Overly social AS child?

Post Reply New Topic

Is that possible? I'm not saying that the child has good social skills but is unusually social and has to talk to everyone, literally, even if that person doesn't want to be bothered. It doesn't seem to matter to them at all. They love people too much! And also they talk non-stop and ask questions non-stop. ALL OF THE TIME! 24 hours a day. (Perhaps this is normal )

I'm thinking my daughter may be exhibiting some traits but she has lots of friends (is never invited to play dates, though) and all play time is on her terms. She can also be a bit aggressive even though I know she means no harm. She is highly sensitive and when someone doesn't agree with her "they hate me!". She never sticks with one friend and usually when we go out she will try to either socialize with the adults or the younger children.
She seems very defiant (not meaning to be) and strong willed and I suspect ADD as well (She exhibits all the inattentive signs but then some things that are not at all ADD) but there is just something else that is nagging at me. She is not like other children with ADD/ADHD. She gets mad when they touch her but she has to tease and touch everyone else.

She is also unusually smart and sometimes when she talks she sounds like a little encyclopedia. She is always telling me about bugs and lizards and the human body. She's been obsessed with lions since she was two and she obsessively draws for hours and hours and hours. She's quite good. She has a medical encyclopedia, goes through my pathology books, and her "guineas book of world records".

She has constant problems with completing the work at school and always misunderstands directions. She will tell you all about a subject but when she is given the work she usually can't perform. (Only on her terms)

I am currently working on getting evaluated myself as are a few other family members so it is only natural that I look at my own child. I've been researching this day and night but I think my most valuable info comes from other parents and also she is only 6 and just graduated from kindergarten I am wondering if I should just wait until 1rst and 2nd grade.

Of course, all these traits could just be a normal 6 year old.
I guess my main question is the overly social and verbal (More so than a normal child), but knows no boundaries question.

I haven't brought this up to my husband because I know he would deny it. I brought up my AS and his immediate response was "well, my girls our normal".

If I've confused anyone with my post I apologize. I tend to wander when I write and I tend to write too much. Unlike my daughter I am not very verbal, LOL.

Your daughter sounds exactly like me and my 6 year old daughter. We have both been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. We have some AS traits. Two of my older sons have AS and one has slight ADHD and AS traits. My daughter and my son are social and it keeps me running. But my daughter has the same problems with friends. She is rough and in-your-face. She wears the other kid out.

I was just like that when I was young and I am also social when I want to be. If you want to discuss this further please feel free to let me know.

It is very common for AS children to engage in long winded one sided conversations where they don't seem to pick up on the cues that the other person may want to speak, or may not be interested.

It is also common for AS children to talk to strangers or take questions like "how are you today?" from a cashier very litterally. I know when I was 11, my mother had to tell me that they really did not want to know all about my day, or the fact my goldfish died! That the apporpreate social response was "I am fine, how are you?"

I think that social problems become worse with time for the AS child. The over talkativeness and lack of social reciprocacy may at first be tolerated by peers. I know my son seemed to have an OK time socially with many children he considered "friends" when he was in Kindergarden / Grade 1. However the school did have strong concerns about his social growth, citing that he was unable to form long term relationships and needed adult intervention for even the smallest problems with others. He too did not get invited to playdates, or birthday parties. Generally, every year he got older, he lost friends. In the last 3 years, (he is 12 now) he has failed to make any new ones. The few friends he has remaining have their own developmental / social issues. One is slightly developmentally delayed, he is 15, the other two are brothers with a severe case of ADHD and definately their own AS like traits, although I don't think they have AS per say...

I think if you suspect your daughter may have AS, you should look into it and get a medical opinion. Educate your husband on what it is and is not, he may be less afraid of it then and be more willing to consider it. The earlier you know though, the sooner you can offer her the support she needs if indeed, she does have it.

It sounds to me like an obvious case of Asperger's. Everything matches except the talkativeness, but even that I've heard of as a (less) common personality trait in Aspies. From what I understand, we tend to be fairly quiet or talk all the time, but rarely anything between.

I suspect both my parents to be Aspies, though not to the extent that I am. No one in my family had ever heard of such a thing until I found out about it on the web a couple of years ago, but my parents have often made comments about how they know they're kind of odd and asocial. Additionally, everyone knew I was very intelligent, so they saw my strangeness as a consequence of my intelligence, rather than the cause. As a result, I grew up being allowed to be myself and not being made to feel inferior for having a "condition". I did, on many occasions, have to struggle with the knowledge of my uniqueness, even alienness, which made me unhappy sometimes, but I am glad I didn't have a doctor telling me something was wrong with me.

I refuse to this day to pay a so called "professional" to tell me I'm screwed up because I'm different from other people. It's a difference, not a disease, and there are at least as many benefits as bad points to being this way. I think my son is an Aspie (he's 2, but he's just like me at that age) and I have no intention of ever getting him diagnosed. I will teach him how to survive in this world, and how to recognize, understand, and adjust for the differences in himself from those around him, but I will never call it a disease, especially to his face, because it is not. I hope my attitude rubs off on you and anyone else who reads this post. As soon as we stop thinking of differences as diseases in this world, our children will stop being pushed to the fringes and made to suffer for something that is no more a flaw than being left-handed. That trend is the most damaging aspect of the whole "condition".

It sounds to me like an obvious case of Asperger's. Everything matches except the talkativeness, but even that I've heard of as a (less) common personality trait in Aspies. From what I understand, we tend to be fairly quiet or talk all the time, but rarely anything between.

I suspect both my parents to be Aspies, though not to the extent that I am. No one in my family had ever heard of such a thing until I found out about it on the web a couple of years ago, but my parents have often made comments about how they know they're kind of odd and asocial. Additionally, everyone knew I was very intelligent, so they saw my strangeness as a consequence of my intelligence, rather than the cause. As a result, I grew up being allowed to be myself and not being made to feel inferior for having a "condition". I did, on many occasions, have to struggle with the knowledge of my uniqueness, even alienness, which made me unhappy sometimes, but I am glad I didn't have a doctor telling me something was wrong with me.

I refuse to this day to pay a so called "professional" to tell me I'm screwed up because I'm different from other people. It's a difference, not a disease, and there are at least as many benefits as bad points to being this way. I think my son is an Aspie (he's 2, but he's just like me at that age) and I have no intention of ever getting him diagnosed. I will teach him how to survive in this world, and how to recognize, understand, and adjust for the differences in himself from those around him, but I will never call it a disease, especially to his face, because it is not. I hope my attitude rubs off on you and anyone else who reads this post. As soon as we stop thinking of differences as diseases in this world, our children will stop being pushed to the fringes and made to suffer for something that is no more a flaw than being left-handed. That trend is the most damaging aspect of the whole "condition".

Sorry about the double post there. My browser lagged really badly when I hit the button, so I thought I had missed it or something.

Sounds like Asperger's to me. I have 2 sons with Asperger's (8 and 7). My 8 year old son with Asperger's never stops talking.

'They hate me' sounds like my 8 year old as well.

I would recommend you get her assessed as soon as possible - the sooner it is recognised the better.

Don't worry about your husband being in denial. Mine was for a long time but I pushed ahead with getting assessments done.

It took my husband months to accept the first son being diagnosed even after he had officially been diagnosed.

However now my husband is on 100% behind the diagnosis and we are working as a great team for the boys.

Remember, people with Asperger's have vastly different personalities - apart from sharing the diagnosis, my 8 and 7 year old sons are very different to each other.



Smelena

She sounds like a smart energetic young girl to me, who learns by asking questions, which i think is a really good thing.

wow, thank you for all the responses. Saying my daughter is energetic and talkative is an understatement! I do try and answer all of her questions about everything. As you may know when a child is about three they are always asking why, why, why, why,. LOL and then they grow out of it.
My daughter didn't start this until about 4 but she never stopped. We do a lot of research together.
I'll admit she can be absolutely exhausting. I'm a complete introvert and like my solitude and quiet.
My daughter does make the time to be by herself and will find little hiding places but when you go in to check on her she is having an entire conversation or just singing at the top of her lungs.

She is also very loud. We have to tell her to be quiet all of the time. This is another thing she has not grown out of. She yells constantly but I am pretty sure her hearing is normal.

I'm rambling now. I've been distracted by my daughter a few times. She is currently trying to rip out her second loose tooth. (shudder)
That's the other thing. She will put on a big 3 day long dramatic episode over a tiny scratch or a hangnail but has no problem ripping out a loose tooth. She had scarlet fever because she never complained about her sore throat.

ps: What do you do with a 6 year old who is throwing a tantrum. She has these "meltdowns" as I like to call them, and no form of discipline seems to work. Then when she is done it is like nothing happened.
It's worse than dealing with my two year old sometimes. Thank goodness it has not happened in public for awhile.

Yes, it is possible. There are AS people who are so shy that they are practically mute in public, and others who don't understand conversations are reciprocal. At different times, I probably was at both extremes.

Do any of your AS children seem to know a lot or all of the material they should but they don't always perform when asked?
For example I will try to sit down with my daughter and do some numbers and letters and it will seem that she is having difficulty yet when I am not asking her she will be telling ME about it and showing me how to do it. This worries me because I think that when it comes time to test her knowledge in school she will have difficulty testing and appear to not know when it fact she does know it.

I love the sign language and gestures idea. That reminds me. I rented some sign language videos at our public library and my daughter went around for months gesturing things to me. I think I should rent those videos again.

M spoke/babbled from the time she was a baby but was difficult to understand until she was almost 4.

My son was always verbose! No one is a stranger to him. He is almost eight and still this way. People are a bit taken aback (now that he's older) but the kids (older) seem to find him amusing. His peers are irritated by him (sometimes).

He has always been intense. This is his way. He loves to talk one-sided, will say just about anything, ask just about anything, and say off the wall things (I think for the drama of it). Just yesterday he did a tap dance (loves to dance) in the middle of the town square, atop the stone wall. He's never taken lessons, but he is good!

No, mine has never been shy. LOL

He needs to talk. He learns best when he talks. I think this is one of his issues with school (working on it now) that he doesn't get enough opportunity to talk! He is most comfortable, when he is instructing someone about something. I think he is a natural born teacher! Even if he doesn't know his subject that well, he pretends to and has the vocabulary to fake it. This, too, is a bit of a turn off to other kids.