Defining characteristic of your ASD child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can't talk
Can't sign
Can't tell me if he's hurt or in pain

I'm sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:20:22 PP here. My DS has Asperger's but is fine socially. The way we were told he was PDD is we (my DH and I) were both given a survey to take. We couldn't do it together in the same room so we couldn't ask each other what we were putting for each answer. Once the tester scored each test, we were told that both of our tests scored that he was PDD. He also has a psychiatrist (who is on the fence about the PDD diagnosis) and a weekly therapist (I'm not sure her opinion, I've never asked her). He has also been diagnosed with Mood Disorder NOS (changed from Bipolar NOS) and OCD.

How were your kids tested? Is the parent survey thing a normal way to diagnose?

A parent checklist (that we could fill out together) was just one component. The psychologist also observed her at school, had her teachers fill out a lengthy checklist, and observed her over three sessions -- two were formal testing (WPSSI and something else) and one was a play session. Just a checklist doesnt seem like it would give enough information to make a definitive diagnosis and rule out other possibilities.

For my dd, her most asperger quality is social deficits and low frustration threshold and, more positively, her amazing
memory for totally useless details (i.e. she know what number track on what CD for every song she listens to).

Your DD sounds just like mine. She was screened out in the autism study at NIMH as a toddler but the social deficits are much more apparent in grade school. She has an underlying medical condition in which it is common to get a later Asperger's diagnosis. Can I ask where you did your eval? Does your DD take any medication? Both an antidepressant and add drugs have been discussed as possibly helpful for my DD.

[Anonymous]

OP here. What are some of ASD's children's interests? One psychologist told me that my DS doesn't have repetitive or perseverative interests because he is very creative and intellectual with his obsession whereas ASD children will just memorize facts and repeat them or do something repetitively. For example she said an ASD child who is obsessed with trains will make the train go in a circle over and over again. My DS who is obsessed with all things that are electrical will come up with novel ideas and features of a futuristic lap top or iPhone or satellite..but yes, he would love to design and play with these things for several hours a day. Not the entire day as he does have some other interests but for a few hours a day. What do you all think? Is the psychologist correct?

[Anonymous]

Huh? Your psych is wrong. 4 yr old, AS Elevator boy's mom here. He likes to pretend play about elevators: our rowhouse has 7 elevators (closets). Design elevators using skyscraper sim program on the computer, knows about all the different brands/types of elevators, watch elevators videos on YouTube, make videos of elevators (which he is not allowed to upload on YouTube), take elevators...

I limit his time with his obsession. For instance, he is only allowed to ride the elevator up or down once and only when he needs to take it.

[Anonymous]

OP, your psychologist is dead wrong. I think you need a new one. My DS has a special interest in music, is obsessed with it, talks about it all the time, and composes beautiful songs. I know kids with ASDs who are obsessed with trains and know a great deal about them, the history, the different types, how they work. I don't know a single one who just pushes a train back and forth (that sounds more like Kanner autism to me).

[Anonymous]

OP, I agree with the others. Your psychologist does not seem to have enough experience understanding and diagnosing kids on the spectrum. May I ask which psychologist you saw?

[Anonymous]

Interesting reads. My DS (now 6) was evaluated in preschool by FCPS child find. Both FCPS, and the play therapist we had been working with felt that there was a strong chance he had Asperger Syndrome. From what I knew as an educator myself, I tended to agree. We saw a Developmental Pediatrician, who in addition to looking at all the evaluation pieces from the county (which involved some cog. testing, speect/hearing, 90 min observation by the psych, long questionnaires for teachers and parents) met with us alone, and met with ds (who at that visit remained almost entirely under the chair). Though she felt he had some Asperger characteristics, she felt he did not have AS. Her reasons were that ds 1) had a strong desire for joint attention/sharing his ideas and 2)Had a strong amount of expression in his voice and his face... He has STRONG obsessions. He has been on Egypt for many months now, every single drawing/school paper that came home had some egypt theme to it. Every day at recess he plays "Egypt". He has major attention issues, poor eye contact as well. I am not sure how it will pan out, I still think very possibly he has AS, but I think sometimes, it is hard to tell when they are little? He has had a good year with an IEP, and one in place for 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For my Asperger's DS (9), I'd say it's his rigidity. Things have to be a certain way all of the time. Also, he thinks he is right 100% of the time. He will argue about EVERYTHING. Does anyone else deal with this?

Also, he gets "stuck" on things. He will have to repeat the same sentence, question, phrase, or paragraph over and over again until it is "right" in his brain. And then he can move on.

I totally understand! My DS is 5 and it has started full on. The arguing about everything and needing to right drives me crazy. He does it to teachers and kids too and sometimes he is right (on subjects that he knows well). It is the attitude, know it all tone that makes me think no one will like him as he gets older. My son lectures, sometimes preaches at people, if that makes sense. Also, constant repeating of question and phrase, either by him or me. I can usually deal with him repeating himself, but when he ask me the same question five times and I answer repeated five times, slowly with slight variations on phrasing I think I want to hurt myself. I feel bad, but I don't know if I can take it to age 9! And it doesn't make sense because his receptive language skills have been tested 3 times to date, at 3, 4 and 5 yrs old and has scored between 90 and 98 percentile. That would rule out an auditory processing problem and according to the therapist put him on the high average to superior range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting reads. My DS (now 6) was evaluated in preschool by FCPS child find. Both FCPS, and the play therapist we had been working with felt that there was a strong chance he had Asperger Syndrome. From what I knew as an educator myself, I tended to agree. We saw a Developmental Pediatrician, who in addition to looking at all the evaluation pieces from the county (which involved some cog. testing, speect/hearing, 90 min observation by the psych, long questionnaires for teachers and parents) met with us alone, and met with ds (who at that visit remained almost entirely under the chair). Though she felt he had some Asperger characteristics, she felt he did not have AS. Her reasons were that ds 1) had a strong desire for joint attention/sharing his ideas and 2)Had a strong amount of expression in his voice and his face... He has STRONG obsessions. He has been on Egypt for many months now, every single drawing/school paper that came home had some egypt theme to it. Every day at recess he plays "Egypt". He has major attention issues, poor eye contact as well. I am not sure how it will pan out, I still think very possibly he has AS, but I think sometimes, it is hard to tell when they are little? He has had a good year with an IEP, and one in place for 1st.

''

Interesting--my DS (5) was diagnosed with AS, same process you described with a developmental ped and psychologist (both agreed). My son also has a strong desire for sharing ideas--he just doesn't make eye contact and check in to make sure the other person is interested or still involved (I guess that would be joint attention); he often starts talking to strangers in mid thought without introduction or determining if the person is listening (e.g. he says "I have a fish at home" while standing behind a person in line, I realize that he is not talking to me but to the person's back in front of him). Also, my DS is not flat in facial expression, just make weird faces, over exaggerates facial expressions (grimaces when he smiles, etc.) and voice is usually flat or over expressive (loud and excited), no in between.

How does your DS express himself, what is the quality of voice? I initially thought that a child had to be flat most of the time to have AS, but 4 different ASD specialists we saw disagreed and said that facial expression and voice can range from flat to sing-songy to unnatural/bizarre voice, affect or facial expressions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting reads. My DS (now 6) was evaluated in preschool by FCPS child find. Both FCPS, and the play therapist we had been working with felt that there was a strong chance he had Asperger Syndrome. From what I knew as an educator myself, I tended to agree. We saw a Developmental Pediatrician, who in addition to looking at all the evaluation pieces from the county (which involved some cog. testing, speect/hearing, 90 min observation by the psych, long questionnaires for teachers and parents) met with us alone, and met with ds (who at that visit remained almost entirely under the chair). Though she felt he had some Asperger characteristics, she felt he did not have AS. Her reasons were that ds 1) had a strong desire for joint attention/sharing his ideas and 2)Had a strong amount of expression in his voice and his face... He has STRONG obsessions. He has been on Egypt for many months now, every single drawing/school paper that came home had some egypt theme to it. Every day at recess he plays "Egypt". He has major attention issues, poor eye contact as well. I am not sure how it will pan out, I still think very possibly he has AS, but I think sometimes, it is hard to tell when they are little? He has had a good year with an IEP, and one in place for 1st.

I have the 4 yr old diagnosed with AS by 3 different evaluations this yr: My DS appears NT except for his strong interests in elevators, and fans. We did not know there was an issue until he started preK - his first time at a group setting with same age peers. He has good eye contact and his attention, desire to share and joint attention with adults appeared normal and actually very good/superior for someone his age. However when he started school, he appeared autistic in the classroom: wandered aimlessly, did not participate or play with other children. His neuropsych told me that his social communications is actually in the normal range but it's his obsessions and repetitive behaviors that qualifies him for an Asperger's diagnosis. I have no doubt he has AS and his IEP has made a world of difference: When his developmental pediatrician observed him in the classroom in Dec, he told me he did not need to be told which child he was suppose to be seeing b/c DS was obviously the one in the classroom with "issues." Now with supports and services, he appears to be NT in the classroom - a very bright, well behaved member of the class who's popular and liked by his peers and teachers.


We weren't sure he could stay at his current language immersion charter but he's doing great, socially and academically. For him, a lot of the social problems stemmed from his low tone/motor deficits - he has trouble keeping up with his peers and navigating playground equipment. He loves school and will be staying for K. Since all his deficits are being addressed, I don't worry about the diagnosis at all.

Sounds like your rising 1st grader is doing well! Seems the diagnosis depends a lot on who's doing the evaluating and as long as they're getting support and services and are doing well, does it matter?

[Anonymous]

When your AS kids perseverate are they creative though? Do they problem solve? Or do they memorize and repeat facts? For example lets say they are obsessed with trains..do they know about all trains and their features or do they design new features on existing trains and propose ways to improve current problems with existing trains, such as how to build a green, earth friendly train? Are AS kids creative is what I am trying to find out...

[Anonymous]

oops forgot to add..can a child get an asd diagnosis if all they have is an obsession and no social deficits?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oops forgot to add..can a child get an asd diagnosis if all they have is an obsession and no social deficits?

First of all the obsessions can be social deficits and if the child doesn't understand that others don't want to talk about it at length. And social deficits doesn't mean no friends. It just means that their social interaction and understanding isn't at the same level with their peers. My DS with AS has a lot of friends but its pretty obvious that he doesn't interact in the same way they do.

And, yes, he is very creative. He writes beautiful poetry. Its simply not true that kids with ASDs can't be creative. Some aren't, some are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When your AS kids perseverate are they creative though? Do they problem solve? Or do they memorize and repeat facts? For example lets say they are obsessed with trains..do they know about all trains and their features or do they design new features on existing trains and propose ways to improve current problems with existing trains, such as how to build a green, earth friendly train? Are AS kids creative is what I am trying to find out...

I don't think my AS child is creative in the way you described. He creates environments for his obsession but doesn't creatively modify or change his interests. He studies his obsession, like a scientist (although scientists can invent things and are also creative), wanting to know more or observe--therefore, at this stage (5 yrs old) he wants to know everything about his favorite subject and knows a lot of facts.

Your child may be gifted, check out these links: 1) http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/aspergers.htm 2) http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/fact/asperger.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oops forgot to add..can a child get an asd diagnosis if all they have is an obsession and no social deficits?

My DS, 4, who has good eye contact, is not shy, etc. has social deficits and it's obvious when he is interacting with his peers. He simply is not at their social level: the most glaring example was when he started preK and could count, sing songs, name body parts etc within the first month of school all in Mandarin Chinese when he's never had any exposure previously but could not tell me the name of a single person in his classroom including the teachers.

He loves to classify and categorize and notices the minutest details. He can tell you where are the broken light bulbs that need replacing in every place we have ever visited and will comment on it if and when it's been replaced. Definitely someone who see the trees (individual leaves in his case) and not the forest.

Yeah, he's creative. Most of his current play involves designing different types of elevators.