Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional still wondering about ASD

(Sorry for the novel. DD and I are both wordy!)

DD is 7 and in first. She was tested with the RIAS earlier this year and scored 133 overall. It�s possible her score is off a little since one subtest was drastically lower than the other 3, which were 96th-99th%. Overall, her LOG looks like a Ruf level 2/3 most of the time. She is well-rounded, with advanced skills in almost all areas. She has great penmanship, writes easily and well, and is a great artist.

We have worried off and on about ASD since she was very young. Her prodigious memory, pronoun reversals (stopped just when she hit 3), frequent meltdowns, rigidity, and intensity were very obvious at 2. We had a silly young teacher�s aide throw �Maybe she�s autistic!� at us after one hard day at preschool. Her preschool directors requested a conference with us at age 3 to tell us we should have her IQ tested so we could all understand her better (we did not do this). Yet she was also eval�ed by early intervention at 2, for gross motor issues (mildly delayed but not enough for therapy) and they said no to ASD because she is very social, introduced herself, had back and-forth conversations and made eye contact (but she scored very highly on a cognitive eval at this appointment and they seemed a bit overdazzled by that, IMO). She also has always had very rich, nonscripted, highly imaginative pretend play. She has had many strong interests�right now she is very focused on birds�but they change a lot and she does not monologue on them. Actually, she has never monologued, though she DOES talk a lot and often misses subtle social cues. She is very creative--recently finished writing a musical for children (it's short, but still!) and has also started writing poetry, while continuing to produce lots of interesting and creative visual art.

Socially, she parallel played till mid-4, and strongly preferred grown-ups to kids till then. She found other children frustrating as a toddler because they couldn�t talk well (she was extremely verbally precocious, speaking in long sentences by 18 months). In her 4s and 5s she developed a good group of friends in preschool who asked for playdates with her and seemed to like her a great deal. At 7, she has friends and seems relatively well-liked (I think her academic skills have actually been admired in her small class) and has also had boys crushing on her, but still will separate and play alone fairly often. When with friends, she sometimes gets out of control silly and does something that looks a bit like verbal stimming, with lots of repeated nonsense words. She can engage in cooperative, flexible imaginary play quite nicely if the other child is interested, but will often not even try to do this. She seems immature compared to many children her age, but not extremely so.

She reacts very badly if teased or excluded, bursting into tears and getting very agitated. She takes minor friendship dramas (�You�re not my friend anymore�) very literally and seriously. Although it has not happened at school, she could easily be a �mark� for bullies because she reacts so strongly if pushed in any way. She appears incapable of teasing/excluding/engaging in girl drama herself�a good thing, but in some ways this seems a little abnormal. At the same time, though she is never intentionally mean, she can be very off-putting and can hurt people�s feelings because she is excessively blunt, very strong-willed, and frequently corrects other people. (She cannot bear inaccuracy.) She is also extremely literal and is just beginning to understand things like sarcasm or good-natured ribbing.

As a rule, she is quite well-behaved at school and rarely if ever descends the behavior chart. She has had occasional emotional meltdowns there, however, where she became very upset and wailed and sobbed over a seemingly minor thing. Changes in routine are especially hard�she has a very hard time with subs. This happens maybe 4-5x/year and was disturbing to the school principal, who brought it up to us with concern. Her classroom teachers, however, say the occasional freakout is not a huge deal. Her grades are very high and her behavior is described positively on her report cards.

At home, we struggle, and always have. She is incredibly stubborn and argumentative. Her tone is often rude, bossy, and harsh. We have talked to her about this till we are blue in the face, but she really seems to not hear how she sounds (yet is sensitive to OUR tone). She routinely ignores our requests and challenges us on matters of discipline and is overly directive with her younger brother. She can be really inappropriate with other adults, even strangers, contradicting, arguing with, and being rude to them. We have up times and down times, but I am often extremely frsutrated with her. Some of this is me, but I often feel she just does not �get� things that she really should about social back and forth. Yet she understands the emotions and motivations of characters in books very well. She can appear to lack empathy, but at other times her empathy seems over the top.

I guess I wonder if any of this sounds familiar or if anyone has any thoughts. I suspect she would not score/rate as ASD, but am not sure. I feel an unskilled evaluator might get it wrong in either direction. I used to do some of those online questionnaires, and she often scored in a gray area or just below a gray area. Sometimes I am sure these are gifted quirks, while other times I feel sure there is something �wrong.� The family is suffering and we all yell too much. I don�t know if she needs social skills training (though her problem is more with adults in authority, not as much other kids!) or if we need family therapy or what.

Dear Ultramarina: My DS8 is on the spectrum and some of what you describe about your daughter does sound familiar. When he was initially evaluated at age 2, they said no to ASD also for reasons similar to yours: he looked at them (briefly), responded (sort of), and interacted (if the activity was a favorite). In hindsight, it was a poorly run evaluation because they did not see a lot of what they should have. I know better now, having lived with ASD for 5 years. At that time I was happy he didn't have autism, but we didn't see any changes so had him re-evaluated and got the ASD diagnosis. We were able to start him right away in appropriate therapy and he THRIVED!

Now, at age 8, he is in a school for the gifted and fits in for the most part. He hand flaps when he is excited, and he verbally stims (sings or hums) when he is concentrating or nervous, and he has a crazy precocious manner of speaking. (the "little professor" you read about) He has friends that he loves (the 2 wild, silly class clowns) and the girls in his class "mother him" by keeping his desk clean, and packing up his back pack.

His problems with social skills are continual. Last year he completed a 9 month (UGH!) social skills class which helped him a lot. This year, the guidance counselor at school set up a "cool kids lunch bunch" to work with kids about keeping their cool, instead of getting hot and having meltdowns, or cold and withdrawing. That has really helped him describe and control his emotions.

As for getting frustrated at home, it happens. But our first therapist at age 3 taught us the importance of remaining completely unemotional, ESPECIALLY when DS gets worked up. We ignore, go silent, turn away, remove all facial expressions. Only when he can calmly and quietly talk to us do we respond. by smiling, talking, hugging.

Anyway, the point of my long answer is that autism is so hard to diagnose when they are at the high end of the spectrum, but the diagnosis helped me realize there is nothing wrong with my child. I had to learn a new way to interact, and I have to teach others how to interact appropriately. It helps alleviate frustration and negative thoughts about my child.

I, too, go back and forth about "is it gifted quirks or is it autism?" and I often can't tell. The autism diagnosis has helped us get accommodations in school that help DS cope better and help his teachers be a little more understanding.

So, I don't know if this is helpful regarding your daughter, but some things sound so similar to my ASD son, that I wanted to post this! Nan

Thanks for the reply. DD is switching schools next year to a gifted magnet (from a small special-interest charter). There were really no accommodations available to her at the old school, but the new one has a counselor on staff and many more resources available to her, so I am wondering if now might be a "good" time to get a label...if we want one. As I'm sure is normal, a big part of me resists the label. There are major things that don't fit, and I especially worry about how it would change how others perceive her. However, I am starting to wonder if a label could help her with some of her social skills. To be clear, it's not SO bad. She is probably on a par with the youngest/least socially skilled boys in a group of age peers. The girls, especially queen bee types, can sometimes seem vastly more sophisticated. It's like...she is 25th% or so, or something, socially. But I feel like maybe we have been lucky so far. If someone decided to target/outcast her, it could be a major disaster.

I do have the same doubts on Aspergers with my son as well, which is what prompted me to read your post. A lot of the things you both mention, fit my son's personality/behavior so well. I keep believing that the case is so mild on him, that doctors and psychologist are not able to detect it, but then again sometimes I feel it's just his personality.

I'm very skeptical about labels as well, good or bad. The approach I have taken with mine has been of "let's pretend he does has it... what can I do for him?" So I address his "issues" with occupational therapy for his sensory problems, consistent discipline, and will soon start social skills class, etc. I do find myself having to teach him social skills that normally come natural to other kids, one of those being practicing sentences or other ways of saying something since he tends to be pretty blunt as well.

A book that truly helped me with his discipline at home was "Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed Child." The author's point is very simple, consistent discipline without much expression and avoiding getting worked up and falling into the "arguing game." I barely have many arguments with him anymore even though he's still very stubborn, but he knows that his choices have consequences and that my anwers does not change. (for the most part) :-)

<http://www.amazon.com/Setting-Limits-Your-Strong-Willed-Child/dp/0761521364>

Hope this helps.

One more thing that might help, which helped me....

I had to make a note to myself not to yell at him as a note on my cell phone so that every time I look at it, it would remind me. Find somethign that would work for you. :-)

I also sat down with him one time and talked about how mom didn't want to scream at him so much and that I was willing to work on that, and asked him what could he do as well to make things better (such as listening without arguing)... kind of like a little verbal contract, and I saw his effort to do better (as long as it was under his control). Lots of positive reinforcement also on those time when I catched him actually not arguing where he otherwise would try to make a case. Hope this helps.

Personally, I see AS as a discription of the weaknesses and issues of children born in a certain spectrum. Giftedness is the list of the strengths in the same spectrum. Whether a child is classified as ASD and/or gifted depends on how obvious either side is. As soon as I see a baby walking or talking earlier than normal or a child with advanced early skills, I am automatically expecting some degree of AS symptoms later in life.

I am hoping this makes AS sound a little less scary. Unfortunately, it also makes Gifted sound a little more scary. An AS person is not entirely AS, they just have some of the symptoms associated with this spectrum. Neither is a gifted person entirely gifted. I think the AS spectrum covers such a wide ranging set of symptoms, it is almost unusable as a classification. However, the individual ways of dealing with specific aspects within the spectrum are useful.

The reason I feel a degree of AS is an essential ingredient of giftedness is society actually values the skills within certain parts of this spectrum. I feel a lot of people outside the autism spectrum are also gifted, but I think I am the only one seeing it this way.

I have started thinking this way, too. I recently bought her some books on social skills and we have been doing more explicit talking about this, to the point of making a list of social "rules" for her to study. How did you find your son a social skills class?


Really--you think? I guess I would say that I see a significant subset of gifties who look kinda ASD in one way or another, but I also see some who are socioemotional leaders and very confident. My DS is probably also gifted, but lacks DD's quirks. The only thing that someone might point to is his prodigious ability to memorize, which he shares with his sister. He does quote books at length, but it's less script-y than it was with his sister. He clearly comprehends what he's repeating...with DD at this age, I wasn't so sure.

I do agree, though, that the spectrum is very broad--much broader than usually recognized. My official line on DD used to be that I thought her to be at the far gray edge of the spectrum--not diagnosable, but with some traits. But then I start to question that.

Of course, yesterday DD had a playdate with a new friend who is a good match for her (sweet-natured, imaginative, emotionally "young" though also 7) and they played absolutely beautifully for hours with no issues. This is the way our life goes--she will look really out of step one day and completely typical the next.

My assessment of my own DD6 is that she is at roughly between your DS and DD. I feel the same, just enough on the edge of the spectrum to be undiagnosable. Your assessment of what part of the spectrum you see your DD on is exactly the same as where I would place her.

Interesting you mention the memorization skills. I consider the peak of fact based memorization skills to occur at the edge of the spectrum as well. Those farther into the spectrum or farther away from the spectrum will be weaker at fact based memorization. It is not that people on either side of this point have weaker memorization skills, they just can remember different kinds of information better.

The comprehension skills in my opinion are much more complicated than being a result of what point in the scale a person is at. I have some ideas on this, but I am still struggling to find the pattern in this area.

Socialization is another area, which has some aspects related to the point in the spectrum a person is in. However, there appears to be other factors not related to the spectrum.

From what I have seen, the spectrum also includes both people with poor coordination and some of the best coordination I have ever seen.

Both my children have mild hypotonia (DS more so than DD--he was in therapy for this as a baby), meaning they have low muscle tone. However, DS manages to be quite coordinated despite it. He has an amazingly strong and accurate throwing arm. This is a child who could not sit up till 9 months! DD is still noticeably behind on large motor skills but manages to do passably at some things due to sheer force of will. Interestingly, low muscle tone, prodigious memorization skills, mild ASD (not diagnosed, but strongly suspected, and not just by me), and giftedness all run in my family, going back several generations. What's more, they seem to exist as a bit of a "package deal" in many cases, though not everyone has all of them. I absolutely do not possess the memorization skill myself, but it's quite recognizable to me, having sat through my father (who's a scientist, by the way!) reciting reams of poetry at the dinner table when I was a child.

When you described your family and yourself, I was not the least bit surprised. My family also has a lot of these various characteristics with maybe the exception of the hypotonia (at least I am not aware of it).

I found it interesting when you mentioned recognizing your DD's ability to memorize and was not as good at comprehension. This is particularly hard to detect and something I feel I am able to often see in people. Interestingly enough, I would describe my ability to remember fact based information as extremely poor. This is one of the reasons I was not surprised you mentioned having a weakness of memorizing. I am not sure if these two abilities are inversely related to a high degree.

My mom was the one with an extreme ability to remember information. A lot of people referred to her as having a photographic memory. She used to get on my case for my inability to remember, whereas I would have trouble trying to explain some concepts to her (she was reasonably good at it).

I would classify myself as being born well into the autism spectrum, resulting in not being able to walk and talk till near the age of 3. Yes, I also believe late development can be a sign of autism, but more for the extreme form of it. However, I also believe neural development patterns are not necessarily consistent through life. In my case, I believe my late neural development was far outside the spectrum. I don't know if extreme changes in the pattern of development are common, but I do believe it happens in some cases.

This is all just my personal thoughts.