Worried about sister

[RottieLover]

My younger sister has always been a little 'different' to most kids, when she was in nursery she would always sit by herself and wouldnt interact with the other kids. As she started primary school the problem escalated and she started being quite nasty to some of the other kids for instance when they said hello to her she would snap "shut up and go away!". During play times she would always be sat by herself whilst the others played, she would never go to parties and would never play outside when kids went to call for her. In the end she ended up getting bullied as the other kids just didnt understand her.

Apart from this she was very 'odd' at home, she would be petrified of strange toilets and would make herself ill rather than go to a toilet other than her own (she still does this at the age of 12), she was once caught sat on my grandmothers bath staring at the toilet in a trance.

She also had an obsession with Barney the Dinosaur and would carry her Barney teddy around with her religeously, right up until the age of 10ish, she would talk to it, whisper to it, sit there laughing at it and generally act strange around it. She also got obsessed with her DreamCast console but never actually played games on it, just put them on and sat watching the screen for hours just 'listening to the music', sometimes she would sit there in hysterics laughing at the screen as if she could see something that we couldnt. She began spreading the games all across the floor and would sit there talking to them and having conversations with them but would get very cross if we showed that we had noticed...

To me, it screamed out "autism" but she was never diagnosed (it was never considered as these problems were never investigated properly)...now she is 12 and we have developed some more problems although the 'oddness' seems to have died down...I will post later about the new problems would like everyone's opinions on the history first.

Thanks.

[RottieLover]

bump

[LaDiDaDi]

Your sister's behaviour doessound very unusual. Why was it never looked at more closely? What do your parents/rest of family make of it?

How is she managing at school both academically and socially? Is the bullying an ongoing issue?

[MrsGerrard]

Hi

Looking at the history of your sister it would seem (and I am by no means a professional) that it could be a possibilty that your sister may have some kind of asd.

It would be really helpful if you posted more about the problems now too.