OPINIONS Please, trying to figure out something.

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I'm trying to figure out some things regarding my daughter, almost 12. She has been diagnosed so far with PTSD, GAD and traits of OCD and last year I found out she has dyslexia. She had some testing done which showed she was gifted in math amongst a few other areas, but it was not a specific IQ test.

We have been seeing a child psychiatrist for the last 3 years working on what was extreme anixety issues and after nearly 2 years on medication things are reasonable normalish for us. I'm AS and my son is waiting assessment for ASD. My problem is that I see her having other issues and I have read up on the female aspects of AS which is what brought my own situation to light, but she is slightly different than I was as a child.

She appears to interact well with adults, she may be initially shy for a few minutes but then usually starts to converse. When she was in school she had a great deal of trouble mixing with peers, mainly she didn't understand why they wanted to stand around talking, she didn't get what they were talking about as it seemed to be nothing to her. She preferred to run around and play with the boys which meant she ended up getting bullied a lot by the girls. Although she appears social she did not seem to make many friends perhaps because she seems to think about things other girls would not, and she can produce some quite profound observations on life. She currently has one friend that she has had for 2 years or so and they do share a lot in common. She, from what I can tell talks non-stop about her interests, horses and Dodge Ram trucks. She had other interests when in school (we homeschool now) and I'm not sure if this made the other girls think she was strange. She does not seem to have a problem reading social queues unlike myself I just didn't know what was going on.

She has also since an early age sorted objects even minute stuff like small beads, she will spend hours sifting, mixing and sorting stuff. She pours small beads through her hands like they are sand, humming as she does it, over and over. If she gets the chance to dig in the dirt in the garden she will spend ages doing this (even today). She talks to herself all the time and plays on the floor with our two dogs, like she is a dog, for long periods of time. She has bitten her fingers until they bled and stripped the skin off them, this lasted for about 1.5 years and took a long time to heal, she chews straws, braclets, pens etc. Her right legs shakes in an uncontrolable manner when she's nervous or excited. She can also have frequent bowel movements when stressed. And she talks in a 'little' voice when out in public or sometimes to me when she is unsure what she is talking about, usually when answering something related to school work. She did suffer extensively when in school in the classroom as they never picked up on anything except she didn't read as fast as the other kids, she was in and out of school for 3 years until I finally took her out 3 years ago, it still took me a further 1.5 years to realize the extent of the dyslexia issues.
She doesn't sit still usually has to be doing something with her hands i.e. watching TV and doing a craft at the same time.

The psychiatrist thinks she is social and is not worried about her, but I have not brought up these other issues as we having been dealing with the anxiety stuff for so long I'm now just sitting back an seeing the other things that have always been present. I would appreciate opinions on what you think. She is going to be having a psyche. ed assessment at the beginning of March and I would like to bring up some of this for another opinion.

Thanks

Lorraine

That was me, hanging out with the adults, rather than the children. The adults were far less demanding. It is said that girls, even ASD girls, are excellent mimickers, which is why they fall under the radar so often for ASDs. She may appear to be understanding cues, but she may not. Social rules will only get harder to manage, especially into adulthood. Also, many people with ASDs can be extroverted. The desire to socialize can get confused with the ability to be social. Then again, people with Dyslexia can have some issues, as well, even sensory issues. Can she do the Sally-Ann test?

She's never been tried on it, so not sure. You may be right about the social cues being mimicked as she has always watched people extensively. One of her self professed obsessions is watching people or animals eat, she will watch for ages, get down on the floor with our family pets to study them, and horses are the best to watch as far as she is concerned! She loves airports because she can watch people without being noticed so much, as we have had a few embarrassing moments with her staring at someone in a restaurant for example.

I'm assuming the other body movements are stimming? Would this occur in other disorders or only ASD related?