Girl with high-functioning, light form of autism

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I would not be afraid to go to another parent. Start out with one and see how it goes. Somebody needs to start. And your kid is worth it and is nothing to be ashamed of. If you get your child out there and give her experiences, she will be more confident. Not saying you have to shout it from the rooftops either though. These stereotypes can be broken with a little work. Don't keep enabling that mentality.

I recomend that you have another child anyway...Even if she/he has ASD, that other child will help her develop social skills better and will be someone she will be able to turn to when the world does not understand her.
However always have kids in even numbers...odd numbered kids always leave one out. The best I have seen is having two kids, the worst is three.

As far as the toilet thing...she may have a sensory problem and not know if she needs to pee, so she pees just when she thinks she needs to. I used to do this alot about her age until I was 7ish.

I am on the spectrum, and as far as my rituals go...rituals can anoy me that I do things that I wish I could stop, but special interests are anouther story. I love my special intrests, they give me passion for life,

She will probably develop special interests as she gets older...they will help guide her through life.
A special interest is a sort of obsession that can turn out to be very productive if chaneled right.

My special intersts are poetry and many different types of art.
I am working on getting published now....20 years after my special interest began.

Jojo

It is very true that a lot of things are based on trial and error and is difficult to put AS children in "frames" and categorize based on other parents' experiences. Basically it helps us parents to work harder to help our kids.
We try hard to keep her busy and give her as many experiences as possible, even if we know beforehand that some of them she will not like much.
One of the main advice we received by doctors is to ask her about her feelings and why she feels anger or happiness, when she feels them, but also at a later calm moment. To a certain extent this has worked and she has learned to expresses her feelings in terms of "Now I am happy because I like this game" or "now I am sad because I don't like this place".
However, in many cases her feelings do not follow the cause e.g. she may cry because her mother washed her favorite fork and knife or she may laugh out loud because she heard an interesting word on TV.....I guess that's one of typical AS symptoms, it falls under the category of emotional immaturity (?).

Approaching in person parents with AS children is the next thing I plan to do.

Oh, if she's a wordie she'll love words forever. She'll learn not to laugh out loud when amongst strangers, but that's it. She will love to read, do really well in reading-related school subjects, and perhaps one day she will even be an author!

Yes, yippy she is a wordie to say the least!
Many new words that she listens to, she finds them very amusing, which basically means that she repeats them 50-100 times a day in various sentences (that sometimes makes sense, some others do not...).
Now with the bathroom issue, it has got worse over the last few days, she has stopped going the WC every 10 minutes, but she has started peeing on herself without warning when out in cafes, restaurants, birthday parties, wherever !
We calmly explained to her that there are WCs everywhere and she only has to let us know when she needs to pee and we will go to the nearest WC. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
When we ask her why she does this, she responds "because I am a little baby"...

Lately, this "sensory overload" issue has arisen in a number of occasions such as walks and visits to crowded and noisy places. She does not complain or anything, but she is silent and "absent", basically not herself.

Another point I would like to bring up is the difference in fine and gross movement. Her fine movement is excellent and she does well in all activities that require delicate hand movement...however, she still finds it hard to go up and down the stairs and catch a ball easily with her hands. We are working on this as well and hopefully it will improve.

The argument between me and my wife about having a 2nd child goes on.....I am completely against that, not only because I am afraid of the possibility of having a 2nd autistic child but basically because our daughter needs and will need for many years extra love, care, training and attention, so that we would not able to cope if a 2nd child arises (in the spectrum or not).
I know many one-child families that are happy and well and can't see why we cannot be one of them.
Beyond that, I am very happy with our daughter and personally I do not see the need to have another child. After the AS diagnosis my wife feels that we must have a 2nd child that will be "normal"...she is still in the denial - why God this happened to us - phase.

I have quite a special relationship with bathrooms as well. I almost always go before I start traveling, even if I don't feel the need. It's a bit of a ritual. I also go a lot more often than normal because I like bathrooms: they're quiet places where no one interferes with you.

I would tell her that she is not a baby and that girls of her age should go to the toilet when they need to.

Silence or absence are not necessarily bad things. It just takes her a lot of time and effort to take everything in. That, in itself, is not a problem. Just make sure that if you want to have a long or important conversation with her that it's done in a quiet place.

As long as you don't have to tell anyone, I wouldn't. I think lots of people have a rather negative take on autism. I also think that being a shy person in a "normal" world wasn't so bad. The more experience she gets with other people, the better she will learn how to deal with them. A lot of auties manage to find coping mechanisms at some stage.

You could be right, since she is in frequent contact with my sister's 5-month old baby and I find that she often tries to imitate the baby's behaviour everytime they get together at my mother's house (their grandmother).

Hi all and happy new year !
It has been a couple of years since I wrote my last post here and what an autism journey it has been !
Just a reminder - my daughter is now 7 years old and diagnosed with high-functioning autism at the age of 3.
She has been attending "normal" school now for the last 2 years and she is doing rather well, although there have been a few incidents that resulted in outbreaks/meltdowns.
Since my last post here - August 2011 - my daughter has surely improved a lot and has learnt - to some extent - to control her anxieties and stress. Meltdowns and temper tantrums have also largely decreased (one in 3-4 months may occur now) and she is more composed now.
We cooperate well with her teacher and we feel more at ease since an Aspergers-diagnosed boy is also in her classroom.
In terms of learning, she is doing well overall and her favorite subject is English. Sometimes she struggles with Maths, so we spend more time there when she returns home. Where we have not seen much improvement is in her communication and contact with other kids. She doesn't know how to approach them and most of the times she seems happy to play alone. Most kids in her classroom have realised that there is something different with her and some have accepted it, some not. We are working on it with her teacher and we have decided to start sessions with a suitable child psychologist (also for reasons mentioned below) in a few days. She definitely needs help on her verbal side, to learn how to express her feelings, describe situations to others, etc.

Last year - when she was in the 1st grade - we went through a "toilet-phase" for a couple of months (November-December 2012). Her stress made her visit the toilet every 10-15 mins, which made our lives a bit of a hell, even more so when we were not at home. It was probably due to the pressure she was feeling at school - although one can never be sure with an autistic kid. This phase ended within 2-3 days when the Xmas holidays arrived.
The last 2 months we are going through another phase - I call it the nervous cough phase. This means coughing and clearing her throat every 5 seconds. This coughing starts at about 4-5pm and gets better at about 9pm just before she goes to bed.
During these hrs, she also looks very worried and unhappy, sometimes she starts crying with no apparent reason and she constantly asks me and her mother if she is sick, if her throat is ok, and if we can go see a doctor. We visited a doctor to check her up and he confirmed in front of her that she is completely healthy and she has nothing to worry about. However, nothing has improved since the doctors' check up. She can't really say what is in her mind, so our best guess is that again the school pressure has got to her. Although for some reason, when she is at school she doesnt cough at all and she is very happy. The symptoms begin a few hrs after she has returned home. In anycase, I guess this is just another phase that will soon pass (until the next one) and I do hope the child psychologist helps.

Happy to be here again,
P.

Hi Eureka!

my daughter has also stopped doing that, about a year or so ago. Come to think of it, I agree with you, it was charming while it lasted, if I can put it this way.

P.

Our son did the coughing/throat clearing thing when nervous or when put on the spot in school. He would do it at home sometimes, too.

It is interesting that your child does it on delay and doesn't do it at all at school. It may be she does it very occasionally there and it is not noticed by anyone. She may be self conscious about it and putting in a lot of effort in school to suppress it. It doesn't mean she is "happy" it may just mean she is suppressing her feelings until she gets at home where she feels safe.

Autistic people are very capable of reliving feelings when we review our day or ruminate over things we perceive as catastrophic errors/faux pas. This may be what is going on, but it is hard to know if she won't tell you.

How accurate do you think her teacher would be at assessing her day? Do you think it might benefit your daughter if you go into observe or would it make things worse b/c it would make her more self conscious. I am a huge advocate of observing whenever possible if something major seems to be going on, that you cannot find a cause for. Of course, if it would make things worse or you just can't do it, this does not apply.

Hi Mommy and thanks for your reply,

You are right when you say that she may not be happy, just self-conscious and suppressing her feelings. We (and by we, I mean both us parents and therapists) have worked a lot on the "socially acceptable behaviours" of our daughter. She knows most of the "should-do" and "should not do" when she is at school, so it may be that all this pressure builds up and is vented later at home.
Her teacher is fully aware of her autism and although she is by no means expert in it, she is doing the best she can and I have no complaints so far. Since this phase started, I have repeatedly asked her if she has noticed anything on my daughter during schooltime but she said no and I have no reason to question her judgement. She would tell us if my daughter had a nervous cough during the lesson. I also believe that a detailed observation can provide with the necessary answers - in most of the cases.
However, as with many autistic kids, my daughter is smart and observation has to be very discreet, otherwise she would notice and this would probably make things worse. I am sure there are signs there that are very subtle - we just have to look more carefully.

As I said before, the symptoms appear about 4-5pm every day - which is usually the time that she starts doing her homework, most of the times with the help of her mother (my wife is a primary school teacher by profession). Sometimes during her homework, my wife may put that little bit extra pressure on her, especially if the subject is Maths. Therefore, the pressure during homework may have started this whole thing up -