Hi everyone
This is my first post, I joined today as my little girl, who is 5 is currently going through assessments for autism and/or tourettes. My husband and I do not know enough about either.
I'll start from the beginning;
She's had a series of tics since the age of 2 1/2. They've been pretty constant within her life and varied from a small cough to a number of them all at once. They've never realyl been anything particularily physical apart from a body tense she started last summer. Last summer was her worst period of ticcing. We visited the GP as kids as she is fully aware of what she is doing and asked us to help her stop. We've been referred to the hospital as they said they wanted to rule out autism and tourettes. Since our first visit to the hopsital the tics still remain, less frequently now but she seems less stressed which is probably why. We've had to look at her daily routine, the school have been asked for feedback etc. We've also been asked questions regarding her senses. From the age of 18 months she became terrified of the sound of bees and wasps. She could hear them before anyone could see them. She becomes hysterical when she hears certain beeps and covers her ears. These beeps are not necessarily loud, but perhaps just a certain pitch that she dislikes. Some smells really scare her, sounds strange, but she can get really worked up if she doesn't like a smell. She's generally okay with tastes. Whenever she is scared by a vision or noise she covers her ears in protection.
We also have a total nightmare getting her to sleep at night. Once she's asleep she's generally okay. However, when put to bed she has to repeatedly come out of her bedroom, and if she's told not to leave her bed she'll then talk and talk to herself or kick her wardrobe over and over quietly. She told us she's scared of the dark so we put a night light in her room, but it still takes her on average 2 plus hours a night to fall asleep. We have a bedtime routine so it's not like she doesn't know it's coming.
The thing that is confusing me (maybe down to my sheer ignorance) is that she is a very social little girl and has many friends. She's good at communicating - apart from her emotions at times (which I believe is more down to age) so why are the doctors going down the autism assessment route? We have our next appointment this month, but I'm finding the whole process rather upsetting and frustrating. I'm not sure we need a label on our daughter but we would like to know that as parents if we can do something to help her we are doing so, and if we can't then we aren't wasting our energies worrying about something we have no control over. I hope that makes sense. I guess I just needed somewhere to vent, and to people in the know.
Thank you for taking the time to read my huge let out!
xxx
