Asperger's misdiagnosed as ADHD?

[mack]

Well I can definitely see where the symptoms would be confusing.

Like last night, we were watching tv with DD. She was reminded of toes, then she looked at her toes, then she wondered why people have toes, and then mused how funny it would be if people had no toes....
This continued into a 5 minute diatribe of her musing to herself out loud. So I can see how this kind of wandering mind could look like a sign of ADHD.

[cam]

I feel like reading a lot of the posts in this thread are like reading forecasts into my future. LO loves numbers: measuring, clocks and time, timers, 'How many [days/hours/minutes] until [...]?,' reading off all the numbers in all the places, counting everything, etc.

[olivegoose]

I feel like I just want to understand her behavior. I just want to know, is this NT or is this something else? SPD, ADHD, AS, ASD... Just what is with my kid? Sometimes it seems very clearly "something else" and then other times I'm like "Well, maybe it's just her personality..." I don't understand what the different types of language are or a lot of the vocabulary.

Recommend me all the books. (I'm already reading "The Explosive Child")

[mrsbuttinski]

Mar 3, 2015 11:34:57 GMT -5 olivegoose said:

I feel like I just want to understand her behavior. I just want to know, is this NT or is this something else? SPD, ADHD, AS, ASD... Just what is with my kid? Sometimes it seems very clearly "something else" and then other times I'm like "Well, maybe it's just her personality..." I don't understand what the different types of language are or a lot of the vocabulary.

Recommend me all the books. (I'm already reading "The Explosive Child")

I think Coplan's "Making Sense of Autism Spectrum Disorders" is a great first book on ASD.

ASD seldom exits on it's own, so it can be devilishly difficult to understand the antecedent of different behaviors. Kids on spectrum pretty much do what other kids do- the difference breaks down along the lines of intensity, frequency and duration. Then there are the comorbids like ADHD, SPD, anxiety, etc that can complicate ASD behaviors. 

You might not be able to tease this out in the moment.  LOL, DS had a lot of out of seat behaviors we ascribed primarily to ASD. But over time, as he became a stronger reader the really feral stuff just went away.