Does anyone have a child that rocks and uses unusual hand movements accompanied by strange facial expressions when their child is excited? My daughter Allie is 8 1/2 and has always done this but never when she has been evauluated by the 80 million people that have evauluated her. She definately has Sensory Integration Dysfuncion, maybe ADD and learning disabilities but should I continue to be conserned about these strange movements? Her SI OT thought they were very strange and had never seen movements like these before. Her prior play therapist thought them strange enough to send her to 2 neurologists but even though I described these movements it has been written off. If any one could be of any help I would be so o o o o happy!!!!!! Continually worried, Lori.
Re: Unusual Movements
I don’t want to believe it but it surely seems autistic. How did you get your child diagnosed? Wouldn’t a neurologist (my daughter saw 2) or a developemental nerologist plus all the other people who have evaluated pick up on it. She doesn’t do it all the time. She tries so hard not to do it. Please help. If it is autism, is there more I should be doing for her? Thank you for your help. Lori
Re: Unusual Movements
Yes, you would think that these individuals would pick up on it. My child had several diagnosis before he was given his current one. The problem is so many things overlap it is hard to sort out what is going on. My son received his diagnosis by a pediatric developmental specialist through the University of Minn. The neurologisists who first saw him dx’d him with Static Encephalopathy (unchanging brain damage), a very genaric term. My sons regular pediatrician did not like this generic classification and sent us to the pediatric developmental specialist I referred to. The best approach for dx though is a team approach. The team should address speech/language, social, ect. As a team they come together to reach a dx. The developmental peds who saw my son took all the reports from the various specialist my son saw and intergrated them together to come up with the dx. In other words he took the speech/langauge eval, developmental eval, ot and Pt evals plus the checklists to come up with an answer. I also completed the E2 by Bernard Rimland which is available for free. I dont remember what site it was at since this was several years ago. I would recommend you get an evaluation that uses this team approach. Hope this helps.
Re: Unusual Movements
Lisa, I took the Autism treatment Evaluation Checklist (Atec) over the web and my daughter scored a 33. Do you have any idea what that means??? The web site also talked about autistic like behaviors not necessarily being autism. Any idea what this means? I really appreciate all your help, thankyou. Lori
Re: Unusual Movements
I thought the same thing when you mentioned the rocking and hand flapping. My son falls on the spectrum, but he is very high functioning and now at 9 1/2 people wouldn’t think so. I think I’d also look at her history as a child, as that is where the diagnosis comes from. It must have onset before the age of 3. Whether she fits the criteria or not, if you find the info on autism helpful, then why not use it and benefit? You can get the criteria here: http://www.tcams.org/abstracts/autism299.htm
Re: Unusual Movements
Lori,
I thought about autistic spectrum right away too.That sounds the most suspect. But do you know if something like Fragile X syndrome has been ruled out? Sometimes it can be a little bit subtle, especially in girls, but sensory integration issues are huge and there’s a general joint laxity involved. I knew one kid with Fragile X whose hands flapped oddly when she was excited which was often. It sometimes looks like a mild autism. It’s been said that each person with it has their own unique profile and that there are girls whose dysfunction is mild enough to mistakenly call it an autistic spectrum disorder.
Re: Unusual Movements
Mike
Fragile X is in my family and I have worried about the Asperger traits
she has being related to this. She is waiting for testing in adhd and
asperger. But she has a gifted IQ. I have looked everywhere for
information on could you have FX and high IQ. Where could I
find this information out??? Thanks
Re: Unusual Movements
Kelly, I’ve recently read about Fragile X in “The Source for Syndromes”. They say that although boys are usually affected worse with varying degrees of retardation, girls can be normal cognitively. It didn’t mention high IQ anywhere but did say that receptive language and receptive vocabulary could be a really strong area. It goes on to say that it’s believed that people with Fragile X learn the “Gestalt”, taking in chunks of information at a time.
I think there’s a book on the market now that’s written entirely about Fragile X.
Lori, my son who falls on the autism spectrum makes odd facial expressions, rocks, hums, spins, or flaps hands when overly excited or overly frustrated. It is his way of communicatting to us he is being over stimulated. He also has sensory intergration issues along with a poor attention span. Have you checked into this to see if this fits what you are seeing?