anyone got any advice.

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i have a gorgeous little girl who's 2 and a half. some proffesionals think she has aspergers. what i want to know is, is there a link with aspergers and balance problems? my little girl has mobility problems, she struggles to walk on uneven surfaces, often falling down. she cannot judge stairs properly, and has to go down kurbs slowly to keep her balance.
she doesnt have a diagnosis yet for anything, but some of her therepists have said that she is tactile deffensive, and they are looking at aspergers being the cause.
she has piedro boots, a samson chair and a special pram to help her with balance and posture! does this sound the same to anyone out there?

Hello Pomanda and welcome to Wrong Planet.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=as ... 2Bproblems

http://www.theaspergersconnection.org/c ... motor.html

Welcome to WP!

i guess that explains abit. but im not sure of the difference with autisum, and aspergers.
my little girl hates it when anyone approaches her, including close family. she tells them to leave her, go away, and hides her face. the only person she will accept is me.
she hates to be touched by anyone, especially picked up or cuddled, only by me. i have to do everything for her, she wont let anyone else. she does give eye contact to me, no problem. she hates loud noises like the hoover, and wind in her face, or sunlight.
she wont be covered up in bed, or wrapped in a towel after a bath, she hates being dried, or having her hair brushed or teeth.
she doesnt sleep through the night, she wakes up at least 3 times needing a drink.
she lines cars up, and is good with puzzles. Her memory is excellent, and her speech is like an adults. but she often doesnt seem to understand what you are saying to her.
she is very clingy with me, and wants to be picked up and held, or sat on my knee.
her ot says she is tactile defensive!
i would really like to know if she will ever let anyone else help her, does it get better for her and does this sound like aspergers or autisum. or is it something else compleatly different, im so confused, and i suppose scared too. i dont know what to exspect!

I'm not going to be much help to you Pomanda. I would suggest going to the Parent's forum. I hope they're able to give you any info you might need.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/forum19.html

Good Luck.

Welcome, pomanda, to the Wrong Planet neighborhood.

Welcome to WrongPlanet

While I am not a parent myself, I know several of my friends are, and I can only imagine your concern.

Whether Asperger's ends up being the Dx for not, I hope things work out with your little girl.

Hi pomanda, I'm new here too. My little girl is 5 and they think she has asperger's, OCD, sensory integration disorder and possibly ADHD. Still working on all the correct diagnosis. I started really noticing problems with her at 18 months old. I am still trying to get answers and know how frustrating it can be.

I don't know what your daughter has going on but I can tell you that at two it is going to be tough to get a perfect diagnosis. At least that's been my experience. My daughter wanted me to do most things for her as well. She would go into screaming rages if say the wrong person did something for her. She would ask for juice and say her dad would get it for her. She would throw the cup away and start screaming and throwing a horrible tantrum that could go on for a long time. Usually if I went to pick up her cup and hand it to her, then that was okay and she would start acting like nothing happened. But occasionally she would throw it again and keep raging until we figured out that I was expected to dump the juice that he poured for her and start completely from scratch. That happened often enough in different situations that we just started calling it "do overs". Say she dropped her pacifier and he picked it up for her, she would rage until we put the pacifier back in the exact spot that if first fell and then I would pick it up and hand it to her. Then she was fine.

Also she did not want anyone to touch her if she got hurt. She would scream "don't touch it, don't touch it" and after a few min. she would be okay. She screams when I vacuum, puts her hands over her ears and screams when the toilette flushes and often complains that things are too loud. (here's a trick I recently figured out, when running the bath for her, I let her wear a big snow hat that can cover her ears to muffle the sound- I'm thinking about buying her some ear muffs for times when things are too noisey).

My daughter is also sensetive about drying off with a towell and even though she HATES being cold she will scream every time I try to dry her, even when I've tried to explain that drying will help her not be so cold (over and over). She hates her hair brushed as well. You mentioned windin her face is a problem as well as lots of foods (probley stong tastes and smells of food overload her senses as well as the texture of different foods). It sounds like sensory integration disorder to me, but of course I'm no expert. I'm just basing this off of what I know about my child and what her therapist has said. There is a great book called "The Sensory Sensetive Child" I lent it out to a co-worker so I can't tell you the author right now.

My daughter at two used to line things up too. She would put all her stuffed animals in a line from smallest to biggest and often wanted them to sleep with her like that around her pillow. She knew all those shapes and colors at a young age also and has a huge facination with animals of any kind and can tell you if they are a mamal, bird, reptile or insect and usually what they eat and how they care for their young. As far as memory goes, she will beat me at the memory game almost every time.

My daughter is a nightmare to put to bed. She does not fall asleep easily and gets up for drinks and to tell me she's too hot, then too cold, and that she cant sleep several times a night. She has night terrors frequently and screams in her sleep often.

Since she started kindergarden it's been a little easier to put her to bed. Before it was not uncommon for her to still be up at 11 or midnight, she just seems to require less sleep than other kids.

My daughter's therapist put it this way to me, the autism spectrum is like a salad bar, you have all these different ingredients (adhd, tourettes, ocd, sensory integration disorder, autism, asperger's, pervasive developemental disorder, pdd-nos, angelman syndrome and rhett) and each person on the spectrum custom makes their "salad", some have a lot of these different disorders or symptoms and some stick with just one or two "ingredients" and on top of that, each "ingredient" has many levels of severity from mild to consuming.

I've rambled on enough and again I'm no expert. You are your child's best advocate and you need to be persistant. Educate yourself as much as possible and rule out all the stuff that you know she doesn't have. Eventually you'll have a pretty good idea about what's going on. She will change with age. Certain traits may fade and other's may appear.

Hang in there. It's the best we can do.

hi, thanks for your reply, im still not sure if im doing this right, never done anything like this on a pc before. its nice to hear from someone who's been in my situation. if you dont mind me asking, how did your daughters dad deal with not being able to do things for her, my little girls dad feels really regected, and is finding it very hard to deal with. he loves her to bits, and some days she does give him a cuddle and smile, but unfortunatley not very often.
is your daughter still very dependent on you or will she let others help her now. you sound like your a strong person, and have learnt lots of coping strategies. it sounds like you love your daughter lots too, and have gone that extra mile to try and help her.
im really hoping for a diagnosis for my little girl soon, just so i know what to do to help her, and her dad.

What makes them think it might be Asperger's Syndrome?

Dyspraxia (clumsiness, motor problems) can be a co-morbidity with Asperger's, so it is a possibility. But if this is the main problem, there are other possible causes for such 'clumsiness', it might be more of a balance disorder. (A friend of mine had Menieres and sometimes used to feel dizzy and fall over if she was having an attack. I've just Googled it, and apparently it's rare in children.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Menieres-d ... is-it.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_disorder

Although if there are other indicators for Asperger's Syndrome, it might be associated dyspraxia.

(NB: I'm not medically qualified at all, I'm just guessing.)

Hi pomanda, welcome to WP.

What a heart-breaking story.

At first glance, it sounds like classical autism to me,
but I'm not an expert so be patient until experts agree.

If it is, unfortunately, from what you have said, you are number one for all her needs.

The consensus at the moment is intensive early intervention.

I am a bit under the weather at the moment and can't think of any
references, maybe some other WP'ers can?

Temple Grandin's life story is well worthy of scutiny.

MomofBrizzle made me think about how much improvement can be accomplished when young children have access to animals or pets,
and I seem to recall that there is a whole school of thought that recommends horse-riding lessons.





As far as Dad is concerned, tell him that supporting You, in this trial, will make all the difference in the world, in the long run, and just being there in the back-ground, full time, until he's part of the foreground, is his number one.

My heart goes out to you all.

Good Luck and best wishes!


And from my experiences on WP
no matter the diagnosis
you have a child who will fill your life with joy,

that's all she expects, all she will recognize, and the only thing she will participate in.

Join in!

Hi pomanda, What you describe sounds a lot like Dyspraxia and have also heard runs parallel with aspergers we all have to some degree....

This may help How would I recognize a child with Dyspraxia?
The pre-school child
• Is late in reaching milestones e.g. rolling over, sitting, standing, walking, and speaking
• May not be able to run, hop, jump, or catch or kick a ball although their peers can do so
• Has difficulty in keeping friends; or judging how to behave in company
• Has little understanding of concepts such as 'in', 'on', 'in front of' etc
• Has difficulty in walking up and down stairs
• Poor at dressing
• Slow and hesitant in most actions
• Appears not to be able to learn anything instinctively but must be taught skills
• Falls over frequently
• Poor pencil grip
• Cannot do jigsaws or shape sorting games
• Artwork is very immature
• Often anxious and easily distracted

The school age child
• Probably has all the difficulties experienced by the pre-school child with dyspraxia, with little or no
improvement
• Avoids PE and games
• Does badly in class but significantly better on a one-to -one basis
• Reacts to all stimuli without discrimination and attention span is poor
• May have trouble with maths and writing structured stories
• Experiences great difficulty in copying from the blackboard
• Writes laboriously and immaturely
• Unable to remember and /or follow instructions
• Is generally poorly organised

This is just a basic list, if you feel there is a problem visit www.dyspraxia.org.nz
Copyright © 1996 - 2007 Dyspraxia Foundation. All

i thought autisum, but she appears to love me. she will look at me, and let me cuddle her, infact she demands i pick her up most of the time, or sits on my knee. thats what makes me confused. she doesnt play with dolls, only picks them up with their hair and moves them, or takes things off them, eg, shoes. she's got a farm, she just collects all the fences together and lines them up, or stands things up sometimes if she knocks them over.
she gets easily frustrated if she cant do something, screams, shouts, throws things.
she doesnt seem to understand what you say to her quite alot of the time, but her speech is very good. she doesnt understand wait a minuite!! !! !! !! !! !! !! it needs to be NOW!
doing her hair is a nightmare, you'd think i was killing her. i really do love her to bits though. she's a real star when she wants to be with me.
i have to really encourage her to give her brother a cuddle, and then its a very quick one before she pushes him away. (he too has adha, and traits of Autisum) diagnosed at age 13. thanks for your reply, my internet is playing up so i cant reply all the time. its nice to know there are people out there with time and advice to give, thanks to everyone that has responded, your advice is really helpfull, ill pass on all advice to her dad too.