I would say that there were definitely mood changes starting in November. I should back up further and mention that DS was prescribed Tenex in August for severe tics and almost instantly it seemed to work to fix them as well as calm him down a bit in general. We thought it was pretty much a miracle drug. He was able to slow down enough to think before he acted and everything seemed great.
Then a bit before Thanksgiving he just got super oppositional. My kid was born with a healthy level of opposition, but this was newly awful. He was also very irritable. I went to the pediatrician in December and they said to see the dev peds. We went there (over a month later when they could get us in) and expressed concerns about how miserable family life had become with DS. I told them I was worried one of the two of us would end up committed if things continued as they were. We left with a script for extended release Tenex. At the time I assured them we would not be coming back, it's an hour drive and more of the same med was not what we needed.
Regardless, we tried it. He became so much more miserable it was ridiculous. And he seemed even less able to think. But that could be because he was screaming and/or crying about everything. After 2 weeks I took him off of the stuff. He went about 3 nights without sleeping much at all, but still seemed a bit happier. Then he adjusted to not having the Tenex and has been sleeping fine since (fine for him, maybe not fine in comparison to other 6 year olds).
It's been 3 weeks and he is still happy. He seems to be able to concentrate better. But, when he originally started regressing in reading it was about 2 months before we started the Tenex, but it did coincide with the huge increase in tics that caused us to try medication to begin with.
I should also mention that DS tends to go through good and bad periods all on his own, regardless of medication. I do believe the Tenex was making him feel bad in some way. Why it didn't seem to do so until he was on it for about 2 months I have no idea. He is much more hyper off of it, but the tics haven't really come back at this point. He still has some minor ones and some OCD like behavior, like running back and touching something as he makes his way across a room or tapping on each piece of furniture he walks by. Just like everything else with him, that stuff tends to come and go all on its own. He's a very confusing kid.
Since the children's hospital we have been going to since 2.5 refuses to consider anything other than asd and won't consider adhd as a separate diagnosis (and was not helpful with the Tenex situation) we are doing the reevaluation at a new place. I need to figure out what is really going on with DS so that we can treat it properly.
There is family history of ADHD on both sides and DS pretty much has all of the symptoms, except short attention span. I ask him to wash his hands before dinner and he goes into the bathroom, but instead of washing up, he uses the toilet. I ask him to get on his shoes and coat and he shows up at the door with his coat on, but not his shoes. I'm sure he's hearing what I am saying, it just seems to get all messed up in his head. He is always running and climbing and jumping. He is very loud, if reminded to whisper at the library he is able to lower his voice, but by the end of the sentence he is yelling again. If I shush him the whole time he speaks he is able to stay at a lower volume.
He's a very friendly and nice kid though. He loves to be helpful and make things for me. He also likes to annoy others and often does not follow the rules, climbing bookshelves at the library, running away and hiding when it's time to do a non-preferred activity, screaming and bossing people around, etc. He's like that nursery rhyme:
There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
But, back to academics... I don't think DS spells well out loud either. He is able to write things phonetically, but doesn't seem to pick up on the proper spellings. He can spell a few common words like the, of, what, etc. But today he asked for help with pole and then, and he only wrote 2 short sentences today (and likely all of the rest of the words were in the reading text). He tends to miss the vowels when he sounds things out, like spidrs for spiders. He knows how to spell ing and ed and that he needs to add an e to the end to change to the long vowel. He just doesn't seem to pick up on spelling by reading like it seems many kids do. And he has no confidence whatsoever. I can' spell well either, so I am probably not a great spelling teacher.
Answering your questions in order:
Our curriculum is about the same. I dropped from 4th to 2nd grade when he started having trouble to rebuild our school relationship, but it did not help, he still complained it was too hard, despite having mastered the same material 2 years earlier.
I still try to pick books he likes, but I had to stop Magic Tree House because I did not feel the book on the civil war was appropriate for him at 5 and he refused to continue after skipping a book. But we have bought and checked out lots of level 3 and 4 readers as well as chapter books in his area of interest and I do require him to read either 1 chapter or one leveled reader a day as part of our curriculum. He has not complained much in recent weeks, but his speed is still pretty slow.
Our family life is by no means perfect, but nothing significant has changed. No moves or new family members or anything.
I have made changes to the schedule, but more as a reaction to the problems. Over the summer DS was getting up in the am and independently completing his daily work. I had found this worked best for us as he was difficult with me, but on his own the goofing off and annoying behavior just made his work take longer and didn't cause conflict with me anymore. When he stopped getting anything done I tried lots of stuff. Dropping to a very light schedule, working with him on everything, answering all of the questions for him and expecting him only to discuss the answers with me, etc. Nothing helped. After we stopped the Tenex I tried a schedule where we each picked 10 items and alternated them throughout the day and that was working well. Now he is back to doing all 10 of my items first thing in the morning and is very cooperative with it (not all academic items, also has his daily chores on it and fun activities like family games). We do the work together and have fun. I tend to be the type to try things until I find what works, and what works around here tends to change, so we tend to have a lot of schedule changes I guess, but more in reaction to problems.
His sleep is pretty good for the most part. Last night he woke around 2 am and came into bed with me, but he fell back asleep quickly. Some days he wakes up really early and is cranky that day. Overall he sleeps between 9 and 10 hours a night, usually without waking.
Health was an issue in November, he was really stuffed up and couldn't breath well for months (but no discharge, just stuffiness). This cleared up when we discontinued Tenex, which could have been a coincidence.
The only activity he has each week is swimming, which he started in January and he loves it.
He definitely grew a lot this winter. He looks so much older now and went from a very short kid to an almost average kid. A year ago he was wearing 3t and now he's in size 5, so a lot of growing and most of it over the winter months!
OK, I think I responded to everything
Clearly I would type forever if it offered some chance of someone noticing something that could help us out. He actually did get accepted into the private gifted school we had the testing done for and now I'm so worried about all of this all over again. DS will need to be able to not only behave, but also keep up academically at a really awesome school. They offer a very individualized education, but I know DS will not be happy to not be the best at everything. He will of course have to get used to that in life, but I know that if everyone is reading fast and he is reading slow he will be very upset about it. Honestly, with this kid you would think that he could die from making a mistake the way he carries on about little things. And god forbid we ask him to do something that he isn't confident that he can do. I can't even get him to sing unless I make him do it to get his desert, he doesn't think he's good at it and he's afraid he will forget the words. I just make him do it because I love the joyful sound of singing children... I try to pretend my son is doing it because he likes to, not because I'm forcing him. I wish he could just be happy and enjoy his childhood.
