Anonymous wrote:My dd started reading simple baby books at 18 months, by 2 1/2 she was reading early reader chapter books. Now almost 6 she can read books like pillars of the earth with different character voices. But I gotta tell you she is the most awkward kid in her class. Don't get me wrong she is very smart, advance vocabulary and you only have to explain something to her once and she gets it. She is off the charts in everything except anything that is social. Think Sheldon (the Big Bang theory). She cannot relate to other people at ALL. I give her a hug and she does not hug me back. She only recently learned to say I love you too after I've said it to her. Before that it was ok. She has no problem telling someone that they are (and I'm putting it lightly) not easy on the eyes. Without emotions. She rarely cries unless she is seriously hurt. She has been like this since birth. All the specialist say she is normal. Don't know what to do anymore. Please help

I understand where you are coming from but at some point you have to accept your DD as she is. Even with all the social training and compensating she is never going to be warm and empathic although she can learn to show her warm loving side and learn all the social niceties and manners through social skills training.

My mother in all likelihood had Asperger's and most of my family is like the way you describe your daughter and I like them just the way they are. They are all wickedly funny, smart and charming... and fun to be around. The social awkwardness does not matter once you are an adult and by your forties, (former) nerds rule the world anyway... or hopefully have found the niche where they fit in just fine.

I agree with the last 3 posts. ASD looks different in girls and just because your daughter didn't reach the full criteria for ASD doesn't mean she isn't close. Your daughter may be diagnosed later with ASD...or not.

I strongly ditto suggestions to use resources on Social Thinking (socialthinking.com)--they are excellent for teaching social expectations and also perspective taking/theory of mind (awareness that other people have thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc.--these are important skills for academics, safety, stranger danger, even driving safely). Susan Abrams is an SLP who is trained to do Social Thinking groups with kids.

A diagnosis is not really necessary because whether or not you have one, with ASD or similar issues, you proceed with issues on a piecemeal basis. There is no overarching approach for ASD. For behavioral issues I recommend the Kazdin Method, if there are any. I also recommend that you seek to grow the emotional, empathic side by reading children's books together, buying lots of stuffed animals to cuddle, look at pictures of babies, baby animals, cute things, to model and hopefully coax out an emotional response. Do you have a pet(s)? Or younger sibling to help care for? I worked hard to nurture this side in my son whose empathy can be low and I see his emotional side grow. For some kids, they shut down on emotion because they are sensitive and the feelings are ovewhelming but you can coax it out slowly.

A great social skills resource is Model Me Kids videos which teach various social situations and do football style play by plays showing the importance of eye contact, body position, etc. But the most important resource in my experience is Michelle Garcia-Winner's Social Thinking because it gets deeper into social cognition, not just rote skills. I also used to watch TV, cartoons, etc., with my son and discuss social stuff, including making inferences about what would someone might do next, how they are feeling or how they made someone else feel, pausing on facial expressions, etc. You need to raise awareness and atunement on a frequent basis to the social/emotional/psychological world.

There are two books I found enormously helpful with a GTLD kid:
Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children
Parents guide to gifted children (J. Webb)

I read these and practically cried. It was such a relief to finally better understand our child. This may or may not be your girl, but in general, GT often (but not always) comes hand in hand with social issues. Worth getting a psych eval to know if you are just dealing with social stuff that comes with giftedness or if you would have a dual diagnosis (e.g., ASD and GT). Many kids with aspergers (characterized by major social difficulties, among other things) are brilliant.

Just something worth looking into.

High functioning autism is missed in girls. My daughter was very similar and we played the specialist roulette until she was 9, when the consensus settled on an aspergers (hFA) dx.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The early reading is called hyperlexia. Not everyone who is hyperlexic is on the spectrum. Your DD may have Non-Verbal Learning Disorder. It's pretty rare, and some are hyperlexic:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/6114/

Whether or not she has NV LD or any LD, you may want to think about enrolling her in a social skills group. Social skills are exactly that skills that need practice. Some kids come to socializing naturally and others need a little help. One-on-one play dates will also help her practice her social skills.

There's a good checklist on how to have a successful play date in the back of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Much-Work-Your-Friend/dp/0743254651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410484534&sr=1-1&keywords=it%27s+so+much+work+to+be+your+friend

Not all early readers are hyperlexic - hyperlexia means they can "read" perfectly but not understand what they are reading. If they can comprehend what they read, it's not hyperlexia.

While it's true that not all early readers are hyperlexic, it is not true that hyperlexia always incorporates failure to comprehend. There is "neurotypical hyperlexia". Although given the very young age of the OP's child and the social/pragmatic issues her DC has, I think she is right to question whether her DC is neurotypical.

OP, have you had any kind of speech/language evaluation from a speech therapist? The main thing I would ask for is a good evaluation of social/pragmatic skills. Often a neuropsych will just assess this on the basis of the personal interaction during the assessment. But an SPL will check a wider range of skills with standardized testing. There are such tests like the Test of Pragmatic Language, the Social Langauge Development test, etc. I also wonder about your child's reading comprehension. A good SPL will be able to separate her high decoding from her reading comprehension and normally does a better error analysis than the reading achievement tests that are given during a neuropsych exams. Good SPLs are really attuned to the ways in which lack of social understanding impacts reading comprehension.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of testing has she had? What kind of specialists have you taken her to?

She had a major major neuo-eval and they said she is not quite on the spectrum. The problem is that they don't see/experience what I do. For me it's like living with a robot. Everyf.......thing she does is without emotion. I really don't know what to do anymore.

Saying she is not quite on the spectrum is not the same as saying she is just fine.

Some very bright kids with mild spectrum disorders may not be diagnosed until around the end of elementary school - before that they are able to compensate for their weaknesses well enough to function, if not to function well. You might want to re-evaluate in a couple of years. In the meantime, you can still address her issues with social skills groups, speech/language therapy that focuses on pragmatics, and/or psychotherapy. You don't need to wait for a formal diagnosis, if you are this concerned, and if she does have an ASD you are doing her a service by starting intervention now.