Some of the materials I’ve read have mentioned that ADHD kids may use baby talk or nonsense words, and/or display repetitive behaviors. These behaviors are similar to those displayed by children on the autistic spectrum. What I haven’t been able to find is real-life examples of what this looks like in an ADHD kid.
My undiagnosed 5-y.o. (who I suspect has inattentive-type ADD) displays these behaviors, especially when stressed. A few days ago he threw a veritable stim-fest in the middle of a busy airport. He started out by running in place and slapping his ears, chanting, “poopy, poopy, poopy.” :roll: When I tried to calm him by walking him around, his babbling got louder and even more nonsensical. He kept rapidly shaking his head and running in place. He was so wired that I couldn’t keep him under control.
Do any of your kids do this? And how have you made the distinction between ADHD and autistic spectrum? My son’s doctors feel that he’s too social to fall into the spectrum, but when I see this degree of stimming, I have to wonder.
Re: Stimming and repetitive behaviors?
Thanks! He definitely does have si issues, and gets overstimulated easily. Sometimes I can defuse the situation before things blow up, but apparently not in busy airports. :wink:
I think we’ll have to get a private ot to address the sensory issues. Our school district hasn’t been at all helpful in that area!
Hi
One thing to think about with the schools. You could get an eval done by a private OT and bring it to the school. If you have a private eval they should honor it and provide services. If he is classified the pretty much have to honor it but even if he isn’t classified they may honor it.
You could do it in school and on the outside. The more therapy the better.
Also, when it is done in school the OT should be able to help guide the teacher on things that will help. My son’s teacher and the OT worked together using handwriting without tears for him. It was a very good program.
Outside of that I found sped pretty useless. The good news is that after all our interventions he is out of sped and in a regular class without accomodations. Don’t get me wrong here most of his improvements were related to things done on the outside. The school’s ability to remediate deficits is pretty limited.
If you start young you might be able to avoid sped altogether. That would be optimal in my opinion.
That could be sensory integration. These kids can get over stimulated and a busy airport could definitely do it.
Read, “The Out of Sync Child.”
A good sensory diet can go a long way for these types of kids.
All SI issues are not alike. Kids with different types of si problems can need very different things. The key is learning what he needs.