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Sometimes it's not the individual behaviors; it's the sum of them or the frequency or the intensity, or all of those together. if it affects functioning in some way (the child's, the family's, etc.), it's probably worth a closer look.

 

I've been told that sensory issues that are not remediated will not go away. We all have sensory differences to some extent, but when functioning is upset, they need to be treated. Treatment aims at integrating sensory responses. Whatever cannot be integrated should have a plan attached to it to help with functioning. 

 

I was told (by a pyschologist, not an OT), that sensory "matures" into anxiety--I suspect this goes along with what the OT said about issues not going away on their own. I see this pattern in people I know IRL. I see a lot less anxiety after OT with one of my kids (the other didn't have a lot of sensory symptoms, but that can change). Other people don't see this clear pattern. We used an OT clinic that is recommended as "THE PLACE" for sensory issues, and we started when my son was old enough to give them reliable feedback about himself and to take in advice about how to deal with things. We didn't want to go someplace that would not connect behavior and self-regulation to the physical part of OT and put off treatment until we could do that. If his sensory issues had been worse, we might have had to do whatever OT we could find anyway just to cope.

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Sometimes it's not the individual behaviors; it's the sum of them or the frequency or the intensity, or all of those together. if it affects functioning in some way (the child's, the family's, etc.), it's probably worth a closer look.

 

 

THIS.  That is why it is often hard to explain your child's special needs as people say "oh, that is normal" but they don't get the frequency or intensity of the behavior.

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Not the answer you wanted, but you wouldn't be the first person to get diagnosed when their kid got diagnosed.   ;)

 

Harmless is sort of an odd word to use there.  You mean benign, indicative of nothing?  There's no harm in being autistic, unless of course the behavior is specifically harmful.  People get to where they start to recognize and appreciate neurodiversity, that spectrum means there should be a RAINBOW.  It's really b&w to say NT (neurotypical) is the only way to be.

 

My ds flaps.  It's benign, doesn't hurt anyone, and not likely to go away. However it's also likely to get him bullied and into problems later if he doesn't learn to self-monitor at some point.  Not harmful, just not on the list of what the majority (the NT) think is acceptable.  And given his age, I'm not inclined to make him thing he's BROKEN by pointing it out.  And I'm probably have to hold back from slapping somebody who said anything to him.  There will be a time, but it's not now.

 

I say it's ok to enjoy your kid exactly the way he is and make your plans on the rest.  As for the trauma of diagnoses, I can't help you there.  If I could, I wouldn't be sitting here in my own war zone of trauma.  If it happens and the symptoms culminate into a diagnosis, you'll get through it.  

 

Happy checkers.  Keep doing that.   :)

 

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Sometimes it's not the individual behaviors; it's the sum of them or the frequency or the intensity, or all of those together.

 

 

:iagree:

 

Thanks for writing that. It helps sum up my thoughts. I may be clueless too, but just about everybody has got something that can be found on those clinical checklist. If someone doesn't, that person is abnormal for being too "normal." ;)

 

If the behaviors don't collectively create a problem because they are infrequent or because there simply aren't that many of them or they're not severe (or intense) enough to cause concern, people don't seek a diagnosis. If a concerned parent seeks a diagnosis, there may or may not be "enough" of those behaviors to qualify for a diagnosis. 

 

I know some people's behavior falls so far away from normal that their behavior warrants outside help and intervention from professionals. But I also am of the opinion that the range of acceptable "normal" for children has narrowed significantly--and that's not necessarily helpful. We seem to forget that children frequently behave childish and immature. Most of them eventually grow out of it. Some don't. Some need direct intervention, but the majority simply benefit from normal childhood play and activities--and time.  

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It is almost impossible for a parent to accurately evaluate their own child's behaviors as inside or outside the norm.  We are too close to the forest to see the trees and all.  It is also very difficult to describe behaviors and people on paper.  That is why the internet is helpful, but we all need a real live expert (or more than one) to eyeball our kids and do formal evaluations.  When I meet people and spend some time with them (kids or adults), I can typically form a pretty good opinion of whether their behaviors fall outside the norm or not, particularly as related to ASD.  But I did not "see" some of my own kids' ASD traits.  That would be true if we were discussing something other than ASD.  I can nail ADHD pretty accurately, as well, in person, but other issues can mirror ADHD symptoms so there are some rule outs.

 

I have informally diagnosed my dad with ASD now that one of my kids is diagnosed as ASD.  I think it is as difficult to see one's parents as inside or outside the norm as it is to see one's kids.

 

Full disclosure:  I'm a professional with experience with quite a few kids/teens on the spectrum, so it was not ignorance at play here.

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A year ago, an OT demonstrated that DD has motor planning issues. I could hardly believe it and then it struck me that the family had been accommodating her and none of us realized it. We simply adjusted to DD based upon our experience with DS, and these are two similar yet very different children. I just assumed that was what families do.

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A year ago, an OT demonstrated that DD has motor planning issues. I could hardly believe it and then it struck me that the family had been accommodating her and none of us realized it. We simply adjusted to DD based upon our experience with DS, and these are two similar yet very different children. I just assumed that was what families do.

Yes, exactly.  I did not see how odd my son's gait was until his ST described how he walks down the hall with his fists clenched several years back.  He was just our kid.  We just loved and helped him.  It was just what we did.  I lost the ability to see him objectively the minute I saw two lines on a pregnancy test.

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Okay, I think I have a moment. I have a lot of things going through my head now. Like a previous poster, I wonder if diagnoses have become so broad that they now encompass what used to be considered quirky but benign childhood behaviors. I look at my kids while they are playing with some of their friends, and my kids don't seem any different than their friends. But...these friends are the kids of my friends, and if these issues are hereditary, maybe all of their friends aren't quite average and neither are the moms, and birds of a feather...

 

On the other hand, I am starting to see differences between my son and the other kids in the neighborhood. My 7 y/o has started to melt down when his neighborhood friends playfully say something that is not factually accurate. For example, the kids were running around and saying "Oh no! Bees! Bees kill flowers!" and P had a fit. "No! Bees pollinate flowers!" "No, bees kill flowers!" Then tears from P and he screamed "You need to learn about nature!" and ran into the house. Now, I might not have thought much about this before starting evals--I remember having an intolerance for "wrong" things when I was a kid, but P's psych was very interested in this story and wrote a lot of notes about it. This incident in isolation I could brush off as P having a bad day, but how many bad days equal a problem? Some of the little things that the psych asked questions about I hadn't put together as pieces of the puzzle, and now I wonder how many other little things I think are average are not? 

This says ASD to me, but I am a disinterested, unrelated person reading one story of a child's life.  Even with my BFF's child, I did not identify the ASD early on.  It is so hard to evaluate these things when you are a person involved intimately in a child's life.  Interestingly, my ASD kid never did anything like the above story.  ASD is a very broad spectrum, and each person on the spectrum presents differently.  The younger a child is, the more difficult it is to separate out developmental versus diagnosable issues, IMO.  Some kids who look ASD early on, given time, will grow out of these behaviors.

 

I envision a spectrum on which all people fall.  People like me (empathetic therapist-y types) are on the far right end of the spectrum, with many normal people being to the left of me with no diagnoses.  Classic autism is on the very far left of this spectrum.  At some point, some people cross over the line at which a DSM diagnosis can be given.  But many folks are just on the other side of this line.  Frankly, the line between them is thin, and it is subjective who gets the diagnosis and who does not.  It is not an exact science at all, and even professionals struggle with it.

 

Those are my free of charge thoughts.  :)

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I have a child who adamantly refuses to eat meat because she is highly moral and doesn't condone the killing of animals.  (Where that came from, I have no idea because we are animal eating fools in this house.)  DD went nuts after she recognized a roasted "chicken body" at the deli section of our grocery store.  Anyhoo..

 

Your child's bee reaction would signal a "too much viewing of PBS" remark from DH.   

 

DH and I live in la la land.  We cannot afford another label.

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I have a child who adamantly refuses to eat meat because she is highly moral and doesn't condone the killing of animals.  (Where that came from, I have no idea because we are animal eating fools in this house.)  DD went nuts after she recognized a roasted "chicken body" at the deli section of our grocery store.  Anyhoo..

 

Your child's bee reaction would signal a "too much viewing of PBS" remark from DH.   

 

DH and I live in la la land.  We cannot afford another label.

I don't mean to laugh because I know you are serious, but this is funny.

 

It is all relative.  I do not look too closely at younger son's teeth because of the other two siblings who have a huge, obvious need for orthodontics.

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... she is highly moral and doesn't condone the killing of animals.  (Where that came from, I have no idea because we are animal eating fools in this house.)  DD went nuts after she recognized a roasted "chicken body" at the deli section of our grocery store.  Anyhoo..

 

Your child's bee reaction would signal a "too much viewing of PBS" remark from DH.   

 

 

 

For example, the kids were running around and saying "Oh no! Bees! Bees kill flowers!" and P had a fit. "No! Bees pollinate flowers!" "No, bees kill flowers!" Then tears from P and he screamed "You need to learn about nature!" and ran into the house. 

 

These are different things.  Being highly moral goes with giftedness, and having that click is just part of maturing.  Extreme rigidity and correcting errors in others to the point where it violates social norms and provokes meltdowns is... well it's extreme rigidity and correcting errors and violating social norms and provoking meltdowns.  CAN a child be very gifted and have rigidity and violate social norms and not get an ASD diagnosis?  Yes.  ADHD can include quite a bit of rigidity.  The ASD diagnosis has a number of diagnostic criteria, not just one, and they involve the extent to which they're affecting life.  It's not JUST that there's rigidity.

 

I mean, look at my rudeness in nitpicking you over harmless vs. benign.  ;)  Seriously, that's not socially appropriate.  But to get to ASD they're going to look at ALL the parameters, not just one, and see if ALL the parameters are getting there.  Minus one, minus 2, they just plop you in a different kissing cousin label.  

 

I think the important thing is to recognize it's happening.  I think the important thing is to recognize the areas that need support.  I think the thing to stress over *less* is what category of DSM that puts you in, because the DSM is idiotic.  Sorry, I'm just being crass there, but it's a loaded, long topic.  You're in the middle of things, and it sounds like you're getting fresh evals?  That's GOOD!  That's the right thing to do.  But remember, it doesn't matter which DSM label they use (ADHD, ASD, SCD, whatever), if it's happening and needs support, you're going to want to get the right word for the symptom and support it.  You can have kids with similar levels of pragmatic (social skill, social language) issues go ADHD or ASD.  You can have extreme rigidity and only get it labeled ADHD.  You can have him get labeled ADHD this time, be left scratching your head, and not get an ASD label for another 5 or 7 years when he really truly maxes out his ability to mask it.  I have no clue what's going on with your kid.  I'm just saying I find it much easier now to admit what's really going on with my kid and just be honest about it (here's the behavior, here's what it's called), than to get into the rat race of this is the label, he doesn't do this so maybe it's not the label, he does this so it can't be the label, blah blah.  He does X behavior, this is what it's called, and this is the support it needs.  That's where I'm at, because that's actionable information for me.  The label answers the social question and helps with insurance and funding.  When your kid is melting down because you used a different bathroom and the people can hear you in the hall through masonry walls and metal door (yes, this really happened), it's really, really helpful to finally have the right word for what's going on, sigh, because it comes up.

 

So who knows?  What is really going on is we intervene more.  I think you're right that the behaviors were there 100 years ago, but they weren't benign.  They landed you in a home.  They meant you stayed single.  They meant you didn't get to pursue the job you dreamed of.  NOW we intervene and try to change the path of that.  Now we recognize the GIFTS that go with the disabilities.  I think the way it was handled in years past wasn't so pretty or fair or kind as what we would want for our kids now.  So I don't think it does our kids a service not to get the right words for what's going on, because our intervention options are so good.

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It's raw for you.  I'm sorry it's hard.   :grouphug: 

 

I know I'm coming to where Texas is, that whatever it is is OK, whatever we provide will be good enough, etc.  I wish I had something more comforting.  It IS hard and you're seeing things.  But I will tell you don't assume things and get to someplace in your own mind unnecessarily or prematurely.  You really and truly can do all those things and not get an ASD label.  I've seen research that would make your eyes bug out.  At the age our boys are, they can have pragmatics scores that are within the normal range and still test as ASD per the ADOS.  Conversely, that means you've got kids who are testing with low pragmatics who are not getting ASD scores.  About 60% of kids with dyslexia will get an ADHD label, and ADHD can and will include some pretty severe rigidity.  If all the criteria aren't there for ASD, they'll just walk it down to ADHD or SCD or OCD.  

 

Don't torture yourself before the label applies.  You're seeing things, yes, and those things have right words.  And you're kind of astonished that you weren't seeing them, and that's fine.  It may or may not get there.  They could go ADHD with social delay, ASD, SCD, anything in there.  Find other things to think about and let it work out.  Easier said than done, sigh, I know.  At least your psych is taking the time to notice.  That's good.  That's why you go, to piece together things you weren't connecting.

 

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I have a child who adamantly refuses to eat meat because she is highly moral and doesn't condone the killing of animals.  (Where that came from, I have no idea because we are animal eating fools in this house.)  DD went nuts after she recognized a roasted "chicken body" at the deli section of our grocery store.  Anyhoo..

 

Your child's bee reaction would signal a "too much viewing of PBS" remark from DH.   

 

DH and I live in la la land.  We cannot afford another label.

 

I am reading this thread with interest, but honestly... most people I know who are vegetarians or vegans, were raised in animal-eating homes. I don't find your daughter's reaction strange at all. I was a vegetarian for years for the same reason, and knew many people who were.

 

There are many interesting and unusual behaviors listed on this thread but I find her reaction perfectly normal. I worked hard with my kids to make sure there was no "element of surprise" in eating meat. They were never forced to eat it and we have explained to them from the beginning that this is a dead animal, that is a dead plant, this is like an egg, etc. etc. Circle of life. Sometimes they still refuse to eat it. 

 

But I guess my reaction to your post highlights how difficult it is to explain what is different about one's child. Many people have one or two or three or 10 or 50 things. When you get to "everything in my life is a life or death freak out situation" it is a problem, you look for a diagnosis. Bees don't kill flowers and I've never heard a child say that and it would bug the hell out of me, no pun intended, if kids said that. I can imagine a kid having a breakdown, because at that moment, it seems like the entire world is insane, except you. Literally everyone here is stupid except me. And I'm just going to say, how can bees kill flowers? Have they ever even seen a bee fly up to a flower? WTH? They must have been messing with him, and he sensed it. :( 

 

And that is a scary place to be. Like all of a sudden--"Wait a minute, YOU ARE ALL ANIMALS WHO EAT OTHER ANIMALS?" Freaky stuff if you never thought about it like that before. Why wouldn't it be?

 

I think it's a little bizarre that more children don't go through that, but some people just aren't that perceptive or thoughtful. I don't think they ever fully get the meta-perspective on meat eating. I eat meat, by the way--I'm not labeling meat eaters as not thoughtful, but saying that some people don't really get it unless you spell it out to them and even then, they can recite the fact but they don't think about it like on the level of, the snake eating its tail, the circle of life, etc.

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This says ASD to me, but I am a disinterested, unrelated person reading one story of a child's life.  Even with my BFF's child, I did not identify the ASD early on.  It is so hard to evaluate these things when you are a person involved intimately in a child's life.  Interestingly, my ASD kid never did anything like the above story.  ASD is a very broad spectrum, and each person on the spectrum presents differently.  The younger a child is, the more difficult it is to separate out developmental versus diagnosable issues, IMO.  Some kids who look ASD early on, given time, will grow out of these behaviors.

 

I envision a spectrum on which all people fall.  People like me (empathetic therapist-y types) are on the far right end of the spectrum, with many normal people being to the left of me with no diagnoses.  Classic autism is on the very far left of this spectrum.  At some point, some people cross over the line at which a DSM diagnosis can be given.  But many folks are just on the other side of this line.  Frankly, the line between them is thin, and it is subjective who gets the diagnosis and who does not.  It is not an exact science at all, and even professionals struggle with it.

 

Those are my free of charge thoughts.   :)

 

See, and to me the above story could also just be indicative of giftedness. My ds has had many similar incidents and to him it is a moral travesty to let the wrong information permeate when he knows the correct information. He feels very strongly about it and we are working on it, but I know several gifted adults with the same response. ;)

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Yes. It's hard to sort out. I mean, I look at something like this chart http://files.meetup.com/227379/list%20of%20female%20asperger%20syndrome%20traits.jpg

and think wow, shy, moody, introverted, interested in things, fidgety, disorganized--that describes me and most of the women who have been my close friends throughout my life. Of the ones with whom I am still in contact, at least, none of us are diagnosed with ASD, or consider ourselves ASD. At what point does a personality style become a disorder? I don't think that affecting different areas of life is necessarily a good criterion--lots of personality traits affect a person's life, even negatively, does everything that derails aspects of one's life deserve a diagnosis? I don't know, I'm just rambling at this point. 

 

I think that when you are not able to support yourself or a family, or when it's looking that way, you need a diagnosis, because there are certain things you should be able to do, and if you can't, you need special accommodations and help. Like a wheelchair, or glasses.

 

The question is what is your definition of an acceptable life.

 

I also think that the behavior needed for some public schools and some homeschool environments is much more... high functioning, than for other environments.

 

I did not find the gifted label helpful in my own life. I wish I had gotten a different narrative to cope with my own unusual traits, personally.

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...

 

I mean, look at my rudeness in nitpicking you over harmless vs. benign. ;) ...

 

So who knows? What is really going on is we intervene more. I think you're right that the behaviors were there 100 years ago, but they weren't benign. They landed you in a home. They meant you stayed single. They meant you didn't get to pursue the job you dreamed of. NOW we intervene and try to change the path of that. Now we recognize the GIFTS that go with the disabilities...

I'm going to be the one nitpicking now, except I consider what I'm doing as participating in this discussion. :D

 

100 years ago, odd behaviors or not, most people didn't get to pursue their dreams. They worked on a farm or in a factory, or some other form of menial labor.

 

In truth, we diagnosis many of these quirky things now because we have time to worry about quirky things like this instead of things like are we going to literally starve for lack of food or freeze for lack of warmth. I was lamenting one time about dyslexia with a family member who had spent a few years in a third world country decades ago, when she presented a different perspective. They didn't have a dyslexia problem--the majority of people were simply illiterate and barely managing to survive. She presented it like this: "Can't read? Here, have a shovel." And to the person who could read, "Here, have a shovel."

 

My B IL was diagnosed late in life after his father died as being

on the autism spectrum. My FIL and MIL both grew up on a farm, but lived in a city. FIL would often comment about how BIL would have been able to manage life on the farm fine. He moves slow but does okay with routine and is reasonably strong. He not only knows how to read, but he can use a shovel.

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I've been listening in. Related to what merry gardens says above, I think that addressing the issues in some way, instead of just accepting them as personality quirks, opens up more possibilities in life for the affected individual. I have learned some things about myself as we have learned some things about my son, and I definitely think that if my parents had helped me address some things (mainly sensory and anxiety) that I may have had better tools to cope with some of the circumstances of my life. So in seeking diagnoses for my kids, what I hope is to open up opportunities for them to thrive and reach their fullest personal potential.

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I've been told that sensory issues that are not remediated will not go away. We all have sensory differences to some extent, but when functioning is upset, they need to be treated. Treatment aims at integrating sensory responses. Whatever cannot be integrated should have a plan attached to it to help with functioning. 

 

I was told (by a pyschologist, not an OT), that sensory "matures" into anxiety--I suspect this goes along with what the OT said about issues not going away on their own. I see this pattern in people I know IRL. I see a lot less anxiety after OT with one of my kids (the other didn't have a lot of sensory symptoms, but that can change). Other people don't see this clear pattern. We used an OT clinic that is recommended as "THE PLACE" for sensory issues, and we started when my son was old enough to give them reliable feedback about himself and to take in advice about how to deal with things. We didn't want to go someplace that would not connect behavior and self-regulation to the physical part of OT and put off treatment until we could do that. If his sensory issues had been worse, we might have had to do whatever OT we could find anyway just to cope.

 

This is interesting. My ODS-6 has clear signs of sensory procession issues and always has but without anything extreme I didn't feel he'd quite qualify for therapy so I never got it diagnosed. Also, I realized *I* most definitely have sensory issues, probably worse than his and now as an adult I have developed anxiety that seems to get worse each year, which is annoying because I considered myself super laid back before and definitely not prone to anxiety. Too bad there's no OT for adults with sensory issues that I've ever heard of :)

 

Can things outside of explicit therapy help the sensory issues? I know I've noticed that doing gymnastics as a preschooler helped my son a lot since many of the activities overlapped with what OT's do in sensory integration therapy, but it's been awhile since he's done it and lately with our move he seems to be getting worse. Showers are a battle every night as the water 'hurts' his eyes and he keeps coming up with new things to be anxious about concerning our upcoming move (tornadoes, volcanoes, etc.) 

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I read recently (but can't verify, don't really know) that 70% of ASD will involve ID.  I agree there are these mixes, with or without ID, where things work out.  And sometimes they don't.  What I'm reading is that it's social skills and pragmatics that will determine employability, not brains.  For some people it's going to work out to go that vocational route, take a place in the family business, whatever.  I know people with (undiagnosed) SN where this is happening and working out well.  Doesn't mean it's going to work out for everyone.

 

To continue Binip's thought, we got that line about the giftedness vs. ASD.  There are some helpful charts on it.  It seems like sometimes the people that ought to have thought through this (psychs, etc.) are the ones willing to make pat, trite answers rather than really thinking.  

 

Someone was telling me in places like England, historically quirky and clinical were differentiated by how much money you had.  

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I've been listening in. Related to what merry gardens says above, I think that addressing the issues in some way, instead of just accepting them as personality quirks, opens up more possibilities in life for the affected individual. I have learned some things about myself as we have learned some things about my son, and I definitely think that if my parents had helped me address some things (mainly sensory and anxiety) that I may have had better tools to cope with some of the circumstances of my life. So in seeking diagnoses for my kids, what I hope is to open up opportunities for them to thrive and reach their fullest personal potential.

I agree.

 

Also, with an official diagnosis, the affected individual can likely qualify for accommodations in settings such as the public school, ACT/SAT, and college.  This levels the playing field.

 

My ASD kid has anxiety which at times keeps him from pursuing a healthy, happy life and activities.  He has auditory processing issues which affect his life in a negative way.  He has sensory issues which - wait for it - affect his life in a negative way.  He has some social issues, too, but these mostly affect his relationships within our family.

 

People who are called "quirky" but unofficially accommodated by family in homeschooling and other ways but who qualify for an official diagnosis but this is never pursued face an unlevel playing field the older they get.  An ASD diagnoses needs to be given prior to adulthood for the most benefit in terms of accommodations.

 

My son is homeschooled due to his issues.  Initially, that issue was anxiety, but as he has gotten older, the true disabilities involved with his issues have become more clear.  His peers have passed him by in many areas.  His younger brother has passed him by in many areas.  His younger sister has even passed him by in some areas.  My ASD kid just looked really quirky as a young kid, and he had terrible SPD.  The older he gets, the more I see his issues and the disabilities they have produced.  The gap between him and his peers is getting wider, not narrower, as they mature and he does not.

 

I don't mean to say that everyone who is in any way "different" needs a diagnosis.  I'm a licensed therapist.  I've seen plenty of people whom I did not diagnose.  We are all different in some way, and I like it that way.  But when a line is crossed and someone qualifies for a DSM diagnosis per a licensed professional, it can be beneficial to have this documented.  The cute and quirky seven year old can become a poorly functioning 17 year old.

 

Please excuse me for raining on anyone's parade, and this is not directed at any specific person on this thread.  I've just walked this down the road a ways, and those are my thoughts.  They were different when I had a kindergartener.  They were even different when I had a first grader with such severe separation anxiety that I decided to homeschool him in second grade.  He will be in high school next year.  It's a different view from here.

 

Also, my ASD kid was tested for Irlen's, and he does not have it, ironically.  (I assume that is what you meant by ID, OhE.  I have been typing this while surrounded by a very loud family so something may have been missed.) Because none of my kids know how to do anything the "regular" way!  Even my bilateral clubfoot kid has an unusual case. Go, me!  God has an amazingly high opinion of my investigative and treatment skills.   :D

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This is interesting. My ODS-6 has clear signs of sensory procession issues and always has but without anything extreme I didn't feel he'd quite qualify for therapy so I never got it diagnosed. Also, I realized *I* most definitely have sensory issues, probably worse than his and now as an adult I have developed anxiety that seems to get worse each year, which is annoying because I considered myself super laid back before and definitely not prone to anxiety. Too bad there's no OT for adults with sensory issues that I've ever heard of :)

 

Can things outside of explicit therapy help the sensory issues? I know I've noticed that doing gymnastics as a preschooler helped my son a lot since many of the activities overlapped with what OT's do in sensory integration therapy, but it's been awhile since he's done it and lately with our move he seems to be getting worse. Showers are a battle every night as the water 'hurts' his eyes and he keeps coming up with new things to be anxious about concerning our upcoming move (tornadoes, volcanoes, etc.) 

 

Our OT works with teens and adults. I do not know how much formal OT is required for integrating things--my guess is that it has to do with how big the issues are and what they are specifically. A child who needs hard work and is born on a dairy farm is probably going to be set up pretty well! My son would never have had his vestibular issues integrated without therapy. Even the OT had to work at figuring out how to best do it and not actually make it worse. Ditto with sensory-defensiveness. Other stuff was better than it had been when he was younger (gravitational insecurity), but he still has manifestations of this, just not enough to worry about (lots of people don't like to be placed on their back and tipped). It was bad enough when he was little that I would have sought therapy if I knew what it was! If he felt in control though, he would try things to help (like learning to tip back more and more on the swing), and that is how his gravity issue was solved. He wanted to play with his friends on the playground without freaking out, so he kind of worked through some of the more important issues for playgrounds, lol! 

 

I have some sensory issues and fits and starts of anxiety as well, but I think I have other things (like gluten problems) that made it all worse. I had lots and lots of sensory play as a kid, or I would probably be a mess. We still had playgrounds with merry-go-rounds of all kinds when I was a kid, and my dad would make those things spin so hard I thought they'd start flying through the air like a frisbee. :-) We rolled down grassy hills like logs, wrestled, and played for hours in the mud or digging dirt. I also spent HOURS in the pool daily in the summer, and we used to play all kinds of spinning, flipping games, and the deep pressure was great. Same for the swingset--I was always flipping around, jumping off, and swinging from our playset. And jump ropes...lots of deep pressure for hours every week. I hate that my kids don't have good enough coordination to do this well. (As the OT says, if they want to learn it, they can, but unless they are highly motivated, it's not going to be easy for them.) The neighbor had (and we inherited) a spinning thing that four people could sit on (North/South/East/West style), and you pushed and pulled handles with your hands and feet to make it go. It was amazing. I think I could be better integrated, but I don't think the same stuff would've helped my son--he had too many things that were above and beyond a reasonable threshold, and his avoidant issues were sky high (playing catch was difficult because that meant something had to fly at his person in order to be caught). He also needed vision therapy, and I wonder if his eye teaming problems made integrating some things difficult until that was out of the way. 

 

I'm sorry your son has been so anxious, and that you've had an uptick in this as well. It's a total pain all around. :-( I used to feel like I was never in control about stuff like water in my eyes. If I could control it, that helped a lot. Maybe goggles in the shower?

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Our OT works with teens and adults. I do not know how much formal OT is required for integrating things--my guess is that it has to do with how big the issues are and what they are specifically. A child who needs hard work and is born on a dairy farm is probably going to be set up pretty well! My son would never have had his vestibular issues integrated without therapy. Even the OT had to work at figuring out how to best do it and not actually make it worse. Ditto with sensory-defensiveness. Other stuff was better than it had been when he was younger (gravitational insecurity), but he still has manifestations of this, just not enough to worry about (lots of people don't like to be placed on their back and tipped). It was bad enough when he was little that I would have sought therapy if I knew what it was! If he felt in control though, he would try things to help (like learning to tip back more and more on the swing), and that is how his gravity issue was solved. He wanted to play with his friends on the playground without freaking out, so he kind of worked through some of the more important issues for playgrounds, lol! 

 

I have some sensory issues and fits and starts of anxiety as well, but I think I have other things (like gluten problems) that made it all worse. I had lots and lots of sensory play as a kid, or I would probably be a mess. We still had playgrounds with merry-go-rounds of all kinds when I was a kid, and my dad would make those things spin so hard I thought they'd start flying through the air like a frisbee. :-) We rolled down grassy hills like logs, wrestled, and played for hours in the mud or digging dirt. I also spent HOURS in the pool daily in the summer, and we used to play all kinds of spinning, flipping games, and the deep pressure was great. Same for the swingset--I was always flipping around, jumping off, and swinging from our playset. And jump ropes...lots of deep pressure for hours every week. I hate that my kids don't have good enough coordination to do this well. (As the OT says, if they want to learn it, they can, but unless they are highly motivated, it's not going to be easy for them.) The neighbor had (and we inherited) a spinning thing that four people could sit on (North/South/East/West style), and you pushed and pulled handles with your hands and feet to make it go. It was amazing. I think I could be better integrated, but I don't think the same stuff would've helped my son--he had too many things that were above and beyond a reasonable threshold, and his avoidant issues were sky high (playing catch was difficult because that meant something had to fly at his person in order to be caught). He also needed vision therapy, and I wonder if his eye teaming problems made integrating some things difficult until that was out of the way. 

 

I'm sorry your son has been so anxious, and that you've had an uptick in this as well. It's a total pain all around. :-( I used to feel like I was never in control about stuff like water in my eyes. If I could control it, that helped a lot. Maybe goggles in the shower?

 

Interesting, this has been my theory with SPD as well, that mild-moderate can be greatly helped by old-fashioned play that used to be normal but no longer is. That's part of why we pursued gymnastics...I felt that plus a water bed is why SIL, who is very like T, does not have any sensory issues now.

 

T has goggles and they make showers possible....before goggles baths/showers meant lots of screaming and fighting us every time. It was awful! But he still freaks at the idea of washing his hair because he's still worried about water in his face, he doesn't feel steady enough to lean backwards in the shower to get under the shower spray, and he struggles to use his hands hard enough on his head/hair to actually suds the soap and then to properly rinse it out with his hands and the water. It sounds ridiculously complicated typing it out, lol! But yeah, that's my kiddo :) We did TONS of fine motor and sensory activities (Montessori-ish) as a toddler plus gymnastics but I've slacked off the past 2 years because I kinda felt like he was doing well and no longer needed help but clearly that's not quite the case. So yeah, OP, you're not the only one who feels clueless sometimes! 

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Texas, no ID=intellectual disability.  I don't recall where I read that, so I'm not absolutely sure it's valid.  I had read before that some of the odd increase in ASD diagnoses was people who formerly would have been labeled ID.  That I read elsewhere.  When I read this stat about 70% of people with ASD actually having a low enough IQ for ID, that surprised me.  We hear the gift side, but apparently that's not all the case.  Remember too, they're working on at least *12* subtypes.  There's just no way to generalize this, because we're talking about so many different scenarios and pathways and using one label (ASD) for all of them.

 

Imagine.more--yes, my ds takes showers at the Y after swimming and keeps his goggles on.  It's a struggle to get him in, but once he's in he likes it for the sensory, that he can spin AND get water at the same time, etc. etc.  Otherwise he takes baths.  Swim lessons at the Y were a mess, and it took months and months and months of daily lessons before he found he could go under.  Now he goes under gleefully, but it took an astonishing amount of exposure to get him there.  They never pushed him the way they push other kids.  I'm not sure any therapy would have changed that.  For him a bunch of things had to come together.

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Current estimates are that about 40% of individuals with ASD have an IQ below 70.

Though earlier studies placed it much higher, where it has been suggested that this change has occurred as a result of much earlier identification and intervention.

 

 

 

 

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Interesting, this has been my theory with SPD as well, that mild-moderate can be greatly helped by old-fashioned play that used to be normal but no longer is. That's part of why we pursued gymnastics...I felt that plus a water bed is why SIL, who is very like T, does not have any sensory issues now.

 

T has goggles and they make showers possible....before goggles baths/showers meant lots of screaming and fighting us every time. It was awful! But he still freaks at the idea of washing his hair because he's still worried about water in his face, he doesn't feel steady enough to lean backwards in the shower to get under the shower spray, and he struggles to use his hands hard enough on his head/hair to actually suds the soap and then to properly rinse it out with his hands and the water. It sounds ridiculously complicated typing it out, lol! But yeah, that's my kiddo :) We did TONS of fine motor and sensory activities (Montessori-ish) as a toddler plus gymnastics but I've slacked off the past 2 years because I kinda felt like he was doing well and no longer needed help but clearly that's not quite the case. So yeah, OP, you're not the only one who feels clueless sometimes! 

 

I'm kind of both/and with therapy and play. I don't think play always helps enough or digs at the root enough to make the play effective. But it depends on the kid. My sensory issues aren't even close to where my son's are. We also used an OT to help with self-regulation. I wouldn't have been able to do that at home--I wouldn't have really understood what to shoot for just buying materials and using them. 

 

My son wouldn't tip his head back, so he tipped it forward while washing. I'm sorry the goggles aren't enough to make your son willing to get water in his face. That's really difficult. Do you have a hand-held wand in the shower? Sometimes they can be added to existing plumbing without a lot of fuss (Waterpik had an option like this--not sure if they still do). I wonder if being able to hold the sprayer would make him feel better and more in control because he can move it as soon as too much water is in the way.

 

No, it doesn't sound way too complicated--this is pretty common. Both my kids have trouble with rinsing hair from time to time and did at that age even more. You might find some activities that work on proprioception online.

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