Hi, I think I my story may be helpful. My son started acting similarly "weird" in kindergarten. It wasn't quite the same behavior as yours but it was, well, weird (for lack of a better word) behavior that made him look like he had a serious behavioral and/or psychological disorder. Now, I am not sure of your child's background but mine never acted so strangely before - he had never had strange tics, etc. He had always been a good kid, happy, *normal* But in kindie, for example, he became unable to swallow - I mean, pathologically so. To get rid of the salavia, instead of swallowing it, he would spit - not on people but he would spit into shirt sleeve and shirt (trying to be discreet and kind-of was until other kids were like "ew the front of shirt is all wet and looks like spit). It was so bad his entire shirt would be soaked within an hour. I had to get him a bunch of handkerchiefs. He told me he was afraid of disguisting thinsg going into him - he just couldn't help it. He did other things too - started spinning in circles, very oppositional, etc. ... really I mean just very very alarming behavior. Socially unacceptable behavior too. And he would completely freak out if his picture were taken - like cry uncontrollably. He did weird behavior that, now in retrospect we realize were attempts in some watys to be left alone - to get out of doing tasks that apparently were causing a great deal of stress and even he did not know why he felt so horrible he just felt compelled to act out at the stress of the task. He was also just having for lack of a better word a "breakdown." He was literally falling apart and he didn't even know why. He became unrecognizable.
People were throwing around autism spectrum disorder as possible answers. But, I knew in my heart something was stressing him and traumatizing him... I felt like a kid doesn't suddenly at 5 or 6 start acting like this. I felt like a kid who is truly has one of the spectrum disorders shows some pretty strong signs of that earlier. Without a trauma to the head, I couldn't imagine how he would suddenly start having such a condition.
There was another angle. During his kindie class, his entire class broke down into groups for reading and fine motor activities (every day for 20 minutes) The para-professional he was paired with for this he hated. HATED. She shamed him for his fine motor delays in front of the others in his group (didn't know about his hypotonia even though he had a 504 plan - apparently, you have to not only do a 504 plan but you need to put on a dog and pony show for every single teacher and aid your kid has because no one bothers to even look at them! but I digress..) and often entered into major power struggles with him where she seemed determined to "show him who is boss" The para was talked to about being more sensitive and supportive but they school wanted DS to stay in her group to teach him "how to work with people he doesn't like much." According to DS, snide remarks continued sort of under her breath aimed at DS (eyeroll). I complied with keeping him in her group - at first. ONe particularly horrible December day for him I had enough and liteally marched up the school and demanded he be pulled from her group immediately and placed in another. That was the first time we started seeing improvement - not only did his behavior stop deteriorating, it began to improve - and it was immediate and noticeable.
Anyway, I knew I had to figure out what really happened - fundamentally. I couldn't have that happen again. I needed to get to the root. My suspicion was he was 2E - but I did not even know that terminology back then. I knew he was very smart and so much so that it can cause problems and I knew something was stressing him a great deal. I already knew he had hypotonia but I wasn't truly appreciating the impact that was having - and neither was anyone else. I took him to be evaluated at a local children's hospital and put him therapy. I specifically told the hospital that I suspected he was 2E (though I didn't use that term b/c I didn't know it but that is essentially what I explained). I told them I strongly suspected a learning disorder. I went to the wrong place. I realize now that such a place was more into diagnosing childhood behavior disorders and such - they completely dismissed my concerns about a learning disability. They got distracted the behavior evals and were merely trying to fit him into a psychological or behavior disorder and didn't pursue the learning problem aspect at all. The only useful thing that came out of that experience were I got to observe him take the WISC (very very helpful for me), I got WISC scores (more clues to where his learning issue is) and I got an anxiety disorder diagnosis (so that the next time a para or teacher starts freaking him out I could get him removed from the situation immediately. It also made the school take GREAT care in whose class they placed DS in the next year - very helpful.
But I wasn't done.
One thing I realized when watching him take the WISC is that something was up with his vision - the way he processes visual information. The psychologists thought I was nuts when I said this to them. My DH jokes they just looked at me like I had some sort of rodent on my head when I mentioned it to them. I was suspecting dyslexia. And they were like "no - even though it doesn't quite fit - we think he is "on the spectrum." They said the only thing wrong with his vision was that because he is on the spectrum he can't see things from other people's perspective and is too rigid. I left in tears. I decided to disregard their advice and look into dyslexia. But first I wanted to rule out vision issues b/c I suspected that too. Undaunted by psychologists' rolling eyes, I took him to a very respectable optometrist and low and behold, his one eye crosses in intermittently so basically seeing and reading was a little crazy for him. It meant his depth perceptions was off, words and letters "moved" on him, he physically has trouble focusing visually, etc. He had no idea how he was seeing was "off" because that was all he ever knew. Now we know why he was falling apart at reading time and with close-proximity work in general!
Once I got an iep for anxiety - I basically wrote the entire IEP itself and I put into place strong accommodations for his visual disorder. AND, for the hypotonia, I put in strong accommodations - the same ones used for dysgraphia (I came here and got great help from others who have 2E kids with writing disabilities). We also got 'kid-glove,' as I like to call them, accommodations for DS's anxiety.
I still was not done. I was still concerned he either had dyslexia or dysgraphia. I was either going to get him evaluated (by a person who would actually take me seriously this time!) privately or by school. The school psych said she'd do it, I liked this one (the one he had in kindie I didn't) and I trusted her. She didn't think he had either but I also felt like she did take my concerns seriously nonetheless. She did a good deal of testing and observing DS for me. It was through these evals that it became more clear that DS does have dysgraphia.
My kid is pretty much himself again. The school psych this year called him "delightful." She talked about how much fun he was to test. His teachers say he's doing well,etc. He is not perfect - he is never been "easy" in the sense that he is intense and smart and a bit argumentative by nature. But even he even says he didn't know who he was last year! He is embarrassed about it (poor thing - often hoping kids who knew him then don't remember how weird he acted I assure him most don't remember it at all and will remember none of it by next year.)
The morale of my story is... undetected learning and vision disorders can wreak havok. They can lead your child to look like someone he isn't. It doesn't come out I think until demand so school start stressing the child. Maybe look at that closely even just on your own first, you now? To see if something like that may at the root. I hope this helps you somewhat!
Last edited by marytheres; 02/12/13 08:05 AM.
