New here; 8-year-old AS DD

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking for about a week and have already learned so much from reading

past posts!

My daughter is 8 and received a diagnosis of AS about 3 months ago. In some

ways getting the diagnosis was a relief, because it explains all the many ways

(large and small) that she has been different from other kids, since pretty much

the moment she was born! Things like screaming bloody murder as a baby if the

sun got in her eyes, preferring to be swaddled till she was 8 or 9 months old,

eating only stage-1 baby food till she was 16 months old -- now I know those are

all sensory issues. She has always had very poor muscle tone and is very clumsy

and started PT at the age of 1 (now I know that those things are associated with

AS, too). She also has an amazing vocabulary. She's a really smart girl (she

just qualified for the gifted program), but her social skills deficits are

getting more and more obvious as she gets older. She has a lot of trouble

working with other kids and she gets very upset about any changes in routine at

home or suggestions that she do things in a different way.

Everything I've read about AS mentions the obsessive interests that people with

AS have, but my daughter doesn't really have that. She does ALWAYS have her

nose in a book, though. She also tends to go on and on and on about whatever it

is that she's thinking about.

I was interested to see some past posts from moms of other girls with AS, about

their daughters' interests in animals. My daughter could absolutely care less

about animals, except for our cat! It's sort of weird how uninterested she is

in nature. But she loves science and math. She counts things wherever she

goes; every morning she tells me exactly what time she woke up; and she's really

bugged by the fact that the clock in my room is two minutes ahead of the clock

in her room!

Luckily we have a really supportive school. It's a small Montessori elementary

school. My DD got an IEP when she entered in first grade, for speech, and then

in second grade her teacher recommended adding OT to help her atrocious

handwriting. So she gets OT 3 times a week there, 30 minutes at a time. The

Special Ed teacher who coordinates the IEPs doesn't seem very familiar with the

needs of autistic/AS kids but is trying to find out from the district what else

they can offer.

My big question at this point is whether public schools typically (or ever)

offer social skills training. I would love for my DD to get that. She is going

to go to a social skills camp over the summer, so I'm hopeful that that will

help, but it doesn't seem like a 3-week period in the summer would necessarily

have much lasting effect. I'd love to hear about your experiences with IEPs and

social skills.

I could go on and on, but I guess I should stop now! I do have about a zillion

other questions and I'm looking forward to hearing your perspectives.

Thanks for reading all this!

Deb