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I think I have suddenly realised what is going on with dd2 - OCD and more besides!

6 replies

FancyAnOlive · 23/07/2014 17:49

Hi all. My dd1 (6) has dx of autism and tic disorder and is currently being assessed for ADHD which I will be astounded if she does not have. So I have been getting my head round all of this and sorting out her statement (posted on here when we go the draft and got loads of great advice, got 20 + 5 hours in the end for her without tribunal).

Meanwhile I have always had nagging doubts about dd2 (4), very different kettle of fish to dd1 but not necessarily in ways that would mean she was not on the spectrum iyswim. Main concerns with her have been sensory sensitivities (noise, light and touch), reluctance to engage with peers or unknown adults, actually even known adults, anxious, odd speech - loud monotone, eye contact not great plus very routiney and ritual-y.

She started at nursery last September and wouldn't speak to the adults at first but then settled and did so and seemed to be playing a bit with one or two other kids. Wouldn't eat there at first but then did this too. Always a bit anxious and controlling though. I have had loads of run ins with her trying to get out of the house when she wants to finish doing something, or getting her to go to bed, come to dinner etc. I thought this was either ASD routine/rigidity stuff or pushing boundaries. Our house is pretty chaotic half the time as dd1 is a crazy hurricane of a child with plenty of challenging behaviour.

But this last half term she has stopped speaking to teachers again and has developed what I think are fairly clearly OCD behaviours - she is hand washing over and over many times a day, refusing to eat meals if she thinks they are 'dirty', questioning me over and over about what if blood/chalk/a plant/paint/dye etc etc go in her mouth. She disappears upstairs to have a shower if she has a tiny bit of mud on her knee. She has started telling me she feels sick and her tummy hurts every day before nursery and has started telling me that she worries a lot. So I finally steeled myself and read up on OCD a bit and have realised that loads of the things she does that I thought might have been ASD routines are probably OCD rituals. She has massive meltdowns if stopped from 'tidying' her room or completing something. So a bit of a lightbulb moment there but I don't know why I didn't realise it before.

Then I read a bit more about anxiety disorders and I got to social anxiety/phobia and selective mutism and there she is. That's my dd2. Oh my god. I am such an idiot. Poor little girl. She has selective mutism, of course she does. I have got so used to replying for her I have stopped noticing but she doesn't talk to people outside the home unless she knows them really well and it's 1:1. I started thinking more about the way she talks - there is something very effortful about it, very laboured and she has to work really hard to get to the end of a sentence by which time everyone else has stopped listening - and I think she has a motor speech disorder too which is apparently v common in selective mutism too.

So if only I had bothered to get my head out of the sand earlier I could have realised what was going on with her. I think she probably has OCD, social anxiety/phobia, selective mutism and a speech motor disorder. Jesus. I have been so caught up with dd1 I haven't looked at dd2 properly. And if I am honest it is partly because it is so bloody painful finding all this stuff out about your child, and I was so hoping dd2 would be NT, and OK. But that's my issue of course and I have to get my head down and sort things out for her. I went to the gp this morning and requested a referral for CAMHS (who i have not been impressed with so far but maybe this will be a better experience; different child with different needs and all that).

Sorry this is so long. I feel so sad for her, and they are both so difficult to deal with and I feel fairly desperate that it is the beginning of the effing holidays and I am on my own with them for 6 weeks (single parent). I don't know what I'm posting this for exactly but I need to get it out somewhere and I know there are people here who will understand.

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FancyAnOlive · 23/07/2014 20:04

Can I just add that I haven't totally ruled out ASD as well/instead of all the above! Just that I feel it has all clicked into place a bit and I am slightly reeling.

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NoHaudinMaWheest · 23/07/2014 20:30

Hi I just want to say that the combination of ASD and OCD is really quite common and indeed I believe SM although I don't have experience of that.

My ds is now 17. He began having clear OCD rituals (handwashing/contamination) at 8 but had a lot of routine and rituals long before that. Probably since he was old enough too acutally. The one sort of morphed into the other.

Don't beat yourself up about not noticing /realising. I didn't realise that ds had ASD until we went to CAMHS about the OCD and it was picked up.

It is hard when you realise there are problems especially with a second child. Again I buried my head in the sand about dd's dyslexia for ages and eventually school picked it up.

Flowers for you. It is hard.

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FancyAnOlive · 23/07/2014 21:15

Thanks for the flowers - much appreciated here. Yes - I do still think she could be a girl with Aspergers-ish ASD of the type hard to diagnose - alongside the OCD.

She has a couple of tics now too. She and dd2 have been sitting in front of the tv tic-ing away together - grunt, yelp, chirp, screech.

I didn't realise how much overlap there is between anxiety disorders and ASDs, actually.

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PolterGoose · 23/07/2014 21:49

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PolterGoose · 23/07/2014 21:51

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FancyAnOlive · 23/07/2014 22:56

Yes I think of dd1 as having anxiety at the core of her being, really, too. I think I actually have that book, PolterGoose, but have never read it. I will have a look at it now.

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