My daughter is 7 year old, a single child, who is in year 3 (She is the youngest in her class being born at the end of August and the tallest as well.) We are currently awaiting for a referral with a pediatrician to assess whether she has ASD. There are several traits that suggests that she may have ASD
- My daughter was delayed with her speech and understanding of single or more complex instructions. She can make grammatically correct sentences but she has issues responding properly to a question and to keep engaged in a discussion. She would most of the time follow her own idea and go on talking about it even though it is completely off topic. As she speaks, her voice would become quite high and the sentences would come out interrupted (as opposed to a fluent way)
- Some of her social skills seems impaired even though she can easily make friends but mainly with younger children or children that are not too talkative.
- She doesn't seem to be able to perceive whether children wants to play/engage with her or not
- she draws all the time usually using one colored pencil and she would add specific details such as facial expressions
- she loves animals
- she always wants to be squeezed when we try to talk about her feelings about what happened at school (For example she has been hit by her best friend at school and got upset more by the reaction of her friend than pain). She usually doesn't show her emotions at school but would do it at home with me (She didn't cry at school when her friend hit her but cried at the school pick up when she saw me)
In general she is a very sweet and gentle girl, she is always happy and rather innocent for a 7-year old. She has always been a very easy child. She is a little bit late in maths but she is learning at her own pace. She is constantly making lots of progress which could suggests that she does not have any learning disability.
Do you think my daughter is in the spectrum? Are there any books available to encourage constructive thinking and listening in children and/or anything about social skills in children?
Thank you so much
