too social?

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My daughter was dxed with HFA at 26 months. Now at 3.5 with therapy she is much better. Language is still significatly delayed and she doesnt understand concepts like fun or sick or time. You get the idea. She has become really social. She says hi to people and wants to play with kids. Her play is not really on target. She does not get the idea of a game or winning or taking turns, she can play but it is very concrete with little imagination and sometimes she does strange things like like the ball or bang toys or move dirt from one pile to another for extended periods.

Does this sound like any of your kids? I just started wrapping my mind around an autism dx when this clear advancement happened and an explosion in language (but still significantly delayed).

What do you all think? Sound like HFA or language disorder with SID? Can HFA or AS kids have this type social interaction at this age?

any input would be great!! !

hiya,

i'm not so sure about the language stuff, I am 16 and semi-mute, so i prohoboly not the best person to talk about language with. However, i use to spend (and if i get the chance and the right toys) hours moving peanuts in thier shells around with a lego dumpertruck. i also still sepnd hour just looking at the suspension on my lego extreme off roader.

I think it is good that she is being socail, just because somone is AS /HFA it does not mean that they do not enjoy being social, you can beAS / HFA and not do a single one of the diagnoses critearea. it is a way of thinking and people develop different stratagies. Remember Autism just mean wierd differentl, if she has developed a coping method of talking and being social then that is great, and show good sign for you caring for her, well done

jammie

The Autistic Spectrum is large, complicated and not very well understood. Made the more so by that people are complicated to begin with.

So yes, it's still pretty possible your daughter is somewhere in the range.

Furthermore, just because someone has difficulty with communication does not mean they do not want to be social.

And, just because someone has a predisposition towards not doing well socially does not mean it is something that cannot be overcome.


It's a good sign that she is being social.

moving things from one pile to another sounds incredibly familiar to me.

One of the reasons that it took so long for my son to get a dx was BECAUSE he was/is so social. He's 7 and just got his dx two weeks ago.

Something I noticed though was that he was lacking in boundaries (he would talk any anyone and everyone) and would invade personal space. His language wasn't delayed at all (he's very chatty) but his sentence structure was off. He didn't understand social norms for his age either.

I belong to a great SID email group. If you're interested, PM me and I can tell you where to find it. There's lots of parents with todders on the list and the group owner has a daughter with HFA/SID as well.

I guess living with the not knowing is torture for me. I devoured every bit of feed back thanks: Jammie Xuincherguixe Ster CelticGoddess
I will get some of her standardized testing done in a few weeks and will keep you all posted.

Keep the postes coming, I love hearing bout you all's experiences

You may want to make sure she understands the difference between saying hi to people she knows and people she dosn't. It would be bad for her to become too social with someone who intends to do harm.



When I was doing that type of thing my psych. told me that its 'normal' behavior.

You make and excellent point with that "Hi" to danger strangers thing. I'm so freaked out about anythink happening to her and her not being able to tell me that I sleep with one eye open.

I didn't check your profile, did it turn out to be normal behavior?

I did not mean to scare you with my comment.
my mom made sure i knew the difference when i was younger.

And yes my psych. told me the way i was acting was not 'out of the ordinary'

Sounds kind of like me, I also used to move stuff around or sit for hours on end pouring water from one glass to another.
I still don't get the whole concept of competition. If someone wants me to compete with another person, I ask them "Why?".
"To see who's best!"
"Why?"
repeat ad nauseum.
I'm still struggling with the concept of time.
Seems hours can go by seeming like minutes and seconds can seem like hours and I lose track of it all the time.
I notice people find it very important for some reason. Like when my boss commented with -"You're late."
-"Really?"
-"Yeah..."
-"...and..?"
-"And you should be on time?"
-"Why?"
see above...

My son has a diagnosis of HFA but my daughter (who is older) doesn't even though she had significant language delays when she was 2 and 3. She however has microcephaly and was born very premature which my son does not have. So, for her it may have been that with the micro that was more the primary diagnosis. The main reason though is because while she did have a severe language delay - she LOVED to play with the other kids. She would run up to them and even though she could hardly talk and they would try and ignore her she would keep at it until someone would play with her. So - I think while autism is a spectrum there are alot of subtle nuances that need to really be carefully observed. And once she overcame her language difficulties I really consider her to be NT because she is very social like her father. I've been told also that they no longer consider the social aspect to exclude a diagnosis of autism. My son however is really quite different and more like me socially.

Ion thanks for the personal info-I love to hear it

Raph-you didnt freak me -it was a good point. I wouldn't be able to explain who she should speak to and who she shouldn't right now-but when she can understand I will be sure she knows the difference.

walk in the rain what is microcephaly? I know what you mean about all that nuance stuff. If I really wanted to I could get her re evaluated but I'm afraid that would cut her services which she definately needs. About your daughter's language delay, did it interfere with her learning concepts? Like time and big and littel and near and far and now and later, today, tomorrow ect. I wonder if she does not get these because her receptive language is so low-or if it is something more. I'm told her IQ is normal so I don't know what to make of these delays.

Microcephaly means that the head circumference is too small and sometimes that can mean that the brain itself is too small and doesn't cause the head to grow like it should, or it can mean that the skull fuses too quickly and as the neuro told us the brain does not have enough room. There are wildly varying degrees of it - with some children being almost totally incapacitated to some with little to no effect from it. My daughter was actually labeled as MR when she was little - BUT they were impressed in her little class when I brought in one of those little push button toys with the alphabet and numbers and while she couldn't answer verbally she could press the correct button. So - she did understand there was just a glitch somewhere in her verbal processing. My daughter can read very well, but she has memory problems which severely effect her math skills and that can effect alot of things. Overall though I would say that I would not consider her to be even mildly MR (which was another term used when she was older). She takes a little longer to process some things and I thought she might not be able to tie her shoes, but I doubt that anyone would really notice that there is anything different about her except that her forehead is small. But not something that I even notice so I don;t know how many other people do.

My son however, has the expressive/receptive language delays and while he is very smart it seems like he just can not grasp certain concepts. I think that is more than just the literalness or concreteness but in genuinely not understanding what is being said. And it is puzzling because there just does not seem to be anyway to get him to understand sometimes and he gets frustrated. When we were at a recent activity he started screaming when instructions were being given that he wasn't going to understand. So - he is aware too that he doesn't understand what people say sometimes.

Ah, being told to do things because 'You should'. Always amusing.

I could offer explainations for both why people compete, or why one should be 'on time'. I could also argue why they're stupid. But you're not getting an explaination are you?

Just being told that people 'should do it just because.'


One fun thing to do if the consequences of doing so are not drastic would be to retort with, "You don't know why it's important to (be one time/compete) do you?" and just keep pushing the issue. The angrier they get the better

I'm going to the MIND institute in 2 weeks. She will be in a sleep study and they will readminister the ADOS, Vineland, and Mullen. They will also test her development age in various things and give me a work up. YIPPEE!! !! no more guessing for me, and I will get about $4k worth of testing FREE!! ! Of course I wont get my results for months, but the coordinator said the evaluator will verbally tell me whether or not she is on the spectrum.

I can't wait. The not knowing is killing me. I know I'm a control freak with issues-I'll just move on to obsessing about something else.

where is the MIND institute ?