help with my daughter!?

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Weird eating habits:
-will not let food touch
-will not mix up eating pattern (if she eats potatoes, she has to finish the potatoes before she can take a bit of something else, etc.)
-she gets upset if she eats something sweet last (she likes to only finish her meal on something salty. - this is the kid who would much rather eat beef jerky, goldfish crackers, or something salty all day instead of candy or something sugary.)

^but isn't that just a kid being a kid...?

On the positive side though:
She does excel at art, music, and foreign language... Well, written, not spoken..

Sounds like she has plenty of reason to think she has AS. Almost every trait you described is consistent with it. And NO, it is not just a kid being a kid.

She wouldn't be the first person who discovered what High Functioning Autism was via the Internet, recognized immediately that it applied to them and was subsequently diagnosed. I had suspected for 30 years that I had something in common with the severely autistic kids I saw on TV, but I wasn't sure how, because I seemed so much more functional than they did. Then someone close to me emailed me a link to a webarticle on Asperger Syndrome, saying "Read this, it sounds like you."

Boy, did it. It sounded so much like me, the only thing missing was my name. But another four years went by before I found myself in a position to be diagnosed by a psychologist with experience dealing with Autistic adults. I was no Mental Health Hypochondriac, looking for disorders to diagnose myself with - I knew I had lived with Chronic Depression all my life (hard to miss that), but it wasn't until I had spoken to a therapist for some months that I realized the overwhelming "nervousness" that had incapacitated me since childhood were panic attacks, constituting an Anxiety disorder. I knew not everybody had that problem, but I certainly never recognized it as a diagnosable ailment. Duh.

As for using AS as an excuse for bad behavior, I blame lax discipline, or overprotective parenting for that. Just because a kid has a disability doesn't mean they don't need to be held to a responsible standard of behavior. It's one thing to understand that they often have difficulties conforming to, or making sense of, social protocols, but entirely another to let them run amok as hooligans, using their handicaps to defend themselves from criticism. You don't have to understand why it's considered rude to interrupt someone in conversation, to know that it isn't acceptable.

Last edited by Willard on 22 Jan 2014, 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The only other weird behavior that she does:
She will spend hours on a swing or a trampoline.
-she would jump for hours, or do no handed summersalts over and over again...
-she spends hours on the swings at the park to the point of injuring her self... when she spends 2-3.5+ hours on the swings, she will come home with huge popped blisters/deep raw skin on her hands from the chains.. And from the edge of the seat, huge scabs/blisters/raw spots/blood on her sides. (she usually only spends an hour, but when she is upset she spends longer.)

And she doesn't get cold.
-she only wears shorts, and she is almost always barefoot
-it is not like she cannot feel temperature, she actually doesn't get cold... (EX: a few weeks ago where we live it was less than 10°F and she was wearing shorts, people in disbelief would touch her arm/hand/face to see if she was lying about not being cold.. She felt warm like she had been in front of a heater...)
Also, she hates when.people touch her.

So far it's sounding like she has sensory issues.

I think the difference is normal kids are just choosing to be difficult by being picky and someone with a sensory disorder isn't choosing to be that way.

A lot of aspies pass as being "normal" for a long period. Like you, my mother insisted that I was fine, that I was her darling little child and nothing could possibly be wrong with me.

But I knew better, I knew I was different somehow. I started thinking of myself as being different from around the age of ten, and this got exponentially worse as I went into my teen years. Eventually, I stumbled onto the Wikipedia article on Asperger's and everything seemed to click. I thought I was the world's only wierdo, but I found there were many more who behaved the same way I did. Parents don't see what their kids see in their own social lives.

I recommend having a mental health professional look at her and examining her concerns. Furthermore, you should look at why she thinks she has Asperger's.

My son has Asperger's and I have met a number of children and adults who are on the autism spectrum. While no one here can diagnose your daughter, every single one of your follow-up posts has provided information which would suggest that an assessment for autism would be worthwhile, and your daughter's thoughts about herself are not without credible grounds. If you, who don't believe she has Asperger's, can provide lists of traits which are suggestive of Asperger's then I can only imagine that your daughter will be able to provide much more information about herself.

Sit down with her, listen to what she has to say, and respect her intelligence and self-knowledge.

Good grief babybird, this mother is only trying to get help for her kid, there's no reason to attack her like that. The OP has clearly stated that she wants examples of specific AS behaviours to watch out for, presumably so she can more closely inspect her belief that her daughter doesn't have it; she's not "drumming her feelings" into anyone. If she didn't care, she wouldn't be here.

Octopus, from what you've said, sensory processing disorder might be a better culprit than autism; the clothes, the food, the bouncing and swinging all sound like tactile hypersensitivity (over-sensitivity to feeling/eating things that don't bother other people), proprioceptive hyposensitivity (a need for excess weight and pressure surrounding the body to feel "grounded" and aware of where her body is, hence the reason she carries a heavy packpack around for no outwardly apparent reason) and vestibular hyposensitivity (lowered reception of physical input, forcing her to look for more of it than a normal person would need through bouncing and swinging; these repetitive behaviours can be very physically and mentally relaxing, hence why your daughter swings more when she's stressed.) What are her social skills like? Does she interact appropriately with strangers/relatives/your friends? Is her lack of friends from a disinterest in other people, or an inability to make friends even when she tries? Both can by symptomatic of ASD. Does she ever misinterpret your or others' facial expressions, or seem to have an unexpressive face or use very few gestures while speaking? How is her eye contact? Can she look you, and more importantly, strangers, in the eye comfortably when communicating (both listening and speaking)? Does she grasp non-literal language such as humour, sarcasm, figures of speech or metaphors? Even if it's not autism, there is definitely something going on with your daughter, and if you can save for a diagnosis, I would do so. Perhaps talk to her GP as well and see what he/she has to say.

"what are her social skills like"
-terrible... She knows to say "hello" and ask "how are you", but then she doesn't know what to do and just stands there..

Does she interact with strangers, family, my friends?
-no
-no
-and no
-she never approaches strangers, and when she is in a situation where she has to they think she is either rude or weird. With family: she doesn't like my side of the family, only her fathers side; when we first had her we did live at his parents house... My friends will ask her "do you talk" and she will shake her head no.. (but once I brought two of my friends with me to do something, an my daughter was riding one of her horses, and they couldn't get her to stop talking, but she only talked of horses)
^I thought that was just part of anxiety though..

"is her lack of friends from disinterest or inability to make friends?"
-both
-she doesn't usually seem to be interested in other people or making friends because she is in her own little world (thought that was just ADD..) But there was a point in her life where all she wanted was to have friends, but just couldn't do it..
-and inability, she finds a lot of people think she is very weird or annoying, or the people that try to be friends with her she will easily find things that she can't stand about them... I guess that it's more incompatibility than inability... There are a few people (other horse people) who are "friends" (she sees very rarely, except when they are working with horses at a summer camp) who look up to her for infinite horse wisdom..
she has had a hard time with friends:
-when she was little, ALL the other little girls would suck up to her to hopefully come and ride her horses - happened quite often, but they didn't really want to be friends
-as her and her preschool-1st grade friends grew they all noticed that she was more awkward or weird than the rest (thought that was add and anxiety) and would avoid her.. Some even went on to make fun of her...

She doesn't notice facial expression.

she has a VERY UNEXPRESSIVE face. I've told her, the mail man has told her, family has told her, friends, other people we know, etc. even door to door sales people, every single one, points out and says "you don't show much expression, you aren't givings anything to go on". Teachers all say the same.

She cannot look in the eye while talking, but once she is done speaking she will look you in the eye or watch your mouth (usually watches mouth) while you talk.

"does she grasp humor/sarcasm/metaphors/figure of speech?"
-sometimes
-not unless she knows the person very well, but she is a very sarcastic individual..
-not really
-if it has been explained to her beforehand (EX: she is a very animals oriented person. when she was 9-10 we had a storm and on the way home I said "it was really raining cats and dogs", as we pulled in the driveway she jumped out of the car and ran to the house. She was looking around and then furiously yelled at me "AND YOU DIDN'T SAVE ANY OF THEM?! !?")

I'll have to ask her why she is convinced it is aspergers when she gets home..
(she might just about die if I bring it up. When she would bring it up we would end up arguing and yelling. I said that if she brings it up again she would be in trouble, it has been months since she has mentioned it, but she checks out books on aspergers. Whenever she becomes interested in something, she will research it to the highest degree)

Yeah, everything you listed in your most recent post sounds like classic symptoms of autism. She has almost every single stereotypical autistic behavior in the book.

A formal diagnosis would still be good and completely to her advantage, but, as a non-professional over the internet, yeah, she sure sounds like she has autism.

I agree. You stated that you don't think she has Asperger's, but then listed a textbook set of Asperger's symptoms. I suggest you do some research on Asperger's syndrome. Maybe you can borrow one of your daughter's books. You should be prepared to eat crow however, or at least apologize profusely for forbidding her from bringing up Asperger's. That sounds pretty harsh to me. She was trying to share something important about herself with you, and you not only shut her down, but forbid her to speak of it again. I can't imagine how painful that must have been for her. You'll have to approach her carefully in order to regain her trust and confidence.

aspergers girls are very secretive of their symptoms, they can hide them very well. ask her what makes her think she has aspergers.

Octopus 123: Observing this topic, I am still rather confused as to why you think she is too 'normal' for this to be a worthwhile consideration. Surely if you research it in any depth you could see that nearly every single thing about her that you have listed above, combined together within one person, is very indicative of autism. Therefore I don't see why you could possibly conclude that it isn't likely enough to take her concerns about that seriously, especially if her insistence upon it, (with herself knowing best how she personally experiences the world) is so strong. I would advise really listening more open-mindedly to what she has to say on the matter.

However I do commend the fact that you have made the effort to take her concerns seriously enough to consult this forum.

What confuses me is that you make a thread about how your daughter think she has Aspergers and you don't agree with her, yet you then go on to list a novel worth of traits that all fit Aspergers symptoms.. I'd take her for an assessment, that is the only way to get a true answer.

To be honest, she sounds like a textbook aspie to me. Difficulty making or keeping friends, incorrectly interpreting or displaying emotions (expressing emotion appropriately is hard when you don't know what it's supposed to look like) and taking figures of speech literally are all hallmark traits of autism, as are "special interests", in her case horses. You specify that she has "infinite wisdom" regarding horses, and talks about them for hours on end with people who will listen. This is also a trademark autistic symptom. I have never met an aspie who didn't have an obsessive fascination of some sort, in fact, academic papers on the subject have cited the incidence of autistics developing obsessive interests at 99-100%, meaning that virtually everyone with an ASD has at least one. Your daughter probably doesn't recognise when you're sick of hearing her talk about them, and/or doesn't get that you don't find them as fascinating as she does, which is why she can spend so long talking about them without being aware that she's boring everyone around her. Your observation that, "Whenever she becomes interested in something, she will research it to the highest degree" falls into the same category. Aspies have a tendency to throw themselves wholeheartedly into anything interesting that crosses their path.

Difficulty with small-talk is also extremely common; it seems pointless and tedious, and aspies often don't understand the point of it, which means they don't really know what sorts of questions to ask, and frankly don't particularly care to try; they have difficulty measuring the boundaries of relationships and can sometimes "overstep" and ask acquaintances the sorts of questions normally reserved for close friends, and things of that nature. Shier people (like myself) often avoid asking any questions at all just in case we get it wrong.

The struggle to maintain friends and the considerable disinterest in doing so are also autistic traits; many aspies need large amounts of time alone to "recharge" because being around other people all day is exhausting. Imagine being in a foreign country where you didn't speak the language proficiently, and imagine how tired you'd feel after trying to communicate with people for a few hours. Asperger's is like that. Difficulty keeping friends stems from the same problem as the small-talk but on a deeper level; she doesn't know what sorts of things are okay and not okay to talk about, so she says the wrong thing and people think she's weird or rude. This difficulty comes in part from a lack of what's called "theory of mind" or the ability to understand others' emotional states. It's why the stereotype that aspies are unempathetic exists; it's not true, but we have a very hard time intuiting the internal states of others, and we can miss important visual or verbal social cues, or misinterpret them, thinking that one facial expression or phrase means something else, thereby further alienating people.

With regard to eye contact, if you ask your daughter why she doesn't look at you, chances are she'll say something along the lines of either, "It hurts to look people in the eye; it's like they're boring holes in my head" or, "It's too distracting; I can't think/speak/listen and look at you at the same time." Being "mono-channel" when it comes to receiving information is extremely common among autistics; they can only comprehend information coming through one channel at a time, so she's either getting visual input, or audio, and if she tries to combine the two, one or the other (usually visual) will win out and completely override the audio input she's receiving, making it as if she never heard it. Watching the mouth is a common technique for attempting to gather information and/or faking eye contact by at least looking at the person's face (it's a trick I personally employ all the time). Aspies cannot generally gather information about other people throught the expression in their eyes because they do not read or pick up on emotion easily, so they instinctively look toward the mouth, after all, that's where the information is coming from.

Given what you've told me, I very strongly suspect that your daughter would in fact qualify for a diagnosis of ASD. I have been studying the subject as intensively as your daughter studies horses for almost three years now, and she fits the majority of the DSM 5 criteria to a T.

And one more thing I forgot to ask; has she ever displayed any odd or atypical motor movements, for instance jumping up and down, flapping her hands, spinning in circles, repeating words others have said or from TV shows, or anything else that just came across as a little peculiar? I ask because this behaviour is called self-stimulatory behaviour, or "stimming" and is a way of physically regulating the body and bringing it back to a state or normalcy after something emotionally arousing or physically overstimulating has occurred.

I figured out I had Asperger's by reading about it because my nephew had been diagnosed. I never followed through with an official diagnosis because I don't need help. I'm 57 and fairly well-compensated (after having lost a great career due to poor social skills 20 yrs. ago). I figured out how to be passable at small talk after age 50. I don't need disability benefits. I don't need accommodations on my job. I have a very understanding boss, who doesn't force me to do public speaking just because I said I don't want to do it. otherwise, I'm good at my job. for the occasional client who is disturbed by my quietness, there are other social workers who can work with that client, no repercussions. I'm married to a quiet (smart, sweet) guy. I am happy. perhaps all your daughter needs is to hear from you that you can see what she means.

if I needed therapy, social skills classes, or disability benefits, I'd go for a diagnosis.

Sounds like she not only has Asperger's, she has a worse case than I do. I'm guessing you either fail to understand Asperger's, or you're in denial. Much like my mother initially was, you want to think your daughter is "normal" and "just like everybody else".

Conformity is a powerful thing, it's a survival mechanism. Unfortunately, you can't force conformist behaviors upon someone who is biologically incapable of conformity. I think you should tell you're daughter that you seriously consider Asperger's as a possability (and mean it!) and then address the situation with a mental health professional.