical delays as a baby (she's since outgrown them). She's a super-sensitive kid and a deep thinker - she definitely lives in her own head a lot and I don't always know what's bothering her as she's innately private about her thoughts and worries.
We haven't pursued any sort of diagnosis beyond the spd as, so far, there's no impairment. Her brain works a little differently from her peers, but so far, that difference isn't a disability, iykwim.
One thing I'd love some input about is her stimming. She's had several tics or stims over the past year. I was inclined to call them tics, as she seems unable to control them. A really persistent one was throat clearing, and even when offered a huge motivator to control it briefly ($5 if you can not do it for 5 minutes), she was unable (I did still end up giving her the $ for trying). The fact that she couldn't stop, and even did it in her sleep sometimes, made me think tic. Her Dr was a joke - said she has postnasal drip and tried scaring her into stopping by saying she was going to damage her throat. Anyway, that one eventually faded, but the new one is an echolalic muttering that she seems unaware of. When she's watching tv, or if I'm reading to her, she will quietly mutter under her breath what you're saying half a second after you're saying it. When I've asked her to repeat herself, she says she didn't say anything. Yesterday, we had an argument about it: I was doing her nails for her as she watched TV, and she was muttering an echo of the show. There were definite clear words in it. I asked her what that was about, and she denied doing it, said she was just making a moaning noise, because she feels like she needs to. I said it was fine that she's echoing, but to please not lie and say she wasn't. She was adamant, I was adamant. It was frustrating for me, as lying has been a real issue lately (she lies about the silliest things for reasons I can't understand), and I even gave her the out of "maybe you didn't realize you were doing it?", but she was insistent that she did NOT say any words. Finally, she started bawling and said she was embarrassed.
I know I handled this badly, I did NOT want her to feel ashamed or like she was doing something wrong.
I *do* want to understand why she's doing this echoing thing, and if she knows she's doing it or if it's completely unconscious.
I worry about teasing from classmates
Would love ideas on how to talk to her about this too. She is horrified at the idea of being different, was very upset when she first realized she has spd (sobbing "I don't want to be different, I want to be like everybody else"), although that's gotten better with lots of pointing out how her differences make her great, and how we are all different. Autism is an extra-big trigger for her - her older brother (adopted) is autistic and there's a lot of trauma there. He doesn't live at home anymore because it was miserable for everyone, and he was/is mean to her. She has a friend who has HFA and when her dad recently mentioned her friend was autistic, my daughter EXPLODED. "No he's not!" "Don't say that about him", etc. Caught us by surprise as she has positive people with autism in her life too (we used to provide respite for a young man with autism, and currently do respite with two boys with Fragile X who she likes).
Sorry it's so long!