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Hi! Im new to the site and to the spectrum world. I just wrote up a big question, but my computer lost it, so forgive me as I try and gather my thoughts again. I had my 4.5 year old daughter in for a psychological assessment for ADHD. The assessment came back more or less inconclusive because it didn't present in two environments. She does wonderfully at preschool, but of course its 2.5 hours 3 days a week with a clear routine and play time. The assessment also showed high anxiety levels (very obvious) and sensory processing issues. I took the assessment to the paediatrician for diagnosis and she said she didn't think it was ADHD but rather Asperger's. I was stunned. The more we talked, so much of it made sense, but some didn't. She is very rigid in routine, doesn't like change without warning to prepare, likes to control playtime and imagination scenarios. But, she is a very popular little social butterfly. There appears to be no social awkwardness. My question is, does the social part get worse with age? Or is it possible to have Asperger's without social issues? Or is it not Asperger's? I emailed the psychologist with the paediatrician's conclusion and he didn't agree. So I now have two experts disagreeing and Im completely confused. It is a year wait list for the public health covered AS assessment or $1500 privately. Of course we just used up all our benefits on the psychology assessment for the ADHD. I can't be confused for a year. Any advice or help you have would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi, welcome Argh hate when you type loads and the computer loses it!!

I have a 5yo daughter with possible ASD thinking it is probably Aspergers. At first we thought she was so confident and chatty there were no problems in that area so she wouldnt fit the criteria. However we had interpretted "communication problems" wrong. We looked closer and noticed, yes she is chatty, overly chatty and to complete strangers, inappropriately chatty to strangers, over familiar with people, interupts, talks over, changes the subject, takes things too literally, doesnt see social cues, says big long words but doesnt understand them, gets things in the wrong context, doesnt understand sarcasm or jokes and all these things can come under the communication problems catagory. We thought it was just referring to slow speech development and non-verbal kids. Shes always been a talker, and talks like an adult. She also repeats things shes heard from others or the tv, quotes from books and cartoons. This made it seem like she could have proper conversations but they were all rehearsed and slightly awkward.

Also it seems to get worse with age, although its more down to the fact that her peers are progressing and she isnt, they are starting to understand what is appropriate and DD5 still misses the signs. Whats ok for a 3yo is not for a 5yo. You find with girls they can help eachother, my daughter had a really good friend at her last school who was constantly there correcting her, in a caring way. She kept her in line and DD5 was able to hide it well. This was her only best friend, at her new school she doesnt have a best friend yet.

Hope this helps, let us know how you get on

Sounds like my 5 year old daughter who has aspergers.

We always thought she ok socially because she is very chatty with ADULTS and older kids as long as SHE can control the conversation and talk about things like angry birds and harry potter.

However, put her in a room full of 5 year old girls and she will ignore them, talk over them, no real socializing. In fact the few times she has tried to play with a group of kids she deemed that they were "all too stupid and boring" to understand her.

Now... if there is just ONE other child and the play is active and the other kid is submissive, she can do ok. Generally though if we are at a playground a child might INITALLY start playing with her, but once they realize she is very controlling and one track minded, they FLEE.

Lol for us its snails!?!?

It seems more kids are being diagnosed younger and youger, but the average age to be diagnosed as Aspergers used to be 8 or 9. My son was almost 9. In preschool he was in the middle of the bunch socially, although he had selective mutism. We thought that's all he had. Before the AS dx, we knew this kid was not like the others but we just figured out how to handle each step of the way. Eventually we just had to know. Even then, since we homeschool, there was no help for us; we just continued to figure out each step of the way. At least I now know what to research. So, just remember she's the same kid with or without a dx. Let her show you who she is and what she can do. Don't let the "experts" do that. She's the expert herself.

To answer, "Does the social part get worse with age?" she won't get worse. She will very gruadually become more astute. Only it will be way slower than the other kids. Life will be more socially demanding, but she can't keep up. This is why so many kids get dxd at an older age.

My son was very social when he was little, too. At that age all the kids share pretty much the same interests, and because my son was creative and imaginative he was, in his own way, "popular" as the go-to kid for what to play.

But that definitely changed as everyone got older, the other kids had more ideas of their own, the other kids started to engage in more give and take, and the other kids started to have a broader range of interests. My son was still his wonderful self, but the other kids and what they wanted from friends changed.

My son even had a type of rock star phase when he was a 5th grader, because he would invent games and the younger kids at school were always eager to try out his new inventions. No joke, those little kids acted like groupies.

Getting the right diagnosis gets complicated because there is a lot of overlap between ADHD and ASD, and sometimes you really have both. The main difference is in protocol: most people medicate ADHD, but medication is not always indicated with straight-up ASD.

Here is what I am thinking: if you have no other pressing issues, maybe you don't need to know right now. Hold off on any medication decisions, and try out environmental protocols (controlling the environment for your child) first. Pay close attention to the details, like who leads who in conversation, and what draws other kids to your daughter. Look closely at patterns and triggers. Are there sensory issues (sounds or sensations) that seem to agitate your daughter?

That all depends on if you have an understanding, flexible school, of course, but I would think that giving it one year should allow you to see things a lot more clearly. My son was diagnosed at 7 and I've always said that I think it would have been nearly impossible to have done it much earlier; too much depends on developmental milestones that just don't happen for NT kids until elementary school.

Thank you for all the responses. DW a mom, that was a huge comfort to me. Not to worry about labels right now and just deal with her as a person suddenly lifted a lot of pressure off my shoulders. I know I need labels generally. I am bi-polar and it wasn't until I was given a diagnosis that the proper treatment happened and I started to have relief, so I think that was the mind set I was in. I am just going to look at her as an individual with these issues, and those issues, and these needs and take it from there. That's very comforting. Still a long road ahead of trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. We have started certain things and tools already and I am just going to arm myself with knowledge and take it a day at a time.

My son has Aspergers and is very social too. He always wants to be with his freinds, he is a talker, not shy at all. Of course as he gets older he has some issues with wanting to control the play, wanting to have it all his way, etc..but he is working on it!

Good luck!

Mmjmom, did you ever question the diagnosis because of that? My DD is invited to all the birthdays, has lots of friends and so social. She actually doesn't play very well by herself. And she talks constantly. Whether its about anything or not. She will talk to anybody. A stranger will come up and she will start to tell them all about get day and toys etc. She is extremely extroverted. She is not quite five.

WELL before I researched Aspergers, I thought there was no way he could be on the spectrum casue he is so social. Turns out, lots of people on the spectrum are social too! They just might go about it different or not understand all the social rules. Like talking to strangers. My 3yo knows better but my 7yo will go strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, about anything!

There isnt a shy bone in this childs body. He is also SUPER affectionate. He HUGS. He has alwyas been a hugger. He has hugged children, he still hugs, mainly adults now. He hugs his Sense's, Drs, dentists, therapists, if he knows you for 2 seconds and you are nice and smile he will hug you. He is a very genuine person, and he appreciates kindness in people.

I alwyas thought that people on the spectrum were NOT affectionate...not true at all!

SOmetimes all we know are the stereotypes out there, no eye contace, monotone voice, loners, hates being touched, etc...but there is so much involved no 2 people on teh spectrum are the same.


I know its hard at first, but you will begin to learn more and more. I did a LOT of reading and researching and meeting other kids like my son, joining groups, etc...

Hi Tigermommy, My daughter is 7yrs, with a diagnosis of Aspergers. She started school when she was about the same as your daughter is now. Prior to that, there was no indication that she might have an ASD at all. She absolutely loved nursery too. She's a very outgoing little girl, loves to talk and play with other kids, and there were no social issues that I had noticed. The main difference between her and other girls her age was that she never did a thing she was told and seemed to be lacking in concentration skills. Looking back, she had (has) major sensory issues, but we did not recognise them and just saw the difficult behaviour that was resulting from it. We thought she maybe had a mild form of ADHD, too mild for a diagnosis.

But, soon after she started school, I started to notice things that were either not present before or I had just not been aware of. Although she's still a very friendly little girl, who will talk to anyone, I noticed that the conversations were odd. A child would speak about something and she wouldn't say anything back or would start talking about something totally unrelated. I felt like I was having to prompt her to continue the conversation. Her outgoing nature is to an extreme and this is actually a red flag for autism, which I discovered, probably on here. I know another child with Aspergers who is very like her, in that respect.

My daughter received her diagnosis last summer. She has Aspergers, but she's still the same child, with a lot going for her. Her behaviour has improved dramatically in recent months and the main worry we have is in relation to her concentration, leading us back to the ADHD question again. I'm actually much more worried about the possibility that she might have undiagnosed ADHD than I ever was about the fact that she might have Aspergers. I can see her not meeting her potential due to the possible ADHD, as her ASD traits don't appear to be as problematic as her inability to stay on track with anything.

Best wishes

My son is also very friendly. We have gotten him to not volunteer our life story to certain people like waiters and cashiers, but if they speak directly to him, ask him a question--all that stuff about not telling our life story is out the window. He hasn't ever been a big hugger or snuggler, but when he was little, he smiled and smiled. His eye contact has always been on and off. He doesn't completely avoid it, but he doesn't do it to the extent that people expect of NTs.

He wasn't diagnosed when he was little for several reasons, but the biggest was always that "he's too friendly to be autistic" (yes this was said more than once by developmental pediatricians and psychologists). Like the others have said, sure he was social, but inappropriately so. He gravitated to adults, to much younger children, he had one sided conversations centered on his interests, he engaged in parallel play only. When he was younger he had serious sensory issues resulting in feeding issues, overstimulation meltdowns, he'd spin in circles for great lengths of time and never get dizzy, poor prosody. Truly he was more obviously autistic then than he is now, when his only stim is constantly tapping his foot or rubbing things with his feet, but the people that evaluated him then never saw past the stereotype to see him.

There are things that feel like they are worse as he gets older. Objectively speaking, they aren't worse. Subjectively is a different story. My son is going to be 13 in three weeks. His executive functioning skills are terrible. They always have been, but at his age that becomes a MUCH bigger deal than it was when he was 7. His conversation skills are objectively better than they were at age six, but because the NT kids his age are having a big jump in their skills right now, subjectively his conversation and socialization skills look worse. I suspect these jumps that NT kids have in the tween and early teen years is why it used to be more common for Aspergers to first be diagnosed in this age range.

One of the things that happened to us: DS was actually considered "popular" in the early grades in school and did fairly well with socializing. He was very much able to communicate based on what he saw on television and by observing other kids. Once he hit about 8-9 years old, though, the other kids made a developmental jump in language - and he didn't. TV was no longer an accurate model, and kids were using a lot of body language to express themselves that he just didn't see. Suddenly, everyone was annoyed with him most of the time and he didn't know why.

This is often how people come to a diagnosis - their child does fine until they hit one of these developmental leaps, and then the difference between their way of communicating and their peers is suddenly a chasm. You see kids being diagnosed at around this age, or around 11-12 when there is another jump.

So it may be worthwhile to keep an eye on her pragmatic speech and make sure she's learning what she needs to know when that jump happens - that can be where the social piece suddenly goes south. Here are some articles on speech and language development:

http://www.kidspot.com.au/qld-gov-kindy ... rticle.htm
http://www.kidspot.com.au/schoolzone/Sp ... rticle.htm
http://www.kidspot.com.au/schoolzone/Sp ... rticle.htm (the remainder of the milestones are linked at the bottom of the last two articles.)

My DD5 is like that, she will shout accross the street to a complete stranger and tell them she loves them. We thought she was too social for it to be classed as a problem until that sort of inapropriate communication started and we realised we were interpretting the AS criteria wrong. She stares at people when we are out and when they look round she says Im looking at you because you are beautiful, very nice and everything but people are freaked out by it and its embarrassing!!

I usually find that the older generation find my daughter's quirks endearing. They tell me she's wonderful and sweet and love that she chats to them. It's the people of my age and younger who find it weird. I was in a supermarket a few days ago and she was talking about her toy dog, to the check-out operator, who was about 60. After we moved on, my Mum was being served by the woman. She asked her what age my daughter was. My mum told her she was 7yrs and the woman said it was lovely to meet a 7yr old who was just as a little girl should be, i.e. still a child and not all 'grown-up', like her peers are. It's nice to hear that her qualities are appreciated, but unfortunately the world's not like that.

Yeah most people find her absolutely adorable and fall in love with her! When we go on holiday she will latch on to a few people and we end up swapping addresses and they send her cards Yes older people and babies love her, she even makes people who think they dont like kids want to have their own! Makes me very proud when I see peoples reactions to her, for me its become the norm because shes my eldest and shes always been like it!