Our DD is almost 4 years old, and she just stands out. She's wild sometimes. When we visited the pediatrician for her 3 year check up, she dove under the chair and barked like a dog, then jumped up, humming, turned the door knob and ran down the hall. Since birth she has been high maintenance. Although her attention span is remarkable, we did wonder if she had ADD, but ultimately rejected that. She is also very physically active and has been a toe-walker since age 2.
At Thanksgiving, a family member who has a high functioning (GT I think, but we did not discuss that) son with Asperger's, age 8, and a high functioning son with autism, age 5, made some observations. She is also a preschool teacher with a special ed emphasis.
She commented that DD probably has sensory issues and suggested a few interventions to help - swimming, sitting on a spinner disc during class to help concentration and maybe wearing a compression vest. She also said DD would likely need to be in gifted education and that she functions in many ways like an 8 year old, which DH and I also see, but we don't discuss it with anyone except her preschool teacher.
There is Asperger's and autism in DH's family and ADD and audio processing problems in mine (I (ahem) have some autism spectrum tendencies myself...).
I'm just... amazed, I guess... that there may be an explanation other than personality for the intensity of raising this fascinating child. I'm exhausted and very motivated to learn how to help her.
Does anyone have advice on how to proceed?
DD is in preschool and doing well with an amazing teacher and a 6:1 ratio, but we are anticipating another year before kindergarten because DD is a December baby
. Do I wait until she's 6 to get a formal evalutation with the school system, or discuss this with her pediatrician now? I can also try to cobble together the information to come up with our own plan to help her for two more years, but I'm wondering if we'd be missing an opportunity for early intervention.
DH and I do not think DD has Asperger's, autism, or ADHD, and maybe not ADD either, from what we know of these diagnoses. After hearing our family member's impressions, I'm reading up on sensory processing disorders and interventions, but thought I'd ask parents here, since GT seems to complicate identification.
