My 4yo daughter is being assessed and based on everything from us, the school and her initial assessment I’m pretty sure she’s going to be diagnosed as ASD and/ or inattentive ADHD.
I’m not surprised, I’ve long suspected that I was either ASD or inattentive ADHD but I strongly believed this was due to environmental factors as my childhood was pretty rocky. I thought with a happy stable upbringing she’d be fine, that it wasn’t something she coils inherit from me.
So firstly I feel guilty for that and secondly that she has not been assessed sooner.
There have been lots of little flags along the way from early on but individually they didn’t really seem very significant. Apart from starting to smile a little late, she hit all her milestones early exceeding them so we weren’t concerned.
I didn’t mind that she hated plastic noisey, light up, moving, vibrating toys, I hated them too. She hated confined spaces like lifts, no problem so did I. She didn’t pick things off the floor and put them in her mouth, great one another less thing to worry about. She hated dirty hands so we started with a fork and spoon straight away and skipped the eating with our hands phase, I was proud. She was a very tidy eater, lovely. Her favourite videos were short; the alphabet, numbers and dinosaurs, she was bright and I wasn’t a fan of cartoons. She didn’t like water on her face, I was careful. She was always tapping her upper lip, I thought it was just bothering her so I’d put lip balm. Without shoes she walked on her tiptoes, I thought she was just playing or because her feet were flat.
when she started nursery we had a few chats with the teachers. She didn’t integrate well with the children her own age, she always sought out the company of older children, we all came to the conclusion that it was because she was so far ahead.
In the first year of maternity school we had a few chats again with the teachers. She played with a few select children, wasn’t keen on group activities, when she did play she organised the children into how they should play or into their roles.
We also noticed she wouldn’t gesture or say hello and goodbye or good morning and goodnight which was a bit embarrassing for us and we thought that she was just being a little rude. Her classmate were so enthusiastic to see her in the morning and say hi etc and she would just turn away or hide behind us. So we thought maybe she was being shy.
nothing alarming, we all said we’d monitor the situation and didn’t give it a second thought. Nothing wrong with being organised and people management.
In amongst all this Covid was going on. The nursery closed early. The maternity school was opening and closing. Lock downs, social distancing, less contact with other adults and children. We weren’t surprised her social skills declined.
There was always some valid reason; she’s like me, it’s just her character, it’s just her preference, she’s a bilingual child, she’s an only child, she’s just ahead, lockdown, she’s just creative etc
Then last year she started to stop responding to her name, we just put it down to her being absorbed in whatever she was doing at the time. Her passion for dinosaurs became stronger and everyday she wasn’t herself she was a different dinosaur and also around this time an imaginary character started to be mentioned, we thought it was cute and just a phase.
Then we noticed she was beginning to stutter and we were a little concerned but we read online and mentioned it in passing to our paediatrician who said that she was bilingual and it was just hesitancy, cool.
But the stuttering didn’t stop it just got worse and my husband noticed if she was talking to herself or playing alone or with us she didn’t do it at all, it was just when she had to interact.
Then I became aware that she wasn’t making eye contact anymore and she didn’t realise when we were asking her questions and that she needed to answer. I ask a closed question I might get a response, an open question is answered with a shrug, what, I don’t know or I do not remember.
two way conversations have pretty much stopped, she talks about things she likes or when she needs something. But trying to draw her into conversation is like trying to get blood from a stone. Her thinking is so black and white, everything is right or wrong, she learns knew rules when said once and then that’s it she sticks to them, no flexibility, she hates change and like me she likes to know how the next day is going to be routine wise/ planned out.
She has one friend at school, but the teachers say in reality she’s a girl my daughter has attached herself to. She wants to play with her and no one else to play with them, hold her hand, sit/ stand next to her etc. The teachers have said the girl is very easy going and just accepts it. I know she wants friends.
The teachers are a bit exasperated as she likes to do things in her own time, looses track of time, struggles with activity changes and really needs to finish whatever she is doing before moving on otherwise it leads to tears. Her teachers also say that often they find her in the bathroom either lost in a trance like state in the middle of the room (and other places) or just with the taps running watching the water flowing out.
she lives mostly in her own fantasy world character, although she does know though it’s not real. When she’s emotional for something she jumps up and down, and every night without fail at the same time she just runs around in circles, circling her arms - known affectionately as her exercise time. She’ll often spin around to make herself dizzy and for whatever reason falls over frequently. Lately I can see a real sense of frustration and anger in her at times.
sorry its such a long post!
thank you if you got this far. I just feel so alone and like I have really messed up royally.
her having a label doesn’t bother me, I have a few myself, if it helps you access the right support and services, good. But it also leads to many people even medical professionals making presumptions and assumptions about a person, about their abilities, character, strengths and weakness and that’s not fair, everyone should be treated and judged as an individual and diversity should be celebrated because everyone of us is different anyway, label or no label.
I just feel a little sad, that I have failed my lo and also for our relationship at the moment, I feel like I’ve lost a part of my sidekick, of my best little buddy. Have I just been really really blind?
It just feels like such a rapid decline to me and from what I’ve read that doesn’t seem to be the norm?
