? re 5 yr old son with social approach issues (PDD-NOS dx)

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Hello! I am the mom of a 5 year old son who is having some social issues that I am hoping some people on the spectrum or other parents with kids like mine might be able to help me understand. He is very sociable at times, as long as he is the one to approach and initiate the interaction (with adults and kids alike) but he does NOT do well with being approached alot of times, even by someone he knows and likes. Its like he has a flight or fight reaction. (he may physically distance himself or he tends to get verbally aggressive...luckily nothing physical)

Even when relatives he knows and likes or friends his age come to play he will hide from them at first. Or at the park for example, if another kid he doesn't know asks him to play sometimes he will ignore them or just tell others they cannot play with him. (in a not so nice way, sometimes even yelling at them and he usually walks away or tells them to leave him alone. He basically acts defensively). After a few minutes goes by he always warms up to those he knows, and for those he does not know he may hang around them and start to show interest in playing but doesn't always seem to know how to initiate play.

This is the part that confuses me. When the social approach is on HIS terms, he seems to do everything almost appropriately...he asks kids he doesnt know their names, introduces himself, asks them to play specific things etc. and is fine seeing those he does know. To the point he has even been called a social butterfly (although I tend to think this assessment is based on his desire to interact with adults who find him hilarious~so they tell me~ or his ability to blatantly and without filter ask another kid to come over for a play date he hardly knows. At other times though he acts painfully shy and will ask me for help asking to play with someone new for instance.

As for quick background, my son was dx with PDD-NOS at age 3. He is currently verbal and has a pretty good vocabulary, but he has problems with conversations ( pragmatics) talks REALLY fast sometimes, and does not completely have age appropriate grammar. His biggest issues besides those I've mentioned are the typical ADHD symptoms (hyperactive type) and the anxiety that seems to go with that. In any case he is SO inconsistent with the social approach issues and almost always sociable to a fault on his terms that I think most people are thrown by this and think he cannot possibly have a spectrum disorder. To be honest the doctors are reluctant to give any other label than PDD-NOS at this point except maybe concurrent ADHD. Others have said he has aspergers. I have heard auditory processing disorder (of course he's too young to be tested). I have heard with all this maybe even gifted when he can focus. I don't care what it is really, I am just trying to understand this behavior and how I may be able to help him with it. I figure if I don't get the why I might not be able to help as effectively and the kid clearly likes people and wants friends. He seems to be unaware that this is affecting him socially or that it eventually will.

Thanks! I appreciate any insights you all may have.

Bumping this up...

I am also curious about the varying social skills, our son also lacks a filter when meeting new kids for the first time - jumping to playdates and sleepover requests typically within 15 - 20 minutes of meeting ... He is 9 He has no real awareness of stranger danger and will approach adults/children alike and start up a very long conversation. When he was younger I would arrange the playdate as requested, the child would come over and within 15minutes my son would disappear into his room or hide somewhere in the house. It is only within the last two years or so that he has become accepting of visitors to our home, without having to hide or guard all his toys for fear they would get broken or stolen. Overnight visitors were also not tolerated by him until the last couple of years and he would say incredibly hurtful things to our guests (usually grandma )

Our son is going for an ASD assessment on Jan 16. Because he can present himself so well for an hour or so when he meets someone new, we are so worried this is going to get dismissed yet again.

I hope that bumping this up may get you some more feedback from other posters on the board.

Cutiecrystalmom

It sounds to me like the OP's son may feel some sort of pressure when he's not the one who initiates the contact. He may be worried that he won't do what's expected of him. I know I was that way, and can still be that way to a certain extent.

Even with relatives, if he's not the one to decide that he wants to see them right then, he may want no part of it. He may feel like he has no control over the situation and that bothers him. Reassuring him that he always has control over who he plays with and who he talks to and socializes with, even though he may not have any control over who may try to play or socialize with or talk to him. Make sure he knows that it's ok to tell them no. Don't push him to play with somebody who approaches him. If you were to do that, he may feel that he has less control than he does.

When I was little, I wanted to be grown. I wanted complete control over myself and my situations and resented that I didn't have it. The anger and hiding could be him showing resentment that he doesn't have the control in those situations.

He may also do fine with approaching other kids because he's prepared himself for it. He's ready. Someone approaching him may throw him off base and being thrown off base angers anyone to some extent, but it's much worse for someone who needs control over their situations and environments.

Those are just my ideas on it, and I could be completely wrong about why your son does this, but based on my own personal experience, it's what I think.

Have you talked to him about it and asked him why he doesn't like it? If he can't seem to answer you or put his feelings into words, you might want to bring up some of those things in a way that he can understand them and ask him if thats the issue. Even if that is the issue, he may not want to tell you, and that's ok too.

I'd also suggest talking to him about ways to "bow out gracefully" in those situations. He may not know or notice that he's hurting someone else's feelings.

Before I knew there was a name for what I was doing, when my son was small and I had no idea that it wasn't ordinary to show kids how to introduce themselves, etc., I would script things for him: "Hi, my name is DS, what's your name? I like Batman, what do you like?" That script served him well for years.

The problem would begin when conversation moved away from predictable, scripted situations. I am guessing this is what's happening with the OP's son - when he's not initiating, it doesn't follow the script, which starts with "Hi, my name is..."

You might try doing some cartoon social stories where the child responds to other kids' initiation of conversation, and show that there are several different ways it might happen or go. This is only a 3-panel cartoon, but it might be a good place to start: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/

As for the 9yo, my son was similar - he'd often ask for playdates with kids he just met, would chat with random homeless people, and we still have to be clear that toys must be shared when we have guests. He's developed a bit more street smarts now (he's 11) but we do still have to be careful about stranger danger.

DS "passed" at school for years, but a full ADOS was successful in not only showing he had AS, but also the specific areas of deficit we needed to work on. Make sure that whatever assessment they do is a legit one specific to autism - our school just had DS sit in a room with a psychologist for two hours; we were excluded and not consulted.
(see http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/screening.html )

My son was always the same, very comfortable when he was in control of the script, unable to figure it out when he wasn't. It has gotten better with time and practice.

AS kids, in general, have difficulty being reactive. This extends from needing extra preparation for transitions, to figuring out how to say "hello" back when someone else starts the conversation. Since I have a bit of that myself, I think it is because it just feels "wrong," not the way the river was supposed to flow. I can't hit a tennis ball when it comes at me, either - but I can serve well. It's all the same kind of thing, a level of preparation that is needed but not available in reactive situations.

That is my theory on it, anyway.

Thanks so much for all of the replies! They were really all helpful and I think everyone had something to offer that applies to our son. I guess I never considered that he could understand one side of the equation (how to initiate) and not the other (how to react). But it makes total sense. On the other hand, the not being ready to see people he knows is tough, even when he invites them. I do think he is insecure about not having control over what they do/say or not knowing how to react to it. Hopefully that is something I can teach him with social stories although I notice the social skills take very long to generalize and most times they are not his "default" even if he knows the right thing to do.

Oliveoilmom the following really sounds like my son:
"When I was little, I wanted to be grown. I wanted complete control over myself and my situations and resented that I didn't have it. The anger and hiding could be him showing resentment that he doesn't have the control in those situations."

Boy does this statement hit home! When my son is around other kids sometimes he is bossy and he often acts like he is the teacher in school despite adult protest~ like he doesn't want to be a kid or identify with them at times. Its been a challenge at preK this year trying to convince him he is not in charge for both myself and the teachers. He does the same thing at home...argues with me and my husband that he is not the kid, but he is an adult like us. Sometimes he will even tell me that I have to listen to his "kids' rules" that is, when he admits he is a kid. He will even threaten to spank me, put me in time out, etc. Granted he is 5 but I don't hear too many other NT 5 year olds doing that. Definitely he wants control and totally 100% resents he is not yet independent enough to have it. I have always been one myself that wanted control but I never tried to assert it in that way. I think I just got anxious. (I myself have generalized anxiety disorder, or so they tell me On the other hand, my son can act like the silliest person on the planet (loud, obnoxious, lots of nonsense behavior) so that is really embarassing and completely opposite of saying he is the adult and trying to act like it. He definitely does not have the emotional or social maturity level of most 5 year olds. I admit it concerns me how far behind emotionally and socially he will ultimately be when he grows up. In my mind that correlates on your ability to live independently or not since you have to display some maturity in these areas to function in the workplace.

As far as testing goes, we never did the ADOS (thus far). He was young (just turned 3 at the time) so the doc wanted to wait a bit and see before putting him through that long test. At the time he had limited language and she didn't want to "misdiagnose" him I guess which could happen to one with language delays even if they are not autistic. She gave him the PDDBI, and he squeaked into the spectrum range by one point. I think she labeled him PDD-NOS vs. AS because he had weirdly uneven scores....like he scored typical AS on one half of the test and in the total opposite direction on the other half which usually means not autistic. (guess that distribution is not typical) He might score higher on it now, I am not sure. In my mind, there is no doubt he is on the AS somewhere though. The PDD-NOS was enough to get services thus far (speech therapy, OT) so I am not sure when or if it will need clarification for the school in the future. Right now they have him labeled developmental delay b/c of his age. (thats what they do to all kids under 6 in FL unless they clearly need the autism program which is more for those that are nonverbal in our area)

Well thanks again all! Feel free to comment on anything else I said here if you wish. I really could use the support and frankly any advice I can get. This has been a hard adjustment for me. To tell the truth some days I doubt my ability to be the parent he needs although I try. I look at other parents, even those with NT kids and feel quite inferior. I probably shouldn't but I just have such hard days at times I wonder if its just because I'm no good at this. I can't afford not to be for my son so that is what keeps me going in the most positive direction I can muster.

I think we've all been there, or are there at various times. I felt totally lost for many years, and did definitely screw up a lot - I'm just now starting to feel like I know what to do and how to handle things, and can successfully act on that most of the time (my son is 11, diagnosed appropriately last year - we got a label when he was 7, but nothing actionable.) It's a process - you will get there.

That line from the movie Temple Grandin, where her mother snaps at the psychologist “I'm supposed to have done this, well then, I can undo it” is something I keep in mind when I have a bad day.