The Possibility of Autism

Joshua was screened for autism last November when he was 2 yrs, 5 mths. At the time of the screening, we only answered "yes" to one question (his obsessiveness to lining up objects).

Now, at 3 yrs, 4 mths, we are seeing more signs of autism.

We had a speech appointment a couple weeks ago just to get a reassessment and discuss what we can do at home while we wait for another block of actual speech therapy (see my frustrations on that here). Our usual therapist, Sassy, was out of the office so we met with one of her partners. Someone who hadn't seen Joshua since we first started with speech. Halfway through our appointment, she asked if Joshua had had autism screening. Yes, but a year ago. He was still under the usual screening age and still non-verbal. We discussed calling the developmental ped again so re-screen him.

Last week I saw Joshua's family doctor for an unrelated matter and brought up what the speech therapist and I discussed. We talked and she did an informal screening. She too, agrees that we need to make a follow up appointment.

Now to wait to see the developmental pediatrician again...

First Tot School Post in a Long Time!

Joshua turned 3 in June. Because of him being non verbal and no resources available to him, I figured it would be forever before we ever started him with school.

In July he had 5 occasionally used words. But the end of August he blew up with over 200 words, used every day. It's like a light switch flipped and suddenly he won't shut up! He's still approximately a year "behind" in speech so will be continuing with speech therapy as it's available.

In this word explosion, we discovered that he's freaking smart. Like advanced smart. Like possibly gifted smart.

Some of his first clear "words" were identifying (correctly) the letters on the fridge. 

Then he started counting everything. Ok. This isn't simply a tot school start. I need to do an assessment to see what he knows. I got a simple preschool assessment from 1+1+1=1. I knew he probably couldn't do the line tracing and cutting, but I knew he could do some of the letters.

At 3 yrs, 2 mths he can:
- recite the alphabet and identify all 26 capital letters (we haven't tried low case yet) out of order
- count objects to 13 and identify all numbers 0-10 except 8 and 9
- identifies circle, square, heart and star
- identifies blue, yellow, green and red

We are shocked. He was classed as non-verbal 2 months ago. Because of this we never bothered doing any of the beginning learning with him that we did with the other kids (we did "Shoe!" with him instead of "One, two. Two red shoes" that we did with the older kids). Yet he just assessed at a higher level than a lot of Kindergarteners. Um. Crap.

I pulled out my tot school/preschool stuff from Olivia. I pulled out a few items to introduce it to him. He is in love. He sees the bin of laminated printables on the kitchen table and begs for school. He's not really interested in any writing/coloring activities but males are typically slower to pick up that fine motor stuff than females so I'm not worried. The girls think it's awesome that he has school now too.

Anything with cars makes Joshua happy

He loves the Magic School Bus books and videos

He did this farm animal matching game several times this week

More cars! And he gets to count them! Two of his favorite things!

Linking up with 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations.

 

Please Stop Over-Using Programs That You Don't Need

My son, Joshua, will be 3 in June. He is mostly non-verbal. Yet he is now without speech therapy.

"Speech Issues" seem to be the "in" thing for kids to have nowadays. When Isaac and Brianna were little, I knew of, like 2 kids that had speech issues. Since Olivia and Joshua, it seems more kids have speech issues than don't.

Sadly, this is more a matter of little Suzy only says 40 words when she should be saying 50 by x age. Or little Johnny wasn't quoting Shakespeare by 2 1/2. My friends kids were referred to speech simply because they're twins that were born 3 weeks early. They were referred FROM BIRTH. They have no speech issues. Yet they took up space (two spaces actually) in the system, simply because it was assumed that they'd have issues.

Then there's a kid like Joshua. Completely normal birth circumstances. Normal development everywhere but speech. By 12 mths, he had 2 words. By 18 mths he had zero. By 24 mths he had zero. By 2.5 yrs he had 5 words (that were few and far in between).

Joshua had a speech assessment last September. It was seen that he clearly needed help. In October, Lee and I were informed that we would have to take a multi week class (to teach us how to teach him) THEN they would assess Joshua again to see if he needed individual help. The class taught us nothing that we weren't already doing with all of our kids, let alone Joshua.

In January he had another speech assessment. Clearly, he needed individual help. The worker told us that he wasn't in the group that was due to start the following month, but in the group that was due to start in May/June. However, because he would be turning 3 in June and only had 5 noises that counted as words, she would try to push him into the Feb/March group. Thankfully she succeeded.

Between the end of Feb and the beginning of April, Joshua had 7 weekly speech therapy appointments. He loved them. Sassy, his therapist was very patient with him and we got lots of new sounds out of him. We even got 2 new words! He was clearly thriving.

April 7th was our last session. We have no services until at least August when they will book an appointment for another assessment. Since we know he'll need more therapy the assessment seems like a waste of time. After the assessment, we'll be lucky to re-start therapy in October.

Our speech therapist told us that the delay was completely due to the amount of kids in their system.

Don't get me wrong! Joshua is not the only kid with speech issues. Plenty of kids DO have real speech issues. But well more than half of the kids in my town's speech system are like little Suzy above (only 40 words when she "should" have 50).

Weekly Wrap Up - April 29th

So I decided to go back to my usual "story mode" of my weekly wrap up. Some weeks we don't cover all subjects and then I get anxious that I missed something. I know our eclectic homeschooling works for us and the kids learn all they need to, so stressing myself out about unnecessary stuff seems counter-productive.

Saturday was the Great Cloth Diaper Change. Joshua took part (probably his last year unless I can squeeze him into a cloth trainer next year) with his twin friends.

Joshua in Magic School Bus

Brianna has been reading a lot with Olivia. Olivia really likes it (cause I guess if it's not reading with mommy, it's not "school" lol). Joshua loves all things books so he's joining them often too. Olivia has also been enjoying learning to spell words with ASL. I figured she's learning both the sign language alphabet AND general spelling. BONUS!

The girls have been helping my niece, Tanya, build a lean-to. Brianna spent Sunday helping another homeschooling family trim trees and doing general yard work.

Joshua decided he wants some preschool. He has started his own cutting practice whether anyone wants to do school with him or not.

On Thursday, the girls took part in Cornwall's City Clean Up Week.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom

Totally Flipping Brianna's Math

Brianna has several issues that are just part of her life. She has Sensory Processing Disorder, Central Auditory Processing Disorder and probable Dysgraphia. Such is life. We deal with it. Now, however, we are looking at the probability of Dyscalculia.

Brianna is a smart child. Regardless of her alphabet soup of letters between her diagnosed disorders and her probable ones, she still excels in many areas of life. Except math. Math has always been her sore spot. In a sea of straight As in everything else, the highest grade she's ever gotten in math is a C, but most often it's a D or (currently) an F.

While she seemingly has no issues with grades 1 through 4, grade 5 hit her like a lead balloon. It took her 3 tries to make it through Gr. 5 math. She is now on her 2nd try through Gr. 6 math. And yet, she's doing Gr. 8-10 in most other subjects.

Going into the high school years and the fact that she needs at least Gr. 11 math for the college course she wants to take, we obviously need to figure something out.

What we're going to do first is have her do almost all of the chapter tests (thankfully no test anxiety here) from grade 2 to 5. That will hopefully pin point the specific areas she's struggling with.

From there, we're going to spend extra time with Khan Academy, drills and randomized math questions in problem areas. Hopefully we will go back with Math Mammoth in a few months as both she and I enjoy it. We are also looking into Life of Fred and MobyMax.

Year-Round Homeschooling

Otherwise known as "OMG! You make your kids do school in the summer!?"

We school year-round. That is, we don't "do" summer break. Sure we may take a few days to a week off here any there, but for the most part we school all summer.

We homeschooled through the summer even when Brianna was still in public school. Summer learning loss is very real and the results of it can be seen every September in public schools (or Aug for my American counterparts). The last year Brianna was in public school she complained daily about the amount of stuff they "taught" in school that she already knew. I brushed it off at first because we had actually moved into the following grade in some of the work we had done over the summer so I figured she had just already learned it. But then, she filled me in. They were doing stuff like counting to 100. She was in Gr. 3. She had learned to count to 100 in Kindergarten/Gr. 1. They were "learning" to add single digit numbers. They were reading through Gr. 1/2 readers. This wasn't simply review, this was over a month of dragging them back a few grades!

This is because of summer learning loss. A lot of parents leave the schooling to the teachers and don't have their kids so much as crack a book for up to 3 mths. This is not to say that they're bad parents! It's just society's norm. And the schools then have to do a month (or more) of review going up to a few years back to make up for it.

Well, I've always been known as a mean mom! So since that first summer between Kindergarten to Gr. 1, I did homeschooling with the kids. Because it was all they ever knew, they didn't complain. Sure there were certain topics that they didn't want to do, but there was never "why do I have to do school when everyone else doesn't".

Once we started homeschooling, I knew we'd be year-rounders. We do a lot more during the summer now than we did when Brianna was in public school, but still on a much lighter schedule than the rest of the year. We also do a lot more interest based stuff that I just sneak English and math into and Brianna thinks it's all great fun.

Brianna doesn't do well with very long breaks any time in the year. We school a lot more than the average homeschooling family simply because Brianna is very routine set. If we take too long of breaks or too often of breaks she tends to get her entire routine upset. So we generally do only 3-4 full weeks off per year and 6-8 long weekends (4-5 days including the weekend) per year. Otherwise, it's just a day here and there and with reason (like a race day or a set field trip).

This year, Brianna will be continuing through her math curriculum though as it's her 2nd round through it after a mix of troubles with the work itself and also not putting any effort into what she could do. But otherwise, we'll be working on our country studies, gardening, doing some household projects and other non-school "like" stuff.

She has a science camp this year that is a week long. She is to the moon and back excited about that. She does "Park Leaders" Tues-Fri mornings and swims most afternoons with friends. I DO want her to enjoy her summers, especially since most of her friends are public schoolers who have the summer off. So I work around her programs/activities as much as possible. We do most of our week's schooling on Monday when there's no Park Leaders. We do a bit when she comes home for lunch. We do some after swimming (or if it rains and swimming is cancelled). We do some after the neighbourhood kids (and herself) are called home for the night. She does complain some days, but for the most part is really quite ok with it.

It may not work for everyone. Hell, I know many homeschoolers who drag their feet through May and sometimes June to just drop everything for the summer. But it's what works for us.

A Visitor

Today I got an expected visit from the Children's Aid Society (CPS, DHS, and so on). I knew the visit was coming. A certain troll follows my blog, and has for some time (my blog stats are quite telling of who searches for me *wink*). After I posted this post about Brianna's SPD/Aspergers meltdown, I knew this troll would call CAS, as they have many times before.

The worker showed up as we were dancing around the house to Let It Snow! lol very abusive house here *sarcasm* As I never have anything to hide, I invited her in and turned the music down (only a little bit though lol).

She said that she was here as she had gotten a report that I was trying to push syndromes and disorders on Brianna and restraining her. After she spoke with Brianna alone, we went on to the porch to chat. I told her straight out about the blog post above and how I knew I had a troll and was expecting the worker's visit. I offered to let her read the blog post that I knew her visit came from but she declined.

I told her that Brianna *presents as* having Sensory Processing Disorder and Asperger's but has no official diagnoses and probably never will as I don't feel it's something that she needs a doctors help for. I also told her that unless it came to a time that Brianna needed medication or other therapies that she would never be given a "label". Brianna shows many symptoms of SPD and Apserger's (and yes, I do say, when talking to others, that she has SPD and Asperger's) but I don't feel that she needs to feel any different about herself so it's not something that I've sat down and told her "you have SPD or Asperger's". We've talked about her sensory issues. But I don't label it to her as Sensory Processing Disorder. I explained to the worker that I research various coping methods for SPD and Aspergers to assist with Brianna various issues, but as I've always been a parent to try new stuff, so it doesn't even phase Brianna. The worker applauded me for not labelling my daughter and for not trying to con a diagnoses out of a doctor if I didn't feel it was needed. (Side note: I know that a lot of people NEED labels and that's perfectly ok, I just don't feel at this time that they are needed for Brianna)

When asked about restraining Brianna, I told her exactly what happened with Brianna's meltdowns and what I do (just like my blog post above). As I'm telling her about Brianna flailing and thrashing herself about, the worker herself, interjected that Brianna needed to be stopped from hurting herself or others. She told me that Brianna has no complaints and apparently even commented on how I help her calm down when she's upset. The worker said that it was a good thing that I went into such detail in my blog as others may read it looking for suggestions with their own children and by going into such detail, they would learn how to restrain in a protective, correct and helpful as opposed to an abusive manner.

The worker had some off the record questions about homeschooling as when she walked into the house of course the first thing she sees is Brianna's school work on the table and our posters and maps all over the wall. She seemed quite impressed with Brianna's progress.

All in all, it was a good visit and the worker told me straight out that she has no concerns and would be closing the file immediately. While this troll was trying to "get me in trouble", all they succeeded in doing was making me look good to CAS, so thanks troll!

The Day After a SPD/Aspergers Meltdown

As is usual, Brianna's day today is a complete 180 from yesterday. I don't know if her meltdowns are cause buy a build up of *everything* and the meltdown releases it all and lets her be human again, but 99% of the time, the day after a meltdown is heavenly!

Brianna woke up this morning wide eyed and bushy tailed and full of high spirits. She snuggled Olivia on the couch for some morning cartoons, did her math work with no complaints, was all full of love-you-mommys. When she left to go to my sister's for French, she remembered on her own that she had forgotten her French book and ran back home to get it.

While I absolutely hate the meltdowns, the next day is so pleasant that it almost makes up for the cruddy day before. It's so nice to have happy Brianna back again. Hopefully since it was over a year since the last one, that maybe it will just never happen again! *fingers crossed*

SPD/Aspergers Meltdown

Today Brianna had a meltdown. It started as something insignificant (even to her if she were to think about it tomorrow) and snowballed. Brianna doesn't handle being upset well and it usually quickly gets much worse and she sometimes can't settle on her own. Between having a total freak out in which she thrashes her own body around (risking hurting herself) and often throws/smashes items (risking hurting others' belongings) and needing a lot of pressure to feel comfortable and able to relax due to her SPD, I have often relied on full body restraint in these times. This involves me sitting on her hips (the strongest part of her body so my weight doesn't hurt her) and holding her legs with mine and her arms with mine to apply the most pressure. This both gives her the pressure she needs to be more aware of herself but still restraining her to prevent her from hurting herself or others' property.

Thankfully as she ages, these meltdowns happen less and less often. In fact, before tonight, the last one was over a year ago. She also settles a lot faster than she used to. Within 1 minute of applying a full body restraint she visibly calmed down and was able to hear me coaching her in relaxation techniques (slow deep breathing and so on).

I'll admit I'm a yeller. I yell too much. But thankfully, I'm also aware that in a meltdown I NEED to keep a calm, almost soft voice. Yes, I will raise the volume a bit so she can (hopefully) hear me over her own screaming, but I make sure to keep it calm. When she first started these major meltdowns around 6 years old, I just yelled and screamed back at her. One day I actually sent myself into an anxiety attack because I was so over frustrated with her and why nothing would work to calm her down. Since then I've learned that the meltdowns are most often out of her control and yelling just makes them worse as now, not only does she feel out of control, but there's no one there to help her get back into control.

Tonight was short lived, thankfully. The meltdown itself only lasted about 30 minutes and calming techniques only took about 15. They have taken as long as 6 hours. Brianna crawled into bed afterwards and took a short nap and felt and looked a million times better when she came down for supper. If it runs as it normally does, tomorrow will be a perfectly happy day where there is little memory of tonight's meltdown. I don't know if it's ignoring what happened or she really doesn't remember much of the meltdown, but at least it's not dragged on for days.

52 Books in 52 Weeks - 15

I'm taking part in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge (I'm a few weeks behind in my reviews!)

Week 15 was Overcoming ADHD by Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.

My favorite part of this book is the excerpt - Helping your child become engaged and focused - WITHOUT A PILL.

I am not a pill hater, some kids need pills. However, I believe in trying everything you can before going the pill route. This book gives oodles of different activities and ideas to help your child without meds. It offered a lot of different ways to view a child's day and WHY they may act the way they do.

One thing I noticed about this book was that the author placed a lot of ADHD problems into a sensory issue. To me that translates that ADHD is the same thing as SPD or because of SPD. Slightly confusing.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to a family who doesn't see a possible diagnoses of SPD because there's a lot of focus on sensory issues in this book. But, for a family, like mine, who sees ADHD *and* SPD as issues it's a good mixing of the 2 problems and way to cope with them without medication.

52 Books in 52 Weeks - 17

I'm taking part in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge.

Week 17's book was Raising a Sensory Smart Child by Lindsey Biel. From the book: the definitive handbook for helping your child with sensory integration issues.

This would be an *excellent* book for a parent of a toddler/preschooler with SPD. Very little in the book applied to older children. A disappointment for me. 


However, it IS a great book. It's very in depth with activities and tools for dealing with SPD. It has a great reference section for parents with websites and toll free numbers for therapeutic stores and programs where you can order numerous items to help with SPD therapy.

Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week… Money sucks. With Lee laid off and all the bills coming in at once, money just plain sucks. But we'll get through, we always do!
 
In our homeschool this week… We had a shorter week with Brianna's father coming into town, but still got to get a lot of work done and Brianna got to show off her work to him.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… with it being Easter, we saw LOADS of family on both sides.

My favorite thing this week was… seeing Brianna (who is SPD/ADHD and only 8) behave a heck of a lot better than the several years older children we were with in church for my nephew's communion service.

What’s working/not working for us… Spell By Color. Or at least it seems to be working! We just started it last week, but Brianna's enjoying it!

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have… How far ahead do you collect HS material? I've been picking up pre-school stuff for my not even 2 yr old and DH looks at me like I'm nuts. Same with Brianna, she's roughly 3rd/4th grade level and I have stuff for a few grades ahead.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Our color changing celery that Brianna's all excited about

 Come check out other Journals at The Homeschool Chick!

52 Books in 52 Weeks - 14

Not sure if I skipped a number or not, but I'm on the current week on the link up and it says it's week 14

I'm taking part in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge

This week's book is Kids in the Syndrome Mix of ADHD, LD, Asperger's, Tourette's, Bipolar and More! by Martin L. Kutscher

THIS is the kind of book I was looking for! It describes symptom, medications, therapies, and more for several disorders that are commonly diagnosed in the odd children. It's written in layman's terms, but not dumbed down.

As we look into SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) with Brianna, I've been doing a lot of reading research. In this book it's called Sensory Integration Dysfunction, same thing. This book also opened my mind to Brianna also being ADHD.

The book also included a Behavioural Checklist, a Quiz on Executive Function and a Further Reading section (where I found my next several 52 Books!)

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking into the "Syndrome Mix" for any of their children!

Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week... My life revolved around being sick this week. Totally sucked. I had lots of household plans (cleaning, organizing, ect...) that didn't get done cause I couldn't pry my butt of the chair. Feeling much better today though so hopefully this next week will be more productive!

In our homeschool this week... We`re in the process of figuring out what can work for us in regards to school stuff, schedule, breaks, ect...

Places we're going and people we're seeing... Since I was sick, we pretty well stayed home this week other than running errands on payday.

My favorite thing this week was... Hearing Brianna ask for another school movie. She seems to really like them.

What's working/not working for us... The school movies are really working. When I brought back the old ones and picked up some new ones from the library Brianna was really excited about them. I wish I could get more than 3 at a time from the library though!

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have... Looking into Brianna having Sensory Processing Disorder is opening my eyes to a lot. I`m seeing some answers for why Brianna does the things she does, what new things we can try, what things I would have never thought of.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...
Just because you have the right to do something, doesn`t mean it`s right to do.

The Symptoms

This is a list of symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder that Brianna displays. I'm posting it here to make sure it doesn't get lost and maybe as something to look back on later. We're working on some paperwork for her health coverage and then will be getting in to see a counselor to see what they think.


Sensory Processing Disorder

Hyposensitivity To Touch (Under-Responsive):
__ may crave touch, needs to touch everything and everyone
__ may be self-abusive; pinching, biting, or banging his own head (nail/scab picking) ***in brackets here is my own addition***
__ mouths objects excessively

Poor Tactile Perception And Discrimination:
__ may be a messy dresser; looks disheveled, does not notice pants are twisted, shirt is half un tucked, shoes are untied, one pant leg is up and one is down, etc.
__ continues to mouth objects to explore them even after age two
__ has difficulty figuring out physical characteristics of objects; shape, size, texture, temperature, weight, etc.
__ may not be able to identify objects by feel, uses vision to help; such as, reaching into backpack or desk to retrieve an item

Hyposensitivity To Movement (Under-Responsive):
__ in constant motion, can't seem to sit still
__ could spin for hours and never appear to be dizzy
__ always jumping on furniture, trampolines, spinning in a swivel chair, or getting into upside down positions
__ always running, jumping, hopping etc. instead of walking
__ rocks body, shakes leg, or head while sitting
__ likes sudden or quick movements, such as, going over a big bump in the car or on a bike

Poor Muscle Tone And/Or Coordination:
__ frequently slumps, lies down, and/or leans head on hand or arm while working at his/her desk
__ has poor body awareness; bumps into things, knocks things over, trips, and/or appears clumsy

Signs Of Proprioceptive Dysfunction:
__ seeks out jumping, bumping, and crashing activities
__ kicks his/her feet on floor or chair while sitting at desk/table
__ loves/seeks out "squishing" activities
__ enjoys bear hugs
__ excessive banging on/with toys and objects
__ loves "roughhousing" and tackling/wrestling games
__ frequently falls on floor intentionally
__ would jump on a trampoline for hours on end
__ loves pushing/pulling/dragging objects

Difficulty With "Grading Of Movement":
__ difficulty regulating pressure when writing/drawing; may be too light to see or so hard the tip of writing utensil breaks
__ written work is messy and he/she often rips the paper when erasing
__ always seems to be breaking objects and toys

Hyposensitivity To Sounds (Under-Registers):
__ often does not respond to verbal cues or to name being called
__ appears to "make noise for noise's sake"
__ loves excessively loud music or TV
__ seems to have difficulty understanding or remembering what was said
__ appears oblivious to certain sounds
__ appears confused about where a sound is coming from
__ talks self through a task, often out loud
__ needs directions repeated often, or will say, "What?" frequently

Hyposensitivity To Visual Input (Under-Responsive Or Difficulty With Tracking, Discrimination, Or Perception):
__ often loses his/her place while reading or doing math problems
__ has difficulty locating items among other items; i.e., papers on a desk, clothes in a drawer, items on a grocery shelf, or toys in a bin/toy box
__ often loses place when copying from a book or the chalkboard
__ difficulty finding differences in pictures, words, symbols, or objects
__ difficulty with consistent spacing and size of letters during writing and/or lining up numbers in math problems
__ fatigues easily with schoolwork

Auditory-Language Processing Dysfunction:
__ unable to locate the source of a sound
__ difficulty discriminating between sounds/words; i.e., "dare" and "dear"
__ difficulty filtering out other sounds while trying to pay attention to one person talking
__ difficulty attending to, understanding, and remembering what is said or read; often asks for directions to be repeated and may only be able to understand or follow two sequential directions at a time
__ looks at others to/for reassurance before answering
__ difficulty putting ideas into words (written or verbal)
__ often talks out of turn or "off topic"

Social, Emotional, Play, And Self-Regulation Dysfunction:
Emotional:
__ gets easily frustrated
__ often impulsive
Play:
__ wanders aimlessly without purposeful play or exploration
__ needs adult guidance to play, difficulty playing independently

The Problems

This is cross posted from one of my homeschool boards. This is the short list of some of the issues we have with Brianna. There is more stuff and sometimes we have less stuff. This is just an in general list. The next post is about what we're going to be looking into.

I called my sister the other night about Brianna because she has a special needs child. My nephew has ADHD, Tourettes and ODD (along with several other not as prominent issues). After reading many posts on my boards, I wanted to ask her about Aspergers because I was starting to see Brianna in a lot of the posts.

One of the reasons we pulled Brianna out of PS was behavioural issues. She picked up and copied all the worst behaviours from her classmates. They just seem magnified now.

She has "listening problems". She knows the rules in the house. We are very consistent parents who don't change things all the time so the rules and expectations have been the same all her life. Yet she doesn't listen. You can tell her she can't do X and 5 minutes later you find her doing it as if she had permission to do so.

She has some very weird habits like picking/tearing her toenails. Yesterday she was sitting on the couch reading and suddenly came to me saying her toenail came off. Now her pinkie toenails are very oddly shaped and fragile so it doesn't surprise me how easy they come off, but this (tearing off the entire pinkie nail) has happened several times.

No kind of reinforcement works for her. Negative, positive, rewards systems, ect.... Reward systems seem to work a little bit but no matter how much she loves them (cause she does, she gets excited anytime one is introduced) they only work for a few days to a couple weeks.

The other day I let her pick out some toys that she could earn with good behaviour. Real toys too not just dollar store junk. She picked out stuff she was really excited to play with. The next day I reminded her of our "deal" of good behaviour/toy. At least 20 times that day she was reminded of this yet the bad behaviour stayed.

She has a food issue. She is boarderline overweight, something we've struggled with for a few years. She was worse around 5 yrs old but thankfully has become more proportionate. However, she steals and hides food. In plain view she eats more than I do, sometimes as much as DH who is a labourer for a living (read eats a LOT). Then she steals more. Usually junk food (which is "normally" restricted, it's a treat - not all the time, but not never), but also healthy food. She'll wake in the middle of the night, take food from the kitchen and hide it in her bed. She'll over eat to the point of an upset stomach.

She has extremes when it comes to empathy. Either she seems to not care at ALL about other people's feelings or care WAY too much. Example, Olivia fell and cut her cheek on a bolt on my treadmill, the baby cried for maybe 30 seconds. Brianna cried for 3 HOURS. And it wasn't a guilt thing either cause Brianna had nothing to do with it, she was on the other end of the room. Even after we came back from the drs and told her all Olivia needed was a special bandaid (one of those butterfly ones to hold the edges together) and was perfectly fine (at this point Olivia was laughing and playing) yet Brianna was still freaking out.

When she's asked why she does X, her tone of voice, her body language, her facial expressions all say she truely has NO IDEA why. It's almost like that old imaginary friend thing, ya know "I didn't do it, Boo did" (while she does have an imaginary friend she has not actually blamed "Naya" for anything, it was just an example.

She has immature social issues. She is 8 1/2 and seems far more interested in stuff (tv shows, toys, ect...) for preschoolers than anything her peers may think is "cool". While I am a great believer in nothing is too babyish for her to like, it seems odd that she really doesn't seem to care about anything that is meant for her age level.

She loves crafty stuff. Could do it for hours. But won't in any shape way or form take care of her craft supplies. If she steps on a box of crayons her demeanor is like "oh well" but then later gets upset when she doesn't have the crayons. At one point I told her I wouldn't buy anymore supplies since she didn't take care of them, she'd have to buy them with her own money. She went out and spent her own money and took care of them the exact same way. I told her at another point that I'd buy her more craft stuff or new different types of craft stuff if she could show me she could take care of them (and at this point all I cared was that they weren't on the floor), still, took care of them the same way as before, didn't.

She discovered nail salons. Her friend got her nails done with airbrushing pictures. Brianna fell in love. We made a deal that if she'd even just TRY to stop biting her nails I'd take her to get them done. She's never made it through even one day without biting them even though she constantly says she will and can we get her nails done next week.

So after all this, my sister says it sounds like it may be ODD (oppositional defiance disorder). I've gotten several people telling me Sensory Processing Disorder. After researching them, it sounds more like SPD. My next post is more of a keep track for me post of the list of symptoms Brianna DOES show.