Asperger traits in girls

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I constantly realized I wasn't like other people, I was bombared it with the fact I was different. Examples:

I thought things were funny that no one ever got, everyone thought I was being rude when I was trying to make conversation, I didn't get crazy about some guy and draw hearts around his name like the girls in my class, I hated the phone so badly my mom would lie and say I wasn't home because sometimes I would just sit with the phone in my hand if it was handed to me not talking.
I twitched/flapped/fidgeted (had never heard of stimming) or hummed or made noises, or scribbled patterns. people always thought I was lying to them because I won't make eye contact unless I know someone really well (and even then it is spotty) and because I would laugh at the wrong times because sometimes things just seem preposturous to me and they are apparently serious to NT's.
I don't cry when some one I care about is mean but I will cry at an AT&T commercial because it strikes me as sad. I collect dozens of things amounting to hundreds of tiny little things total, each with thier own spot, and if someone went in my room as a child and switched 2 out of 500 things, I would notice the second I entered my room, scream, throw a fit, take everyting off the shelves and then one by one (in order) put them back in their RIGHT place. Then I would sit and not talk for a day or two after having my space invaded.
If someone sat on my bed with out my permission, which I made every morning and set all my stuffed animals on in order, I would rip everything off down to the sheets, then remake my bed and put my stuffed animals back in order.
I would not eat food that was on the same plate, all of my foods had to be on seperate plates with different utensils, I wouldn't eat food that touched and I wouldn't eat several foods, (still don't) I dislike the texture of lettuce and will be sick if forced to eat it.
I carried dental floss in my back pack at all times, I still carry it on me. I floss my teeth anytime I eat, if I don't I get aggitated, then I start stimming, and then I will have a melt down not too long after. I also have washed my hands at least a dozen times a day since I was old enough to do it myself. I won't touch other peoples hand because I am freaked out by body fluids and germs and I am always worried they didn't wash thiers.
I couldn't stand to be touched by most people, I only let one maybe two people touch me, I am still weird about it and as a teenager punched more than one person who put thier hands on me without my permission. (a guy thought he would be funny and grabbed my butt, I broke his nose)
I could "turn" people off, if I am bothered by something a person did, no matter what it was, I will suddenly have no interest in them ever again, I ceace to care one way or the other about them and do not think about them. This includes family members. It isn't a vindictive thing, and I am not angry, I become instantly apathetic. Apparently this is weird, or so I have been told by anyone on the other end of this when it happens. It has happened my whole life, my mom says I started doing this in preschool.
My mood changes moment to moment, sometimes for no apparent reason. I will be driving to Applebees, pull into the parking lot, get out of the car, and decide I can't stand applebees, get back in the car and go some where else to eat, there is no reasoning. I may end up going back to the first place hours later and feeling like eating there. I have one thing I like at every restuarant I go to, only one. I will not order that item at another resturant, and if they don't have it, I will leave. (example: I have my taco place, my soup place, etc)
I stuttered when upset, it is a nervous tick, I went to speech therapy for three years, and I still do it when upset/angry etc. (apparently it wasn't caused the same way NT's are.)
I memorize massive amounts of information, I read approx. a book a day most of the time. Yet I don't know what color my shoes are unless I look. My fiance says I am a scatterbrained genius. My parents used to get pissed because I knew all this stuff, but when they asked me what I did that day, I didn't know, because I hadn't been paying attention.

There are a million things more, but my hands are getting sore from typing. Was that more of what you were lookig for?

Yes, or more specificly its part of the Sensory Integration Dysfunction that usually accompanies Aspergers. The ability to spin circles without getting dizzy indicates that the proprioceptive (spell?) sense, the sense of body position, is undersensitive.
My daughter also hates having her hair brushed. Her OT said that we could possibly give her something to stim with while we brushed her hair and said that oral stims are especially effective. So we started having her brush her teeth while we brushed her hair. Actually, she chews on a tooth brush while we brush her hair. We go through a toothbrush every couple of weeks, but hey, whatever works right?

The way I played.

Alone, I'd build elaborate houses and forts for lego people and then re-enact adventures like "borrowing" the fort my brother had built, having my lego people break into it (very carefully observing the view areas of the guards he'd unthinkingly placed), secretly removing a couple choice bricks, and leaving the rest unchanged (except a couple of the guards knocked over from my invisible arrows).

Once a girl invited herself over to play lego and she picked the birthday of her little lego girl and wanted have our people make each other birthday presents. She wanted to build a little kitchen and it wasn't even to scale of the people so they could never have used it. This day still sticks out in my memory cause it was so bizarre... it had never occurred to me to play lego like that, I didn't like it, didn't get it, and I tried to avoid ever playing lego with her again.

On the computer, I would play a computer game to win. Competitively. Another girl once played with me and all she was interested in doing was seeing how much chaos she could create in the game, laying the wrong scent trails in SimAnt, etc. And I had to spend half the time explaining the game to her cause she couldn't figure it out on her own.

So really, there were reasons I had no interest in playing with other kids... our interests just never overlapped.

thank you all so much for your responses ! Abit overwhelming right now, though. I suppose it will take me some time to process everything.....

How do you know your daughter isn't just displaying Aspie traits, because she is surrounded by Aspies? I think it is very important to get a correct, official diagnosis. She might really not be an Aspie, but just mimics the traits and social interactions she sees every day.

My 15 month old daughter mimics everything I do. She carries a cell phone, a purse and a baby doll and talks non-stop on her phone, which is what she sees me do every day...of course I am carrying her instead of a baby doll. She also laughs a lot, which my husband and I do and when she "talks" to other people, she always inserts a laugh in there, even though we have no idea what she is saying.

I would relax, there is so much more to asperger's, than the traits your daughter is displaying...also girls are often not diagnosed, b/c we tend to socially adapt eaiser than males, b/c we seem to get that there are such things as social rules.

Tallgirl.

this was my initial understanding ~ that maybe she's just displaying traits, but is not really an aspie...........i don't know.....i don't want to see something that isn't really there. i'm so unsure of what to do....do i try to have her tested even though she's not displaying any truly worrisome behaviors ? or do i just let it go, and hope for the best ?

My daughter when little was a tomboy, even when very small would manage to take her little pink socks of. hated the feel of jeans and would only wear trousers. She could read well by the age of three and her alphabet by the age of two. Never has been very tidy although won't drink out of a cup she herself hasn't washed.
She was only aware that she has Aspergus about three months ago and is arranging for herself to be diagnosed.
As far as stimming, when she was little she had the habit of rubbing her thumb on cushion covers, and only the rough ones. Now she picks her eye lashes and when under stress picks her eyebrows.
She had a facination for dogs and would read all the dog phycology and training books from the adult section, from the library. She had achieved this by the age of ten.
For my own resons she and her brother were taught at home, so when he became nine and a half, and her 7and a half they wanted to experience school. They both found it challenging. (son also has more Aspergic traits then NT ones.) My daughter thought that the girls were silly and annoying, and got on better with the boys. After six months she found it boring, but she stayed for a school year, even though she wanted leave after the first six months.
As far as playing. She loved collecting the My little pony and Polly pocket toys as well as plastic dinosaurs. Although she never played with them, she would set them out and when she had a new one would arrange them and introduce the new one to the rest, then would put them all away neatly in their respective containers. One time her cousin came to play and they had all her Polly pockets out, her cousin is an Nt, my daughter wasn't happy with the way her cousin was handeling them, and when she left had left a mess all over her floor, so my daughter insists that she isn't cleaning up a mess that she hadn't made, marched round to my sisters house and demanded that her cousin come and clean it up, well she did, no need to say that her cousin wasn't invited to come and play anymore.
Great imagination and a great story writer, and thats from her English GCSE teacher. Loves words and is always correcting me.
Doesn't know how to flirt and thinks it a waste of time, (now 18 years old) She says if she likes a lad she'll tell him. She can read some body language but doesn't display a lot herself. She also has a monotone voice with no inflection at all, she can raise her voice when getting angrey, usually with her Aspergic father. (another story.)
Living with an Aspergic daughter is a blessing, I wouldn't want an Nt daughter who is obssesed with clothes and boys, ahhh, would drive me crazy. She is great company and we have great conversations, usually dissecting emotions and relationships, now we know why because she didn't understand them, lately it's been about flirting.
I hope this helps, message me any time, and I'll be willing to listen, and help if I can.
I am an Nt. slightly more Nt traits then Aspergic.

we've been taking a closer look at our daughter's behaviors lately, and have come to the conclusion that we are going to pursue getting a diagnosis. she is continuing to have trouble at school because of her incessant talking ~ if she's not talking, she's humming, if she's not humming, she's singing.....she also has been tantruming at home, and at girl scouts...

she definitely hates having her hair brushed, but i hadn't thought of providing oral stimulation while it's being done....guess i'll give that a go.

the more we look at her behaviors, the more convinced i am that she is an aspie.....at bedtime, she absolutely HAS to have a book, a stuffed animal, 2 blankets, the nightlight turned on, and her bedroom door open 12 inches....or she starts crying and whining.
yesterday, was perhaps the icing on the cake....we told her she could play on the computer at 7....well, we were still in the midst of having a family meeting, and she had such a meltdown ! she kept pacing back and forth and looking at the clock...her hands started flapping ( something i don't think i'd ever noticed before), and she kept interrrupting ~ totally unaware of the social pattern of conversation.
now, the most important thing is getting her to a dr who knows something about diagnosing girls.....and, one who takes insurance.
and so it goes...........lord, i feel surrounded some days.

The more you explain, the more it sounds like AS to me.

I felt extremely lonely as a child and I knew that I was different than everybody else. I flapped, had meltdowns and would talk over people.

The best way for your daughter to learn how to behave is to teach social rules as a subject like any other, math, english, etc. There are rules. She will understand that very well. Also, please be sure and tell her after a meltdown, that although you don't like her behavior, you understand why she had a meltdown and that you still love her. This isn't to say that the two of you shouldn't work on avoiding them, but my loneliness was even worse after a meltdown, b/c I knew I had made people fearful and angry, but I felt like I had no control over how I reacted. I was a very sad child and had an ulcer by the time I was 8 years old.

I think the key first and foremost is to figure out how to avoid meltdowns. As soon as my husband and I started working on this, our day to day life became much better. It is my responsibility to tell him when I am starting to feel overwhelmed and angry, at the very early stages, and when I tell him, it is his repsonsibility to help me by hugging me tightly, telling me he loves me and then helping me solve the issue. This isn't to say that I all of a sudden become a happy person, it just means I don't have a full-on, in your face rage, and therefore my husband isn't effected as much. It's a deal we have made and it now works 100% of the time, as long as I tell him early enough. I haven't had a meltdown in months, which is a testament to how well it works for us, as I would have a full on rage every two weeks and it was tearing at the fabric of our marriage.

I hope your daughter gets the help she needs.

Tallgirl.

thanks. because of our understanding of Aspergers and how it effects hubby and son, we at least have an initial understanding of the general need for order,& saying what you mean instead of using metaphors or exaggeration. because hubby and son have such a great need for quiet at times ( sensory overload), her incessant talking can be quite problematic. for quite awhile we didn't really think there was anything all that different about our little girl ~ that is until we went to parent teacher conferences and her teacher had this to say: " she is quite immature for a 2nd grader . she cries and whines when i redirect her to do something...she talks all of the time, and when she isn't talking she's humming~ she misses directions because of this.... Her organizational skills are very poor ....she often plays with things she finds in her desk ( a pencil, a rubber band, a tray she save from lunch in the cafeteria) instead of paying attention."

we constantly make an effort to verbally reinforce social rules. ( ie; when she's doing something corectly we praise her, and when she's doing something inappropriate we try to not call great attention to it, but explain why it is inappropriate and try to give her an alternate behavior).

hopefully we'll be able to find someone who takes insurance, so that we can get her evaluated.

Your daughter is insecure and I am sure at times frightened, because of her sensory issues, which would explain crying and whining, which also makes her sensitive emotionally. Might I suggest you also have her learning style evaluated? She may be a visual-spatial learner and in a auditory-sequential environment (which is what school learning is based on), she is not retaining, nor interested in what is going on around her, so she hums and plays with objects as a away of keeping herself in her seat.

I have met many kids with behavioral problems, as well as AS and Tourettes, and once they were able to get appropriate help within their learning styles, their behavior improved. I met these kids in juvenile court and would always recommend this testing and their parents reported dramatic improvement in their childrens' behaviors.

Tallgirl.

hadn't really thought about that....today she said that she's only 33% happy and she was going to work on feeling better so that she could be 100% happy. still haven't heard from dr yet....patience, i guess

I dunno if I totally agree with RedVelvet about "Living with an Aspergic daughter is a blessing, I wouldn't want an Nt daughter who is obssesed with clothes and boys, ahhh, would drive me crazy. " I wouldn't quite agree with that. My daughter has many different obsessions that interfere with her socialization with others her age and (not to mention interfering with her schoolwork) although she's not interested in clothes or boys, she is obsessed on a level of addiction with harry potter, lord of the rings, anime, manga, and spends every dollar in allowance towards $10 anime comic books. Any time she does meet someone who has similar interests she blasts them out with her obsessive nature regarding the subject.

Her conversation family is forced and obligatory. She doesn't know what to talk about other than her obsessions. School has been tough for her. Although her Mom has done tons of work trying to get her pay attention to personal hygiene she still doesn't care much about taking care of her looks and how she dresses. She only does it because her mom would be mad if she didn't.

Because of her lack of interest in boys or clothes or personal care she gets accused of being gay. We have a hard time figuring out of she does like boys or not. She shows little interest and ... its hard to describe.. at 15 she shows no sense of her own sexuality. It depresses us to think that she may never be able to successfully have a relationship with someone.

Your daughter is lucky that you are paying attention and getting her help.
I'm 42 and when I was a little girl there was no such thing as AS. I was miserable as a kid. I had no idea how to socialize, was very quiet, taught myself to read at 4 so that's all I did. When you're in school and you don't cause problems for fear of social embarassment and you do your work because you know how to read and you're bright, teachers don't pick up on the possibility of a problem. I flew under their radar. I personally think that's why there are more boys diagnosed than girls - because of the way we are socialized even when very young.

Your daughter is lucky that you are paying attention and getting her help.
I'm 42 and when I was a little girl there was no such thing as AS. I was miserable as a kid. I had no idea how to socialize, was very quiet, taught myself to read at 4 so that's all I did. When you're in school and you don't cause problems for fear of social embarassment and you do your work because you know how to read and you're bright, teachers don't pick up on the possibility of a problem. I flew under their radar. I personally think that's why there are more boys diagnosed than girls - because of the way we are socialized even when very young.

we took our daughter to the pediatrician and he said that we need to follow through with an eval...just got the name of another dr today~ hopefully he takes insurance.