My daughter was a bit like him at that age. Only, she would usually shut down and refuse to interact with anyone. We finally determined that I could not be in the room with her for any type of therapy. The craniosacral therapist I have been taking her to puts this down to an immature nervous system that does not allow her to fully realize she is a separate person from me (she is now almost 10 and there are still issues, and we have not always homeschooled). Based on her suddenly emerging stubborness and defiant attitudes, I can say that she is starting to realize she is her own entity. Hope things calm down for you two soon.

I am looking for recommendations for an online language arts program suitable for a fourth grade child with mild autism. I need something that would remove me as the teacher since I believe a personality conflict is causing the problem. She loves reading, but goes into shutdown as soon as either one of us gets frustrated. Reading, spelling, and handwriting are a complete mess right now. She refuses to or is incapable of even writing on the left side of the page. (I am going to have her evaluated for PANDAS if any of you are familiar with the problems that causes). IEW is working OK so far, but I would be willing to give that up for a comprehensive program.

The preview of WWS has been amazing for my 6th grader. I am anxiously awaiting its publication.

I really can't say for sure since the acupuncturist designed a formula specifically for her. I cook them on the stove into a tea. They taste bad but are helping. I think he will want to tweak the forumula on the next visit since his goal is to eliminate the tics completely. Finding a good herbalist can be difficult. I like ours, but we have to drive several hours to Chicago to see him.

Almost the whole family is celiac, so no gluten ever. We have removed dairy and she is still angry about it. She takes Chinese herbs for the tics. I will look into the other things you mentioned. Thanks!

I had been wondering this because of some other signs, mainly body odor. She is very underweight so I had dismissed it as being unlikely. You might be right though.

Thank you for sharing! That is exactly what it is like with mine.

For the most part, things were going along wonderfully last year. I was proud that my third grade daughter with PDD-NOS was doing much better at home that in the PS and was progressing socially. Over the summer, Tourettes syndrome somehow got thrown into the mix. Now, at age 9, we suddenly have issues with her being stubborn and obstinate in an unusually articulate manner (at least for her). This does not trouble me as much, since it seems like an improvement over not being able to express herself before. What does bother me is watching her do something right in front of me and then denying that it ever happened. We have rarely had to use punishment before, but now are using timeouts. For instance, she woke up this morning and sat with her sister on the chair. I reprimanded her for an obvious invasion of her sister's space. She cried and carried on and refused to admit that she had engaged in any such behavior. I put her in timeout. Has anybody else seen personality shifts like this with autism or emerging Tourettes syndrome? We have been on an "autism" diet for over month. Could this still be playing a role?

Feel free to shoot me down, but I am putting two pieces of personal experience to together. My younger daughter has Tourettes and does the same thing with her mouth and sometimes eyes. My older daughter probably is somewhere on that spectrum as well. She frequently repeats the last word in every sentence. For example: I went to the store ... store... store. After some research, we decided this was probably a vocal tic, given that she has some other vocal and motor tics from time to time. (Like excessive throat clearing, tapping her stomach.) Tourettes and other tic disorders frequently manifest around 7 to 10 years of age.

We sometimes take the insert out of the shoe and put in a better arch support. Can you do the opposite and put in a store bought insert with less support?

We have changed doctors/therapists many times for various reasons. Difficulty with getting a referral is number one on our list. I try not to burn my bridges in case I need to go back to a practice some day. I got fed up with the psychiatrist at one practice where we also go for play therapy. Now I have to see him in the waiting room everytime we go there. Oh well, it is good character building for me!

Yes! I think it is the nonfiction narratives she struggles most with. We gave up gluten 10 years ago (actually for my husband). Now we are working on dairy. We forced her to make a choice between medication and nasty tasting Chinese herbs for her severe Tourette's. She finally chose the herbs after being a zombie for three days on medication. She's still stewing over it, though.

My 9 year old daughter with mild autism is having major attitude issues with Writing with Ease. She has cleverly renamed it Writing Disease.:glare: She is starting to shut down and become inarticulate whenever we have to do a narrative summary. I am gathering opinions. Should I discard the book entirely or temporarily? Should I try another writing program? We are using Sonlight Readers grade 4; should I just use the Language Arts program that goes with it? Today, she voluntarily gave me an excellent summary from her SL reader, but seemed unable to recall anything after the WWE exercise. IMO this is an issue with anxiety shutting her brain down, not with actual ability. We have also made some changes to her diet and routine she does not like. I wonder is she might be trying to find an area to exert control. Maybe some of you have had similar experiences?

My husband and I did SCD for one year after he became celiac (he had seizures as a child too). The diet alleviated nearly all of his GI symptoms and weight loss. As a bonus it improved my mood significantly. However, he could not deviate from the diet one bit or he would suffer. We never ate at restaurants. Unfortunately, I burned out cooking for him and we had to give it up. We even made our own yougurt! He would go back on it in an instant if we had a personal chef.

We have been off of dairy for 2 days now (no gluten for past decade). The Tourette's is actually much worse. I know it may take a few weeks to see improvement, but has anybody seen this happen? Despite the setback with the tics, her appetite is hugely increased the past two days (a good thing).

This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but I wondered if it might help. 10 years ago my husband developed GI symptoms and lost 30 pounds in a month. The GI specialist did an antibody test for celiac and found that it was in the high range of normal. Since my husband's father was "allergic" to wheat, the doctor suggested he do a gluten-free trial anyway. He immediately improved and started to gain weight. Now he is extremely sensitive to even a trace of gluten. The doctor was reluctant to diagnose celiac disease, but admitted he sees this "rare" variation of gluten intolerance quite often. In other words, it looks like celiac but they can't prove it. I have had friends with similar experiences--clearly gluten-intolerant but no positive antibody test or endoscopy. Ultimately, you may have to make health decisions based on personal experience rather than the current research.

We need to get started with school soon in order to have time this year for various vacations, etc. The trouble is, we have had a difficult summer due to a diagnosis of severe Tourette's Syndrome in one child and a huge increase in anxiety in another. We are all feeling tense and unmotivated. I am lacking in self-confidence after dealing with doctors who don't support homeschooling. My house is a total mess and I am procrastinating more than usual. What have others done to get back in the groove after a traumatic period?

Our family has been gluten-free for 9 years due to issues early on and a family history. As a two year old, my daughter threw many tantrums when we introduced gluten. We removed it and the tantrums subsided. My gentle and kind husband actually becomes angry and mean when he has had gluten. He can't even tolerate a trace of it. We noticed improvement off of gluten almost immediately (including an immediate 4 pound weight gain in our three year old daughter). Our doctor was amazed since she did not have a positive blood test for the antibodies. We are planning on also eliminating dairy as soon as possible for my youngest's Tourette's

My 9 year old daughter with anxiety and PDD-NOS, needs me to stay involved in nearly all parts of school, although she doesn't necessarily want this. She can do math on her own easily. All other subjects require me to look over her shoulder and give frequent direction. I sometimes wonder if children just mature on their own timeline. We have seen enormous progress in the past year with social maturity. I can't attribute all of it to swithcing from ps to homeschooling. I now believe her social issues stem mainly from anxiety. She is not as comfortable or open around people she does not trust. Hoping you find the right balance soon.

I have an opinion question that is not meant to devalue mental health care professionals in any way, but arises from a couple of puzzling experiences with my daughter. Do some psychologists/social workers find it hard to objectively note progress or improvement in their patients? Might there be some sort of subconscious need to always see the patient as dysfunctional?

I just have to add one of our experiences. Our 9 year old daughter developed terrible migraines lasting weeks at a time. This naturally resulted in depression. Keep in mind, that various members of our family had already been diagnosed with bipolar II, anxiety, selective mutism, autism, celiac disease, and a host of other ailments which required surgery and were life-altering. The psychologist advised us to stop making our daughter the "identified patient" of the family. We laughed for a long time over that one.

I have issues with bipolar II and ADD. I try not to mix homeschooling with housework. This just causes chaos. Yes, my house is usually a disaster. I will be sure to take a look at the posted links.

For a while we tried some boys compression underwear. (Not sure if this is really what it is called). It was from a sporting goods store. The tightness fooled our 8 year old into believing her pants were really tight. Hoods help her to feel more secure. Sometimes she wears several layers of hoods in the winter. She is outgrowing some of her sensory issues at 9 but they return when she is stressed.

It is much harder for her to evade the assignment with the workbook. I was frequently surprised at how often the literature passages coincided with what we are doing just by coincidence.

We haven't done it but are thinking about it for a child with Tourette's and sensory issues. My friend, who is in a clinical psych phd program, has tried it for herself and was raving about it. You might try to find out what ages and personality types have the most success. We attempted biofeedback a few years ago with our 8 year old migraine sufferer. Her immaturity and intense way of interacting with the the world made it to difficult to transfer the skills over to real life. Could you try just one child and see how it works?