Question:
My daughter has always seemed a bit different, so to speak. We had to put her baby swing on the highest setting for her to enjoy it. She slept that way for months. I thought it was due to reflux, but looking back, she may have just NEEDED the stimulation. As soon as she learned to crawl, she would crawl in circles. Then walked in large circles when she learned how to walk, and eventually would spin around and around in a tight spin for what seemed like forever, and could walk away in a straight line when she had enough. She can still do that.
I suppose, although her quirks could be irritating and worried me at times, I must have padded her world pretty well. Well enough to keep her from totally losing it. However, now that she is in Kindergarten, the teacher seems to think she is just a poorly behaved child who has been loosely disciplined.
Annaliese gets up from her desk often, sometimes retreating to underneath her desk or a table, she talks to herself or others, or makes noises nonstop. Sometimes she will literally have had enough of that woman and the overwhelming classroom setting that she will plug her ears and hum or put her hands over her eyes trying to block everything out. I get the feeling she is fidgety and can’t sit still because she is hyperfocused on finding something to relieve her tension.
I have done so much research on this subject. I found a checklist (for every type of sensory processing disorder) and she blows many of them out of the water. In an odd way, this is a relief. I was sure it was ADHD, which scared me to death knowing the meds she’d probably end up needing just to be on a level playing field with her peers. [I have read every positive parenting/discipline book you can imagine and have tried every technique-and none have helped. I figured she'd for sure be an extreme case since no behavioral changes seemed to help.] I am happy to find out that SPD is a real possibilty, and that she will need occupational therapy to help steer her in the right direction.
My problem is trying to get a diagnosis – or get this ruled out. I know I need to get her in front of an OT or a neurologist to get a solid answer. A school psychologist observed her in the classroom for about an hour and a half, and said that aside from her crawling under the desk and making noises most of the day, and spinning, and bouncing, and slamming things on her desk, and not sitting still, and her ‘high energy’, she just seemed a little immature. WHAT? My problem with that is that if this was simply a maturity issue, I would have seen improvement over the past 2 1/2 years in these behaviors.
I could go on and on.. but I will close now and see if anyone else has some input. Thank you in advance. Any advice or insight I might get will be invaluable!
By the way, this is an extremely intelligent little girl. She is way above and beyond her peers on that level, but her quirks and negative ‘behaviors’ outshine her intellectual brilliance. The teacher believes she will have to be held back if I decide to keep her in K this year. She feels my daughter is too ‘socially immature’ and will not improve enough to go on to 1st grade with the rest of her class. A little premature of an observation, don’t you think?
