The long wait for assessment

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Hi everyone, this is my first post

My little girl 3.5 has recently been referred for an ASD assessment after pre-school flagged her. We now fave a wait of up to 6 months.

I have been researching like mad (as you do!) and I am almost certain she has Aspergers. I am just wondering if there is anything we can be doing to help her in the meantime as she seems to really be struggling with her emotions at the moment. I am also wondering if there are more suitable and effective ways we should be dealing with meltdowns, tantrums and behaviour problems in light of this?

It's strange as although I have always suspected as she has always been different and very challenging and this would explain everything I also feel very overwhelmed by what might be ahead of us

If anyone has any opinions on her symptoms and how we can help that would be great...

- repetitive speech/ echolalia (but advanced speech for her age), excessive talking, refers to self in 3rd person a lot
- repetitive play and lining things up
- sensory issues (e.g scared of loud noises, paints arms, puts hands in food)
- intense and emotional
- hyperactive, likes to climb
- withholds poop and soils pants
- clicks tongue, makes lots of noises, jumps up and down
- very picky eater
- runs away, little sense of danger
- struggles to take turns and wait
- over confident with strangers to the point of intimidating some people
- love/hate obsession with fans, lawn mowers, hoovers
- memorized books at young age

I know this is loooong! Thanks for reading!

I know i was difficult as a child and in the 80s not much research had been done on ASDs, my parents struggled immensely with my behaviour and that didn't change until i was in my mid twenties. I'm not trying to worry you but just be aware its a long and arduous process and at times maddening. Having just becomew a father (1month) I've been considering the same issues you're facing at the moment.

As such I've thought a little about my experience and what i'll try with my child.

Firstly I want to harness the repetitive nature early to embed Latin as a second language, because it not only is useful in some higher quality professions but also teach problem solving and context awareness. I'm hoping this will lead to a more 'aware' child, by which i mean more inclined to analyse speech by others than take it literally like i do.

Meltdowns are a real issue though, I'm still given to a wild temper and persist with an argument until the other person just has to give up trying or accept that i am correct. for this what can work is by giving another option for the conversation to go, if they are in trouble rather than perpetually demanding apologies as my parents did, try accepting that its happened and 'working together' to fix it. As an example, if the walls have been drawn on, if the child doesn't own up to what they have done and keeps trying to shirk the blame then allow them to blame the imaginary other but then say something like 'Well I guess its up to us to clean this up now" try and encourage them to atone without acknowledging their initial naughtiness and finally end with giving them a treat for their hard work and saying that who ever did this will get no treat. Hopefully the child should learn to associate good behaviour with treats and bad behaviour with nothing.

At that age the child is probably still working out self sense and associates its self with its name, whilst advanced in speech it would not be difficult for the pronouns to be a hard thing to identify with at a young age for an autistic child as things tend to have specific labels. This i feel comes from the stock phrases commonly attributed to the autistic speech mannerisms, i.e. the sky will always be blue, not navy, not coral. its not that the child doesn't know more adjective its just that autistics are ever pragmatists and as such if blue is good enough the sky will always be blue.

Theres really not much point in force feeding them what they won't eat, just see about crushing up vitamins into what they do eat if you're worried about nutrition. I still won't touch anything thats been near butter, ketchup, mash potato and Ice cream and i'm almost 31 so don't hold your breath on food habits changing much, the foods they eat/don't eat may change but the pickiness will probably remain.

The rest i can't really offer my thoughts on because I've not really thought about them. Hopefully it helps but like i said these are all theory rather than things i've tried so best to get some proper advice first.

Aperta Verbum
http://apertaverbum.weebly.com/

Thanks for your reply ApertaVerbum and congrats on your new arrival! We also have an 8 month old baby, I hope you are getting more sleep than we are!!

Yes that is one of the things I am finding overwhelming, having previously hoped that the 'terrible twos' or 'threenager' phase may be responsible for the challenging behaviour and it may pass, we are now faced with the possibility of it always being issue.

I think the latin is a great idea, if I had a second language I would think it would be a great advantage to bring my children up to be bilingual.

Thanks for the tip on the drawing on walls, this is one of the things she does actually! I will give that a try. She does own up to doing it and we will take away her crayons when she does it but it doesn't stop her doing it again. She is so clever though I would worry if we gave a treat for cleaning it she would draw on the wall in order that she may clean it and get a treat

Yes I agree about the food, they certainly can't be forced, we have a few tricks like mixing pureed cauliflower into mash but dinner times can be a bit stressful. I was the same when I was a kid though, I remember it well, so this is like payback haha!

We are waiting on an assessment as well. Our 4 year old daughter was flagged by her pre-k. We have one more evaluation this week and then a final parent conference with the psychologist on Wednesday.

Her school told us that they have started pulling her out of the classroom when things get too loud and that seems to help with her meltdowns. She is very sensitive to sound. At home we try to warn her ("cover your ears") before we make upsetting noises. She gets upset when we turn on the garbage disposal, shut the microwave door, or clean dishes in the sink. She also dislikes the hand dryers in restrooms and her sister crying. When she knows the noises are coming she seems to do a little better and I think (or at least hope) she feels like we understand what she's going through. I am getting better at recognizing her sound triggers.

We have also become less insistent about her wearing certain clothes or eating certain foods. We still try to get some variety in her diet but being flexible with her has helped with the tantrums. It's tough to find the middle road sometimes. We have to work to get her hair brushed or wash her hair. If we brush her hair VERY slowly she does alright. Cutting fingernails and toenails is hit or miss. Someone told me to cut their nails when they are asleep if you can't distract them with a toy or movie.

My wife has been incredible. She has a great daily routine for both our girls (our youngest is not on the spectrum as far as we can tell) which makes a huge difference. We've really been cutting back on TV and iPad time as well.

We ordered one of those mini trampolines because she likes to jump (endless energy). I'm hoping she'll enjoy that.

We have a lot of trouble getting her to respect other people's boundaries. She crawls all over her little sister and anyone who is sitting or lying on the floor and does not stop. She does not seem to understand when she is irritating people. I have not found a good solution for this yet.

We did cut out the hide-and-seek game at home. She was doing this at school and the teachers could not find her. She likes to run away as well.

We have not received any professional advice yet so these are things we're experimenting with until her evaluations are complete. I'm sure some other folks on here have better suggestions. However, I hope some of this helps or leads you to answers that work for your daughter.

Thanks Boo Radley. Wow I had to check back to see what I had written as our girls sound so similar and we have the many of the exact same issues you mention including hating hand dryers and having hair brushed!! She has yanked me so hard back out of the public toilet door when she heard the hand dryer come on I nearly knocked myself out on the door frame! She has a little sister too.

Yes we do find turning the TV off helps keep the house calm in general, thankfully she isn't too bothered about the ipad, just occasionally likes to draw or instruct me to draw things on it!

I think we do need to relax more on the eating front, I just worry she isn't eating enough variety so we always try to encourage her to eat a bit of everything on her plate (which is already very limited as to what she will entertain) but as Aperta Verbum said you can't force feed them so maybe best to just go with it.

That is a great idea about the trampoline, our little one does so much better when she is being active. We went to the park today and while we were there and since we have been home she has been a dream whereas this morning was a different story! Maybe I should find a gymtots or dance group for her? I can't wait for summer here so she can get out in the garden more.

If we stumble across anything to help with other people's boundaries or running away I will be sure to share, let me know of you do too