I don't know how to do this :(

[cindergretta]

Dd6 has not been professionally evaluated. We strongly suspect she is on the autism spectrum. (Ds8 is an Aspie and has ADHD. He has an official dx because we couldn't keep him safe and needed help and intervention.) Dd6 doesn't have those kinds of issues that make us feel like we want to involve others and label her, kwim?

 

A little background on her to explain her:

 

She runs around the house on all fours as a matter of course. She is graceful and elegant and agile. She grunts and growls and purrs often to express herself instead of speaking. (She is extremely vocal and verbal, though. No delays or issues there.) She rubs her head and face on us to show affection.

 

It takes her a LONG time to adjust to people and warm up, like a couple of years. If she doesn't know you and you visit, she won't come downstairs at all. She won't attend Girl Scouts or go to choir or Sunday School. She isn't and wouldn't be "dropped off," she always has or would have either dh, myself, or dd15 with her. But you cannot drag her out of the house at all. OTOH, she loves going to the playground even though there are often other children there.

 

She plays with her siblings absolutely fine and loves this other little boy (son of one of my bffs) who is 7 and neuro - typical. She also plays with another little boy who is 8 and visits regularly. (Incidentally, both of these families are homewschooling families.)

 

School is a nightmare. We are using Oak Meadow, which is not a strenuous or stressful curriculum. It is very aestetically pleasing, IMO, and gentle. It is also quite natural and earthy and this little one loves anything to do with nature, bugs, animals, etc. But she won't listen to me read at all, except on the rare occasion when she chooses a book. But if I try to read to her, she checks out 100%. She balks at any lesson I try to do with her. She isn't interested and doesn't care. I am at a total loss. My others loved school at that age and lived for lessons and workbooks and stories and so forth.

 

We are a very gentle parenting family. We use discipline (we are *not* permissive or lassiez faire) but we don't do time out or spank or other punitive things. We use a lot of natural consequences and GOYB parenting. (For those who aren't familiar - GOYB = get off your butt) I don't want to create an adversarial relationship with her and/or turn school into a power play or end up with her associating school with angst and hate it, kwim?

 

So, with that, any ideas? :tongue_smilie: I truly am at a loss and feel out of my depth. This is my 5th hs'd little one and I am in new and uncharted territory. ::sigh:: Anyone BTDT? Advice? Thoughts?

[hsmom2011]

n/m

[wapiti]

She runs around the house on all fours as a matter of course. She is graceful and elegant and agile. She grunts and growls and purrs often to express herself instead of speaking. (She is extremely vocal and verbal, though. No delays or issues there.) She rubs her head and face on us to show affection.

 

This wouldn't bother me (well maybe the crawling would annoy me mildly; ds has done that a little bit but he's usually in my way). If it makes you feel any better, ds5 is a "doggy," and makes a squeaky barky noise and/or wuff-ing all day long that drives his siblings nuts. At least he's smiley. I have to replace the words for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with wuffs at bedtime.

 

It takes her a LONG time to adjust to people and warm up, like a couple of years. If she doesn't know you and you visit, she won't come downstairs at all. She won't attend Girl Scouts or go to choir or Sunday School. She isn't and wouldn't be "dropped off," she always has or would have either dh, myself, or dd15 with her. But you cannot drag her out of the house at all. OTOH, she loves going to the playground even though there are often other children there.

 

She plays with her siblings absolutely fine and loves this other little boy (son of one of my bffs) who is 7 and neuro - typical. She also plays with another little boy who is 8 and visits regularly. (Incidentally, both of these families are homewschooling families.)

 

This part might have me thinking about anxiety rather than a spectrum disorder. Alternatively, maybe she's very introverted?

 

I don't have a good feel for distinguishing between things that need possible attention and simple personality stuff. My dd10, back when she was 5-6, had to be walked into the school building for kindergarten; she was the only one of her classmates who did that. She had a friend from school, and I'd have to pretend to stand outside their house and watch her through the window while they had a playdate - she told herself I hadn't left, even though she knew I had. Same with school. She changed a lot in the year or two after that (first and second grades was a huge year of growth for her; she did have OT during first grade for SPD). She's still a bit introverted and maybe awkward, but light years ahead of what she was like back then. Tonight she was upset because her 3 y.o. brother is sleeping in a different bedroom instead of in the crib in her room - she doesn't like to sleep alone - and she's hoping dd2 will be able to share a room with her.

 

As for ds5, he can't be dropped off anywhere either, and sometimes he won't even go places WITH one of us, such as a birthday party for a school classmate. He wouldn't get out of the car last time in the parking lot. He's super smiley at home, always giggling, but he's not that way at school at all. And he's my most neuro-typical child, LOL.

 

Personally, I'd be inclined to give things more time, another year or two, before getting a professional involved, unless you wanted to see a psych to do an educational assessment for other reasons. (FWIW, dd10 first did private IQ and achievement testing when she was newly 6, and provided many of her answers via a stuffed animal; the tester told me she was one of the most introverted kids she had ever tested - I had no idea it was that extreme).

 

I have no answer about the school stuff. I might look to do some subjects on the computer, to see whether she might take to that better than interacting with you, though I can't at this moment think of any specific curricula.

[cindergretta]

Thank you for wading through my rather long post. I really appreciate it! :grouphug:

 

To be clear, I am not at all concerned or bothered by the fact that she spends her life as some sort of animal. ::giggle:: We actually kind of privately get a kick out of it.

 

I don't want to involve professionals at this point. She isn't in any kind of danger or anything, kwim? I am just frustated that I can't coax or encourage her in any way to do anything with other girls her age and I can't seem to do any kind of school with her. (That more irritates me... ::bagoverhead:: )

[wapiti]

I don't want to involve professionals at this point. She isn't in any kind of danger or anything, kwim? I am just frustated that I can't coax or encourage her in any way to do anything with other girls her age and I can't seem to do any kind of school with her. (That more irritates me... ::bagoverhead:: )

 

I can imagine. I'd be irritated too! Hmmm.... does she really understand that other kids her age go to school? I'd probably lose control and threaten to send my child to school if she didn't do her work. (Probably? LOL, I've dialed the phone number. Last year, I had to pretend to dial several times when dd was giving me a hard time for no reason. But, she's much older than your dd. Fortunately this year has been great, knock on wood.)

 

Can she read/write? I'd be concerned about those and of course math. Any chance of LDs or vision issues that could have her wanting to avoid schoolwork?

[cindergretta]

She can't read. She can write her letters and numbers. She *just* started first grade, so I'm not concerned (yet) about her not reading.

 

I don't know about LDs. I don't think so, yet. Her vision and hearing have been tested and seem Ok, but I really can't rule out anything right now since I really have no idea what is going on, lol.

[Dobela]

Personally, I'd be inclined to give things more time, another year or two, before getting a professional involved, unless you wanted to see a psych to do an educational assessment for other reasons. (FWIW, dd10 first did private IQ and achievement testing when she was newly 6, and provided many of her answers via a stuffed animal; the tester told me she was one of the most introverted kids she had ever tested - I had no idea it was that extreme).

 

While my son's special needs are different, one of my biggest regrets was waiting to do anything instead of following my gut instincts. From my personal experience I say start looking for answers/help/testing/evals now. Some profesionals take many months to see because they have waiting lists that are months long. Some insurances require that you work your way into more intense specialists and therapies and that can take months. Referrals take time. Then, therapies take time to remediate any problems once they begin. Sometimes after you know what you need, it takes a long time to find the right professional for your child.

[merry gardens]

Dd6 has not been professionally evaluated. We strongly suspect she is on the autism spectrum. (Ds8 is an Aspie and has ADHD. He has an official dx because we couldn't keep him safe and needed help and intervention.) Dd6 doesn't have those kinds of issues that make us feel like we want to involve others and label her, kwim?

 

A little background on her to explain her:

 

She runs around the house on all fours as a matter of course. She is graceful and elegant and agile. She grunts and growls and purrs often to express herself instead of speaking. (She is extremely vocal and verbal, though. No delays or issues there.) She rubs her head and face on us to show affection.

 

It takes her a LONG time to adjust to people and warm up, like a couple of years. If she doesn't know you and you visit, she won't come downstairs at all. She won't attend Girl Scouts or go to choir or Sunday School. She isn't and wouldn't be "dropped off," she always has or would have either dh, myself, or dd15 with her. But you cannot drag her out of the house at all. OTOH, she loves going to the playground even though there are often other children there.

 

She plays with her siblings absolutely fine and loves this other little boy (son of one of my bffs) who is 7 and neuro - typical. She also plays with another little boy who is 8 and visits regularly. (Incidentally, both of these families are homewschooling families.)

 

School is a nightmare. We are using Oak Meadow, which is not a strenuous or stressful curriculum. It is very aestetically pleasing, IMO, and gentle. It is also quite natural and earthy and this little one loves anything to do with nature, bugs, animals, etc. But she won't listen to me read at all, except on the rare occasion when she chooses a book. But if I try to read to her, she checks out 100%. She balks at any lesson I try to do with her. She isn't interested and doesn't care. I am at a total loss. My others loved school at that age and lived for lessons and workbooks and stories and so forth.

 

We are a very gentle parenting family. We use discipline (we are *not* permissive or lassiez faire) but we don't do time out or spank or other punitive things. We use a lot of natural consequences and GOYB parenting. (For those who aren't familiar - GOYB = get off your butt) I don't want to create an adversarial relationship with her and/or turn school into a power play or end up with her associating school with angst and hate it, kwim?

 

So, with that, any ideas? :tongue_smilie: I truly am at a loss and feel out of my depth. This is my 5th hs'd little one and I am in new and uncharted territory. ::sigh:: Anyone BTDT? Advice? Thoughts?

I suggest that you might want to take your daughter to a speech therapist for evaluation. My son didn't have all the other things going on that you describe, but part of it sounds like something that my son did when he was younger. I bolded the part about your daughter not listening to stories because that part reminded me of my ds. Although he didn't qualify for speech therapy, he was usually difficult to understand because he sounded like he was always mumbling--although he could speak clearly when he wanted to, (like both time that I took him for a speech evaluation. ) His hearing was fine, but the second speech therapist evaluation revealed he had poor phonological awareness and likely some auditory processing issues. He could correctly make all the age appropriate letter sounds, but he didn't detect the difference between several similar sounds--and that caused confusion for him with some words. Although his language comprehension for spoken language was generally good overall, many of the children's books I read are rhyming books, but it turned out that he simply just didn't "get" rhyme. The first speech therapists didn't catch it when he was four. When he was six or seven, I took him to a second speech therapist because learning to read proved to be a great difficulty for him.

 

I don't think that's the only thing that migt be going on, but it might be part of it, and it's not hard to have checked it out by a speech therapist. I can't really comment too much about the rest of your concerns. My niece did go through a "kitten phase" when she was about that age, but their family had just got a kitten.

[wapiti]

While my son's special needs are different, one of my biggest regrets was waiting to do anything instead of following my gut instincts. From my personal experience I say start looking for answers/help/testing/evals now. Some profesionals take many months to see because they have waiting lists that are months long. Some insurances require that you work your way into more intense specialists and therapies and that can take months. Referrals take time. Then, therapies take time to remediate any problems once they begin. Sometimes after you know what you need, it takes a long time to find the right professional for your child.

 

Oh no, I didn't mean to imply that OP should wait for testing generally. I was only commenting on the anxiety angle specifically - the difficulty distinguishing between introverted personality development(?) (like my dd experienced) and whether there might be an anxiety issue worthy of treatment.

 

As far as testing LDs, the more I think about it, the more I'd be inclined to test soon with this student, with the thought that LDs might be contributing to the student's refusal to engage in academics.

[tlcspcarcetc]

Do you think there is a possibility that your dd just isn't an auditory learner? My dd, 9, is an aspie. She also has hearing loss, but hears functionally at a very mild hearing loss level (she wears cochlear implants). She can hear what we say, however, she misses it a lot...not because of her hearing loss, but because she's checked out. She is so focused in on whatever it is she is thinking about/seeing/reading, etc. that she doesn't hear anything we say to her. We do read alouds with her but she couldn't care less. She doesn't want to sit there and listen to us read. She wants to read the book herself. She is a VERY visual learner and she loves to read.

 

She is also obsessed with animals and pretends to be one, often. She crawls around growling at her siblings (which they aren't fond of unless they are playing the game too). She gets so immersed that sometimes she jumps on them and "claws" them (not hard, but it still hurts). Thank God, she's never bitten or anything. She definitely relates to animals much more than other people.

 

As for the shyness, my dd isn't shy. She's the opposite and has no friends because she's so "in your face" and has no boundaries. Unfortunately, she scares kids away. :(

 

I have no idea how you could go about teaching your dd to read. I wish I could help you. DD kind of taught herself to read, I think.