Behavior Challenge Thread

[GraceLuvsWDW]

Had the session with the neuropsych today. This session went much worse than the last. My dd had many of her episodes of "spacing out" during the testing and the dr had trouble getting my dd to attend to the testing at all. She told me informally that she probably meets the diagnostic criteria for Asperger's and also Attention Deficit Disorder. This was very surprising to me as my dd has taken the ADOS on two previous occasions and I was told she did not meet the criteria. Actually she made me feel better about this diagnosis that there is hope for improvement in skills. She said she would write up the necessary report and even offered to meet with my dd's school administrators to implement a plan for school. She stated that my dd will need modifications to ease transitions, a separate workspace (she even stated that she recommends a much smaller class size), and allow for movement throughout the day. I am hoping my school district will be open to making these modifications. The neuropsych stated my dd is in the "superior" range on the IQ performance but that she had obvious troubles with impulsivity that caused her to "guess" the answer quickly instead of taking the time to consider all the options. This was especially apparent today when my dd seem distracted and oppositional during the tests. I am thankful that this person took the time to see past my dd's learned social reciprocation and noticed when she became confused and anxious when the social interaction became unfamiliar. This is what I've been trying to describe to pedi's all along and they wouldn't listen.
The neuropsych wants 2 more sessions with my dd and then 2 more with me. She wants another "interview" session with me before she finalizes her report. This will make a total of 7 sessions. That seems like a lot but I am pleased with the thoroughness of this dr and her obvious desire to get the "right" assessment. I think she was concerned about how I would take this information and I am reeling a bit...don't know how to take it right now.
I will wait to melt down until the final report is out.

Thanks to all of you for giving me a place to vent all of this. I am waiting until I know the final diagnosis before I break this to my friends/family.

 

[bookwormde]

This was one of those “great weeks” DS10 had a great time at “dino camp” at the local natural history museum and we got him to start eating peanut butter sandwiches again so that alleviates some of our “how are we going to get enough protein in him” concerns he is actually starting to enjoy some sensory items which bothered him when he was younger. He is just so relaxed in the summer when he can just “be himself” and “be in his own world” working on his “projects”

GraceluvsWDW,

Sounds like your clinicians are doing a thorough job. While the clinicians talk about “attention issues” for most high functioning autism spectrum children it is not the “classic ADHD” but derives from the different EF system (non linear) and the fact that there is not the “social impetus” to do things that are not interesting. The surest way to tell that it is not “classic ADHD” is if she can focus on areas of interest for extended periods of time (actually most of our children have the ability to hyperfocus well beyond typical children).

bookwormde

 

[GraceLuvsWDW]

GraceluvsWDW,

Sounds like your clinicians are doing a thorough job. While the clinicians talk about “attention issues” for most high functioning autism spectrum children it is not the “classic ADHD” but derives from the different EF system (non linear) and the fact that there is not the “social impetus” to do things that are not interesting. The surest way to tell that it is not “classic ADHD” is if she can focus on areas of interest for extended periods of time (actually most of our children have the ability to hyperfocus well beyond typical children).

bookwormde

She stated by giving the Dx of ADD the school modifications will be easier to obtain. But I think your point is very true. The prior testing my dd attended to and had great attention with the blocks, which she really enjoyed. But then FF to the verbal and there was no attention at all. One striking thing was that my dd NEEDED to move her body to perform well on the testing. I am guessing the ADD modifications in the IEP will provide for this?

So glad summer is treating your DS well. It's funny how different kids do well with different issues. My dd has been horrible this summer and I think it's the change in schedules, new camp, etc. If I were a sahm things would be so much easier on her. But getting a new set of teachers is very frightening, anxiety provoking and awful for my dd. She'll probably get used to the new routine, oh about the time the new school year starts.

 

[BeckyScott]

BeckyScott, do you mind me asking how much you paid for the GPL allergy testing?

Also, what did you do to treat the yeast overgrowth that was leading to the eczema?

Thanks!

I can't remember exactly. Our insurance covered part of them but not all of them, so you know the billing was pretty complicated. It was a couple hundred bucks at least.

For yeast, many DANs will do Nystatin. There are other work-arounds though. And eventually, in theory, if you go gfcf and sugar-free and yeast-free, it will die off on it's own. That takes a long time though.

 

[BeckyScott]

We had oldest DS's big eval Thursday and we got some answers.

He has ADHD. (which we knew) He is NOT Aspie. He has big problems with his Visual Memory.

http://www.childd.org/docs/Strategies/Visual Memory.pdf

And that explains a whole lot. Totally makes sense. That is our answer, the one I've been trying to find and couldn't find. All the clues fit.

And the visual memory deficit, combined with the ADHD, complicates it even more. It takes him longer to process it, by then he forgets what he was doing in the first place. He does have very strong auditory memory though, so it's a workable situation. Strong language skill.

I knew it was something.

We will get the official report in a couple of weeks. I smell an IEP meeting. I'm sure they'll knock the Social Skills back out, but at least now we can get some decent accomodations.

Another fine lesson in Trust Your Instincts. I had concerns three years ago and nobody believed me.

 

[C&G'sMama]

To all:

Sounds like everyone is busy and doing well.

GraceluvsDW, yes it's frustrating, but you're getting answers. I like the sounds of the Doctor. It sounds like she's helping you and your daughter get what she needs both in and out of school.

Becky, glad you got answers too and sorry your having such a crazy time with moving and all.

Bookwormde, glad DS enjoyed camp.

As for us, we just got back a couple of days ago from a week at one of our state parks. It's only about an hour south of us. We were there Friday through Thursday. We rented 3 cabins and were there with some friends. The 1st 3 days our friends were there with their 9yo twins ands and another 9yo boy. So with four 9 years olds DS was feeling a little left out, though they were very good with him (for the most part). The last few days another friend of ours came with her 5 1/2 yo. We met this family at pre-school and G and the girl go to the same school. They played really well together, I practically cried.

I was commuting back and forth to work during the week (work is only 40 minutes from the park). But on the first day back at 4 in the afternoon, I fell asleep at the wheel and took out a guard rail and totaled my car. Fortunately I'm fine and no other vehicles were involved. DP and the kids were driving back from the pool and on a whim went back a different way than usual and came upon me 5 minutes after it happend. It was a big wake up call for me. My doctor had told me to go for a sleep study back in March and DP has been on me for 2 years that my sleepiness is not normal, but I kept blowing it off. I fall asleep in meetings, at my desk etc. Because of the situation, I was placed to the top of the cancellation list for consultation at the local Sleep Disorders Clinic and got in last Wednesday and then again back to the top of the cancellation list for the sleep study which I went to Friday. For the first 3 hours I "slept" without the mask. At 2am they put the mask on me and I slept for 4 hours straight without moving. I guess I have sleep apnea. So tomorrow I have to call and see if I can get my follow up appointment move up. I know this is long but if anyone understands different things going on it's you guys.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Ann

 

[Piper]

To all:

Sounds like everyone is busy and doing well.

GraceluvsDW, yes it's frustrating, but you're getting answers. I like the sounds of the Doctor. It sounds like she's helping you and your daughter get what she needs both in and out of school.

Becky, glad you got answers too and sorry your having such a crazy time with moving and all.

Bookwormde, glad DS enjoyed camp.

As for us, we just got back a couple of days ago from a week at one of our state parks. It's only about an hour south of us. We were there Friday through Thursday. We rented 3 cabins and were there with some friends. The 1st 3 days our friends were there with their 9yo twins ands and another 9yo boy. So with four 9 years olds DS was feeling a little left out, though they were very good with him (for the most part). The last few days another friend of ours came with her 5 1/2 yo. We met this family at pre-school and G and the girl go to the same school. They played really well together, I practically cried.

I was commuting back and forth to work during the week (work is only 40 minutes from the park). But on the first day back at 4 in the afternoon, I fell asleep at the wheel and took out a guard rail and totaled my car. Fortunately I'm fine and no other vehicles were involved. DP and the kids were driving back from the pool and on a whim went back a different way than usual and came upon me 5 minutes after it happend. It was a big wake up call for me. My doctor had told me to go for a sleep study back in March and DP has been on me for 2 years that my sleepiness is not normal, but I kept blowing it off. I fall asleep in meetings, at my desk etc. Because of the situation, I was placed to the top of the cancellation list for consultation at the local Sleep Disorders Clinic and got in last Wednesday and then again back to the top of the cancellation list for the sleep study which I went to Friday. For the first 3 hours I "slept" without the mask. At 2am they put the mask on me and I slept for 4 hours straight without moving. I guess I have sleep apnea. So tomorrow I have to call and see if I can get my follow up appointment move up. I know this is long but if anyone understands different things going on it's you guys.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Ann

I am so glad you are okay. It must have been very scary. It is good that you will get some answers.

 

[bookwormde]

Wow glad you are OK, I know some of the roads in that area and where it is “hilly” and there are not good guardrails it can be very dangerous if you go off the road.

If your pulse ox or sugar (or some combination of the 2) got that “out of bounds” it is definitely time to take it seriously.

I actually was on 2 separate fatals this week were people ran off the road (from different causes than yours) and both had children. I am pretty thick skinned after almost 35 year of volunteering but seeing the children and families at road side memorials even made me swallow hard.

bookwormde

 

[C&G'sMama]

Thank you guys. I definitely am taking it seriously. And believe me I have gone over all the "what ifs". "What if" I had hit another car and someone died. "What if" I had rolled the car and DP and the kids came upon me dead. It was very sobering and I feel God has given me a second chance. Today I call the sleep disorders clinic to see when I can get in to get my mask.

As for the kids DS is hysterical. I said something about taking a nap yesterday in front of the neighborhood kids. "Mrs. W, why do you need a nap?" DS doesn't miss a beat. "My mama has sleep apnea" He cracks me up. He helped me paint the front porch yesterday. You can't get the kid to pick up a sock without a temper tantrum but getting him doing something he wants to do and he's off. He got paint everywhere and the paint brush doesn't look like it used to but you know what? He was so proud of himself and so was I. Paint washes off and there are more paint brushes. Although he insisted on not washing the paint off of himself until Mommy came home from work so she could see.

 

[KirstenB]

Ann, I'm sorry for your accident and so glad you weren't seriously hurt.

 

[PrincessMom4]

Its been a long day and I really need a hug. I'll fill you all in later.

 

[pudge the fish]

to all who need a

to everyone who needs a

Ann- I am soo glad all is ok and you were not hurt-
I would have them check your sugar too- Just in case-
I have been known to Zone out when having a low sugar episode...



went to Disney- MK Sunday for an hour after shopping at the outlet mall and it was busy- just too busy for my liking
so we headed to DTD for lunch and for once I had a good experience at Wolfgang Pucks express-spoke to a chef and all went well

I am too busy right now - too much going on- need to take a day and do nothing

Again to all

 

[DisDreaminMom]

C & G's Mama,

WOW! I'm so glad you're OK. Have several family members with sleep apnea and all say the mask saved their lives. Whew. I'm just going to say again that I'm so happy that nothing more serious happened.

Now, as for your DS, are you going to be repainting the porch every few months?

 

[GraceLuvsWDW]

Wow, how scary. I'm really glad the accident wasn't worse. I guess that's a wake up call (no pun intended ) to get that treated.

I have an issue I need help on. 3 nights ago my dd had a very intense nightmare. It scared her very, very much. She wouldn't go back to sleep that night and now has refused sleep the past 2 nights because she says she's afraid she'll have the nightmare again. I've told her that won't happen. I've done positive mental imagery with her where we closed our eyes and had a birthday party and even went to WDW. But she still is frightened to fall asleep. She says when she closes her eyes she sees the "bad picture". Anyone have any ideas on what to do about this? I've tried telling her she doesn't have to go to sleep but she ends up crying (last night for 2 HOURS ) and then finally does fall asleep exhausted. Anyone deal with these issues in a NV? I thought it would fade but after 3 days it's still in the forefront of her mind. I've thought that perhaps this is related to some other issue??? Her dream was that we fell off a skyscraper. She said we were screaming with our mouths open but she couldn't hear (this is the image she can't shake). She said we hit the concrete and went through the concrete where a family was there to help us. She said we couldn't leave because we had to wait to help the next family who fell. That's all she's told me. Anyone have any analyzation on that?

Thanks! Hope everyone is well.

 

[C&G'sMama]

to Princessmomof4

Graceluvs. I don't have an answer for that one. But I do have

DDM, Well I do still have to do the back porch so I'm hoping for the 1st weekend in August. Friday we leave for Rhode Island for the weekend for a family get together. If the weather's nice we'll hit the beach on Sunday.

Hope everyone's doing well.

 

[PrincessMom4]

Thanks all. Daughter just had a medication change and got an infection from the hospital because she was healthly when she went in and got an MRI done.

 

[koolaidmoms]

Wow, how scary. I'm really glad the accident wasn't worse. I guess that's a wake up call (no pun intended ) to get that treated.

I have an issue I need help on. 3 nights ago my dd had a very intense nightmare. It scared her very, very much. She wouldn't go back to sleep that night and now has refused sleep the past 2 nights because she says she's afraid she'll have the nightmare again. I've told her that won't happen. I've done positive mental imagery with her where we closed our eyes and had a birthday party and even went to WDW. But she still is frightened to fall asleep. She says when she closes her eyes she sees the "bad picture". Anyone have any ideas on what to do about this? I've tried telling her she doesn't have to go to sleep but she ends up crying (last night for 2 HOURS ) and then finally does fall asleep exhausted. Anyone deal with these issues in a NV? I thought it would fade but after 3 days it's still in the forefront of her mind. I've thought that perhaps this is related to some other issue??? Her dream was that we fell off a skyscraper. She said we were screaming with our mouths open but she couldn't hear (this is the image she can't shake). She said we hit the concrete and went through the concrete where a family was there to help us. She said we couldn't leave because we had to wait to help the next family who fell. That's all she's told me. Anyone have any analyzation on that?

Thanks! Hope everyone is well.

to you and your daughter!

I had horrible nightmares as a child. End of the world dreams, mass deaths and all sorts of things. So I have become very interested in them.

Falling dreams usually are interpreted as a symbol, falling highlights a loss of emotional equilibrium or self-control. You may fear "letting go" in real life. Anxiety usually accompanies this dream. It may represent your insecurity, a lack of self-confidence, a fear of failure or an inability to cope with a situation. Combined with her not being able to yell or be heard which is also a pretty straight forward interpretation in most circles.

Hitting the cement and breaking through could also be breaking through into a new area, new job or new situation and the anxiety that surrounds that.

I am not a NV but how I used to cope was to try and change the dream in my head or try to discuss what I felt and talk about what it may mean to understand my feellings toward the dreams. Death usually symbolizes closures or ends something I was especially not good at handling as a child so this would build up. Is she afraid of something changing or is there a change going on in her world she is uncomfortable with?

I profess to know nothing other than this is what I experienced as a kid. Most people don't believe in the interpretations of dreams as we can turn things to fit most situations but I do believe there is a small thread of truth to most dream interpretations.

Hope this helps some.

 

[bookwormde]

GraceLuvsWDW,

Oh yea a sleep deprived NV is loads of fun. A good place to start is to explain what dreams are, our minds trying to consider possibilities that are not necessarily at all likely or in a “real world” sense even possible. They do not represent real things or even things that we want or think will happen, it is just about exploring.

It is interesting because typically most NTs will “wake up” during falling dreams before they hit, it is interesting how she manage to “overcome this” by passing through the concrete. Maybe she is destined to become a theoretical physicist and study advance string theory and dimensional anomalies and manipulation.

I know that does not help much with the issues of the moment, there are lost of possibilities as to the “source” of the pieces of the dream (not being able to hear could relate to the fact that there is a lot that we not hear when we are “in our minds”) an the this is often a point of “criticism” from the society at large. Falling is sort of the ultimate “out of control” so there may be some transition or event that she is anxious about. It is possible that it is just a reflection and attempt to understand some visual image that she was on TV (especially cartoons). Just let her knows that dreams are life’s “safe playground” for her mind to explore, and that even though they are sometimes “scary” that they are safe and do not effect the “physical world”.

You should know for the future that our dreams tend to be more “visually complete” due to our processing preferences. Also with her intellectual and social/emotions levels being disparate that that is going to create issues in her dreams just as it does in real life.

I used to (and still do to some extend) practice “dream seeding” where I use our ability to create visual scenarios (sort of like daydreaming for NTs but much more precise and detailed), which often allows them to continue into dreams. It can be very fun, if somewhat unpredictable. She is probably too young yet but be aware that she may develop the ability to become “conscious” within her dreams (while still physically “locked”) and be able to manipulate them and even wake, “on demand” and transitions into and out of the “awake world”. I use to have lot of fun with this and would even interface it with TV shows (that made for some interesting combinations). Yes I still sleep with the TV on.

My DS had similar issues at about your daughters age (I thing a lot of NT kids do also), but in his case providing good logical information as to the nature and purpose of dreams really helped him with putting them in perspective.

Probably not much help but that is all I have.

bookwormde

 

[DisDreaminMom]

Hey, GraceluvsWDW,

I forget how old your DD is. I think she's pretty young. That's a pretty sophisticated dream for a child that age. I was just thinking that in the Disney Store where I work, we have giant Sully (I hope I don't have to tell you who that is!!!) "plush" (stuffed animal) which are the coolest thing. I tell parents that if they have a kid with nightmares, they should buy one to put in their child's closet. That way, it's nice old Sully in there and not Randall.

So along those lines, I think you should have movie night and watch Monsters, Inc. and tell DD to try to re-imagine her dream as not falling through the concrete, but through an open door in the movie, where Sully helps your family find the next door to her favorite ride in WDW. Play a game, like, "Where would I want Sully to take me through the doors? Umm, It's A Small World Ride!! What about you?"

I know this seems simplistic, but it's much easier for a small child to replace mental imagery with an actual visual image than it is for them to create a consistent, reliable "loop" of positive images on their own.

That's what I would do with my own kids. (Oh, and I hang Christmas lights around the bed canopy or along the closet wall and those are the "fairy lights", "anti-ghost lights", etc. )

I will also say this: it seems that night mares are different from night terrors. When I was a child, I had night terrors. I was asleep, but not really, and it was horrible to experience. I desperately wanted someone to wake me up and I was locked in this very physically real experience. Night mares often go "away" during the day, but I can still vividly remember all my night terrors (there were just a few storylines that occurred repeatedly, sometimes still now). My Mother used to let me sleep on the little trundle bed in her room when I was in this phase, because it really is a period of a few days where your brain is stuck on this horrible story in your sleep. So be extra nice to Grace. You don't need to cater to her or make this bigger than it is, but it is very stressful and you need to be proactive to help her.

One last thing: either let her nap during the day until she'll sleep at night or don't let her nap so she will sleep at night. And there is always Sprout, the channel on cable that is nothing but PBS Kids shows. Normally off limits, but pick your weapons wisely!

 

[BeckyScott]

I don't know if this would be helpful or not. Sometimes Justin has bad dreams, and usually he will start talking or whining or crying, enough to wake me up. He's still asleep, talking in his sleep. I have found that I can "redirect" him. If I sit down and start talking to him, he can hear me, but he doesn't wake up. So I talk him out of it. I'll tell him I'm here, and I don't want to do this dream anymore, I want to do a different one. And I hold his hand and tell him we're going on an adventure someplace else. (I make up stuff. We go inside the Mario game. Or we go back to Disney. Stuff like that.) It seems to work, he gets quiet and falls back solid asleep.

I did some more reading on visual memory deficits. It does not escape me, the irony that I have one kid who doesn't have a good visual memory, and one kid who "thinks in pictures". Thanks for that. I found a game online (there are several) to help improve visual memory, and sent Richard to play it, and honestly, I never noticed this before, but he did really bad at that game. I guess, you know, he plays video games all the time but he doesn't play those sorts of games, and I just never really noticed. He got about three minutes into it and said "this sucks" and found some other game to play.