Hi all! I haven't been on the board for a while, but had some questions for the collective wisdom. Sorry this is long. Brief background on my 4 1/2 DD: she is doing well in her play-based Spanish immersion preschool. She's a native Spanish speaker and highly fluent in both Spanish and English. She's a very happy kid and social, gets along well with other kids, doesn't have trouble following classroom routines or sitting still in class, is engaged. Her energy level is very high and she does a great deal of crazy daredevil behavior on the playground. Without going into details here, I have ample reason to think her IQ is very high. I am planning on testing her with the WISC when she turns 6.
We have been in ongoing contact with a pediatric neurologist who has given DD a pending diagnosis of Tourette's with OCD. Basically, the behaviors (which I'll outline below) have not crossed over yet into being a problem for DD. The way the neurologist explained it is that when it becomes a school or social problem, then they'll "officially" diagnosis her. The main issue DD has is ticcing (we've been in contact with the pediatric neurologist for tics for over 2 years now, but she's had issues all along). The intensity and type of tics comes and goes, but the one that has remained consistently is hand-sniffing. When she's in a quieter period it can be a couple of times a day, when she is in a tic "storm" like now, it can be up to several hundred times a day. She does not appear to be anxious and I can't connect the storms to increased life or school stress, the "storms" just seem to happen. Right now it's hand sniffing and throat clearing. The last "storm"-- several months ago--involved hand-sniffing, grimacing, and a shoulder shrug. She's sensitive, extremely intense and highly overexcitable. She also still trembles when she is excited about or anticipating something, and has trembled when excited since she was a baby. She hasn't been teased about the ticcing at preschool so far as I can tell.
Other things: she can be preoccupied with order at times (examples: extensive cleaning up of her eating area and wiping table down before eating dessert, making me put her geode in the exact right space on the shelf before she'll go to sleep, etc.) This hasn't presented a problem at school yet. She has had clear sensory issues since infancy all the way through: sounds, bright lights, fascination with sand and textures, daredevil playground behavior. She was dragged out of school concerts repeatedly for crying about them being too loud. She had intense separation anxiety as a baby/toddler that went on for a long time, was a drop off crier the previous two years of preschool but not this year. As a toddler, she would not stop picking at a pimple on her face over a period of months and caused a scar. Don't know if that's related or not. She had a few unexplained very minor seizures when going to sleep as a baby. She's a very healthy kid, no other issues.
I had OCD as a child and still have it as an adult, but it's been subsumed under a PTSD diagnosis. I also have an unrelated (non-Tourette's) neurological issue as an adult. I guess I'm not sure quite what to do with this. We have been taking a wait and see approach on the recommendation of the neurologist. She's starting public school K next year. Does anyone else on the board have a kid who had the same issues at this age? Did it later develop into Tourette's/OCD? If so, when did the "official diagnosis" take place? How/when did it become a school issue, and, if so, did you have a IEP in place for it? Sorry, I have a lot of questions and am completely new to this. Any information would be helpful. Thank you so much!!!
