ADHDer with motor skills, pragmatic speech and inflexibility - but not HFA.

[Anonymous]

My son is 5.5 and has adhd. He is also what I’d call a little quirky, but several doctors, including our current developmental pediatrician, have all independently said he does not have autism - our pediatrician, his developmental pediatrician, previous neurologist, a neuropsych and a child psychologist (I wanted to be very sure of his diagnosis before we began medicating so we saw many specialists.)

That said, my son has a little difficulty with pragmatic speech. With adults and peers, he will initiate conversation about something he’s interested in or wants, and can sustain some conversation, but is a little delayed in this sense. In general can hyperfocus on things and topics he’s passionate about.

He also struggles with aspects of gross motor coordination - like terrible with sports, throwing/catching a ball, and struggled with pencil group/drawing until we started OT. At the same time, he is the only 5 year old of his peers who can ride a two wheeler bike, he loves building legos, and builds incredibly creative things with his building toys.

Lastly, he displays inflexibility/emotional reactivity/rejection sensitivity- I.e if you tell him no, he gets really upset very quickly.

We’re already doing a lot of interventions (OT, speech, social/emotional skills group, support as needed for executive functioning at school) and he’s on Guanfacine + methylphenidate- but just curious if your ADHDer has this profile.

Our developmental pediatrician says it’s possible he has a non verbal learning disability, but too soon to know. His prek teachers say that he’s on track academically, but his evaluation last year (pre-adhd meds and intervention) showed a big discrepancy between verbal and non verbal IQ, which is what his dev ped flagged as a possible indicator of NVLD. Curious if other people’s kids with adhd have similar things going on.

[Anonymous]

Our child was like this and we treated for ADHD but her symptoms became much more intense with age and as school got harder. She was eventually diagnosed in her early teens with HFA in addition to ADHD. A lot of very bright kids are able to mask and cope but over the years it takes a toll. (Definitely not saying this will be the case with yours but it’s good to get the evals updated every three years or so to stay on top of everything).

[Anonymous]

DA was like that but high function ages 7-9 or so. Now at 14 he's still not really into sports but plays chess, boulders great and XC champ on school team. We did 2 yrs of total speech therapy but he's prob only 96% or so. He's got anxiety dyslexia and ADD not the H part. Social skills are not comfortable and inflex can't relax and chill make small talk.

But A student on meds in 8th grade and let me tell you - you're not going to fix it all or know what to fix in 1-2 yrs. Address his ADD and get him a therapist. Or do speech therapy and meds. Do 1-2 things not 3-4 because I tell you it's even more stress for you and demoralizing to a kid who then feels like they are so F up they need that much help. Just let them be and prioritize your supports and tools as they grow. Slowly but surely even not 100, they will be alright!

[Anonymous]

Forgot to add he has a small but solid group of friends at school and plays soccer w the boys in grade. He isn't great socially but still participates - I don't think you're ever going to "fix" this social awkwardness for what it's worth. Some people are wired a certain way and you have to compensate in other ways and as their personalities develop they will figure out how. It's been a long journey for us with a lot of ups and downs and that's my best advice - the hardest lesson for you is to figure out what to accept at any time and what really needs to be changed and addressed but you cannot do everything at the same time and think improvement is stable. What you will likely see is a time when something "clicks" in your kid and they will be able to manage their differences. Your job as a parent is to get them to that point as best as you can. I'm a huge fan of meds for starting out.