Roonil, wow in so many ways you could be describing my DD who is 9 and in yr4. She has not yet been diagnosed with anything but we are expecting a diagnosis of dyslexia, ADD and or mild aspergers later in the year...
Buying her an iPod touch for her and setting up the app "Home Routines" has changed our lives in terms of getting ready in the morning. Every single morning used to invlove screaming, recriminations, misery and running late, with things she was supposed to have done not done (piano and dishwasher most often). She now gets ready completely independantly, does her chores, a full piano practice (only 15 mins) and then usually has time to sit and play on her iPod for a while before the car. It's truly un-imaginable compared to life a few months ago. We had previously tried having the exact same list in writing, stars for good days, linked to pocket money, various other things. Some helped a little. But she would come to check the list and then forget why she was in her room when she went to get her clothes on. This just works. For her anyway.
In terms of diet, we have done the full elimination diet and found that DD has massive behavioural response to dairy and salicylate and colours/flavours/preservatives, she also gets tummy pains from gluten and salicylate. So she's on a very strict diet and it has helped a lot. Dairy alone would not have made an impact on her I don't think because she still would have had the other major irritants in there and salicylate is huge for her.
We started this diet at the end of our school year last november so we really only focused on the behavioural impact it had over our summer holidays and keeping her on it for those reasons. She's had a much better year this year academically too, including really getting into the swing of homework. We've talked to each other so often about how "Everything finally seems to be coming together this year", her piano has really taken off too. And stupidly it's taken us until this month to realise that it co-incides with the diet change. The restrictions of the diet are completely and utterly worth it for us.
We still feel she needs more help despite these recent improvements.
