My daughter was special from the beginning, she was very intelligent but by the time she was one she was called very hyper by daycares and by two they didn't want her in their programs. She would bite, hit, etc. this continued until she was 5 and then suddenly she became depressed and would isolate herself from other kids. Everyone told me how very intelligent she is but they would focus on her behaviors.
My daughter was diagnosised as ADHD, more like ADD, at 5, and then when she was 6-(and on meds for depression, Clonindine), she was dx'd Bipolar and she was on BP meds for 2 yrs. She had every BP symptom you could think of, she raged, she couldn't sleep, she would see/hear things etc. But recently I took her off the meds and she hasn't had a single BP symptom since and it's been 8 months. She has always had problems with kids since she was one when she hit this boy and bite his 5 yr old sister, and she doesn't know how to make friends, she would walk up and scream at them. While completely off meds, her in-home therapist noticed something that I knew nothing about which is Aspergers. I"ve heard of it but knew nothing of it. So, she had me look it up and some of it fit while others didn't. She recently had to go to a SSI evaluation meeting with a psychiatrist and he said that she seems to have ADHD/BP/and Aspergers as well. She has no offical dx of it. But, I have noticed lately things that I just didn't even think about her so I wanted to read and see if there was a better description because I do know that it presents itself differently in girls.
I found it here last night: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/as_thru_years.html
I couldn't believe it. I mean, she is obsessed with things like school work and histroy facts. This morning she was telling me about King Henry and almost missed her bus for school. She gets obsessed and I use that mildly with certain things at certain times, like for months and still a little now she is obsesssed with cartwheels. She would go out and do it over and over because she felt that she wasn't doing it right. She talked about it for months. I told her not to worry so much about it. I didn't notice that she doesn't look me in the eye directly but when she does she quickly turns her head away. I noticed it the other day that she wasn't looking me in the eye when she was staring in my direction, she was looking at my ears or nose or something. This is the best description I have found and she is almost all of that. She is a normal but odd child. She can get friends she doesn't know how to keep them or how to interact with kids normally but she does have friends. She zones off on you and you have to redirect her all the time, she speaks at a loud volume and she is starting to have problems at school because of her organization skills, her attention, her focus on everyone else and how she doesn't wait to answer questions etc.
I am Adhd myself and I have problems remembering to sign this line every Monday etc. that the teachers expect us to do weekly as her assignment so I know she does! Currently Lea is on Strattera and its working as far as her behaviors and only been on it a few weeks, but so far she's doing well but alot of other behaviors still aren't controlled with it.
We'll be moving in 6 wks so hopefully in our new area in a new state I can get her reevaluated.
19 May 2005, 7:51 am
