maybe someone here can help

[~*SugarMama*~]

My DD will be 4 on Sept 1. We recently took her into our family doc seeking advice on getting an evaluation for her (she has been showing signs of SID since before she was 12 months....and has been showing signs of possible bi-polar or ASD since around 12 months) Anyway, when we talked to him briefly about what is going on with her, he told us that while he is not qualified in behavioral disorders, he feels that there is no way that she can possibly be austistic because of her verbal skills.

Background.....she started talking at 7 months. Was in sentences between 15-18 months. Will correct you if you are using bad grammer. Can remember whole pieces of movies after hearing them once. Can read a few simple words...possibly more. Being facetious, I asked her the other day if she could read after she had correctly identified four words consistantly. She just laughed at me and said "Of course". She could have been joking and could have been serious for all I can tell. She is starting to spontaneously spell even though she has no real interest in learning what the letters look like (she could recite the ABCs by 18-20 months....just started working with identifying around 3 though because of lack of interest on her part) So I don't honestly know if she can identify them or not.

Math skills....she started counting to 15 before her second birthday. Can now count to 20 but has no interest in learning higher than that. She knew all her shapes and colors before 2 yrs.....even some of the more exotic ones (like identifying chartruese) She can do simple addition and subtraction but quickly gets bored with numbers. Yet, she stumbles over things like her age. Can recite her phone number and knows the numbers in her address but can't tell you how old she is without help.

Her memory skills are amazing but her social skills are extremely lacking. She not only is obsessed with death and what happens when we die (why do we die, where do we go, why do we have to die) but she is also not above threatening to kill us when she doesn't get her own way. And not just saying that she is going to kill you, but goes into accurate descriptions of what she will do, what will happen to you and the fact that death is final.

In short, I am not sure if she is "gifted" but I do know that she operates much higher than her peer group. So much so that she will not make friends with children her own age because "they don't understand her" and can't "follow the rules of play".

Just trying to see where she really belongs.

[Roar]

My suggestion would be that at this point the labels may not be particularly important or accurate, but it is important to get help for you and for your daughter if you are worried.

I can say that talk or worrries about death isn't uncommon among bright four year olds - I've certainly known kids who were at this age though you may be talking about something different. If you are worried I would talk to someone about it.

As far as being verbal meaning she can't be on the autistic spectrum, I disagree. There are certainly highly verbal kids with Asperger's. I wouldn't put a huge amount of stock in what a family doctor says on this topic. If you strongly suspect a significant problem, I think your best bet would be to follow up with a child psychologist (preferably who knows about giftedness) and maybe with a neurologist. You mentioned concerns about SID have you sought an evaluation for that?

You may want to also look at this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091...lance&n=283155

[kalisis]

I agree w/ Roar - Aspergers is on the spectrum (I have a stepson who has it) and a lot of the times, those children are highly verbal.

Trust your gut tho, mama. You know your child best and if you think you need to have someone look into it further, then make those appointments (tell your family doctor you respect him and his opinion, but need a second opinion if he gives you grief about referrals or whatever).

You are your child's best advocate.

[~*SugarMama*~]

Thanks. And yes, our doc is willing to help us secure an evaluation. We are just waiting for another round of testing to be done before embarking on something new. I don't want to "label" her per se but I do want to know what I am facing so I know how best to educate myself to help her out.

[meemee]

http://www.educationaloptions.com/levels_giftedness.htm

see if this site you find helpful.

i agree with other moms that if you feel something amiss - always work on your mommy intuition and dont give up untill you find the answer that satisfies you.

yes some like mine are deeply interested in death. and yes my dd regularly kills me when i do/tell her something she doesnt like (but we both know she is joking as she knows what a gun does and what death means). but only you know where to draw a line as to what is normal and what is concern about how obsessive she is about death.

the reason why i am writing to you is i recall this article i read many moons ago about obsessiveness with death but unfortunately cant remember the details. i think it was something to do with bipolar but i am not for sure certain. but this mom wrote about how down her child was and all these death stuff she was surrounding herself with. with diagnosis and medication the child changed overnight. she also had behaviour problems where the child would get v. aggressive too - anger issues. i am so sorry i cant recall the diagnosis. i am not even sure if it was a mental health issue.

but also be open to the idea of your child being psychic if you believe in such things. for many of them they see more than what we can understand. and in such a case they are just exploring death and figuring things out.

have you posted in the mental health forum and see if mama's can help you out there.

also check with the grandparents and see if they recall anyone in the family like ur child.

[teachma]

SugarMama...I can relate to a lot of what you posted about your dd. I have a verbally precocious son, turning 6 in a couple of weeks, who sounds very similar to your daughter. We subjected him to a complete psycho-educational evaluation which proved to be very expensive and not terribly telling. Our motivation for this was his complete and totally consuming fear of death between the ages of 3-4.5 years. He was on the verge of being completely dysfunctional as a result of this fear, and his general fear of my dying turned into a fear that everything around him was poisonous, which snowballed into several compulsions and a few physical tics. At various points in time, I "diagnosed" him with Asperger's due to his ocd issues, his lack of interest in children his age, and his lack of ability to "enter" a play situation with other children of any age. Before completing the testing process with him, I never let on to the therapist that I suspected an ASD; I wanted to see if she would raise it as a possibility, and she didn't. Ds has gone on to thrive in kindergarten, with the help of his wonderful teacher who set aggressive social goals for him (he didn't need any academic goals, as he long ago exceeded K expectations in that area) and supported him as he worked to attain them. We also put ds into play therapy with a child psychiatrist, and also expensive, this was TOTALLY effective in alleviating much of his anxiety.

My son also has "inconsistent" math abilities and a much better memory for words/sentences/ideas than number facts...can't be bothered to remember the date of his birth for the life of him, but had 50 page books memorized by age 2.5!

Have you heard of Non Verbal Learning Disorder? You may want to google it and see if anything strikes a chord...A significant discrepancy betw. verbal and performance IQs can be an indicator of this. Thought about it as a possibility ds, but he turned up ith scores of V=129 and P=119.

Feel free to pm me...sounds like you are where we were a year or so ago!

[eilonwy]

I've got a niece with Asperger's who is reading easily and comfortably on a third grade level, and who talks a blue streak. She is more comfortable around other people than most children with Asperger's, but she has major social issues and doesn't understand concepts like "personal space" at all. At any rate: she did not speak early, but my understanding is that it's very possible for children with Asperger's to speak early.

[teachma]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

my understanding is that it's very possible for children with Asperger's to speak early.

It is possible, but it is not super-common. I have heard people express the belief that children who have Asperger's often speak early, but I think it's more accurate to say that they don't usually have delayed speech.

[~*SugarMama*~]

Thanks for the replies. I will definitely google the Non-Verbal Learning Disorder tonight and see if that helps at all. She has other issues that are making us ultimately seek a referral for an evaluation which is why we are planning on going through with it. As for the schooling....we are a homeschooling family so I really want to know what I am dealing with so I can tailor something to fit her needs (ie...more structured social times with other children so she can learn slowly to adapt to social situations)

Meemee.....we have reason to believe that quite a few members of our family are slightly gifted in that respect. She claims to have "met" my grandfather who died when I was 8. So does my son. My mom claimed that I "knew" my grandmother at 12 months....when she died two years before I was born. So I am not opposed to the possibility. And if that is what is causing her obsession with death, I can live with that.

teachma...I will definitely take you up on that offer if you don't mind. Its scary when your child becomes fixiated on something along those lines. And even scarier for her brother who she threatens to kill in different fashions about once a week.

[meemee]

brit, i feel v. strongly about the detailed death description. not to scare you or say anything bad but i remember with some diagnosis (gosh i wish i could remember what it was) this obsession with death was a huge key. so definitely mention the death thing during eval.

[~*SugarMama*~]

You are not scaring me. That's what finally really proved to me that we should look into it further. She has a lot of other indicators that something *could* be going on but listening to her threaten to kill family members and then describing in accurate detail how she would go about it, what would happen, then the final result (that they would die and that she would never see them again) was the clincher. It just went from a fascination with death in general to wanting to hurt people.

[meemee]

sugarmama i am so sorry i couldnt finish my last reply when i was writing from work. i had to go. but what i meant to say (and i am soooo kicking myself for not being able to remember) is the huge change the parents saw in their son after they got therapy and i think medication for their son. i researched and researched on the web but i just couldnt find what i was looking for.

[~*SugarMama*~]

Its ok. I post on the run quite often myself. Thanks for coming back and letting me know the end result. I am really hoping that this is just some off-shoot of "normal" behavior but its still eerie when you listen to her. If I can find a way to help her, I am going to.