New here/SouthDakota

[Guest guest]

I had a friend come to me yesterday with a copy of the GAD test. Oh my Gosh is

all I could say,,,my dh has been after me for about a yr to get our soon to be

12 yr old dd tested for Aspergers. I have no doubts now. I too will not go

through the school as our dd has shown behavior pertaining to aspergers or

something of the sort and they have done zilch to help.

She is in 5th grade in a public school. She was adopted at 18 months and she was

diagnosed with attachment/abandoment issues, I believe it is accurate but at the

same time aspergers has some simularities to attachment issues. As her mom, I

can figure out the difference for the most part.

After listening to my friend talk about the GAD testing and what they ask, I saw

things so much clearer.

Our dd NEVER forgets to say please and thank you,she does it 100% of the time

and also prayers before each meal no matter where she is at,,,,,,,,100% of the

time. 100% of the time she ask for something using the words " may I please " .

She is a collector, but not in the way a hoarder may be. She loves taking cards

and grouping them. When I asked her once to remove the books from there shelves

and stack them on the floor she took them and stacked them by twos and threes up

against the wall where there was empty space. This next thing may sound strange,

but makes sense to me now,,,,when she was potty training and was wearing her new

pretty panties she had it in her head that in order to put on another pair she

must wet the ones she was wearing. At the time, with her diagnoses of attachment

we thought this was a control issue, but given other traits and actions over the

year, it now makes sense to me. Socially she is at a loss,,,,,,and she is not a

hugger,,she tries, but it is not sincere. Her birthdad should be tested for the

same thing as he fits the bill also. When it comes to academic testing she has

always scored extremely high in some areas and in the others they were always

extremely low. Never anywhere in the middle. She was last tested at Sylvan and

they were perplexed with her and said she was very grey. Recently in her

classroom, during indoor recess when all the other kids were busy doing what

they wanted, she chose to get down on the floor and act like a kitten, the

teacher had to repeatdly ask her to get up and when she finally did she got up

like a cat would,,,,,,,the teacher said " when I looked in her eyes she was not

there " ,,,,,,,,,is this normal for a child with aspergers?

When she was in kinderg. one day they had a tornado drill, I knew this was

happening so I ask her about it when she got home. She told me that she sat up

against the wall with two friends and read to them out of a Junie B book

(chapter book),,,,I just smiled and said ok,,,for the next month, everyday after

school, the first thing she said to me in the car was " can I have a junie b

jones book " , finally we put one in her easter basket. That day we were traveling

and she was in the back seat reading and she laughed, I asked her what she was

laughing about and she told me what was funny in the junie b jones book. My dh

and I looked at eachother and then asked her to read a page and she read the

WHOLE page without a mistake,,,we were floored, neither of us had a clue she

could read because she never talked much, never responded much other then yes or

no, but never elaborated. When it came to her having an interest in piano, we

listened to her teach herself,,now after 3 yrs of piano lessons she plays like

she has had 6 yrs.

I know I am all over the place here, or I feel I am,,it is just that we are to

be getting ready for middle school this next fall and when I think about the

range of kids and the number of kids that are in middle school,,,,I freak about

sending my dd there. We have been through middle school already with an older

child, so it is not about sending ones baby into a new world, it is all about

sending ones baby in a world she cannot fit in.

Another thing that was on the GAD was about motor skills? There was a question

about the inablity or something like that in regards to walking correctly. Our

dd use to use her right leg like a 3rd arm and she doesn't walk correctly,,so

hard to explain, flip flops are out of the question.

She does not know " what comes next " ,,has no clue most of the time unless a

certain situation has been drilled in.

In school testing or IEP,,lets just say she doesn't test well esp if it

interfers with her schedule,,,she walks into the office like " who am I and what

am I doing here? "

Will she be a happy person? Have I done alot of damage in not understanding her?

Will she ever bond with me? How is she looking at the world?

Thank you all for reading.