Getting a diagnosis

It was when Amy was three years old that the alarm bells really started ringing with me that something was amiss with her socially. I had worked with a boy with Aspergers in Vancouver, Canada many years ago and the older Amy got, the more her behaviour seemed to match his.

Generally children under three play in "parallel play" - which means they play alongside each other, but not with each other. So although I'd noted some slightly concerning social behaviours with Amy before the age of three such as a lack of making eye contact and a general disinterest in children and adults around her, I wasn't terribly worried.

Around the age of three it was obvious to me that socially she was struggling. She was starting to show an interest in other children yet seemed to have a very enormous air bubble around her that most children were naturally quite oblivious to.

This caused a lot of problems at Playgroup in which there were around fifty families in a very crowded setting. Toddlers who roamed through her area of play would often get a huge push because they were in her space. The same behaviour occured in any settings where there were other children - playgrounds, playdates - anywhere. With this she seemed unable to pick up other children's body language and would often invade their space or cause havoc in a game that was going on that she didn't understand. This would typically result in the child involved in getting frustrated and Amy would respond to the frustration by hitting, shoving, or kicking. Her speech was delayed and this only added fuel to the fire.

The only way I could make Playgroup work was by "shadowing" her and pre-empting her behaviour. It was suffocating for Amy and exhausting for me. We tried sticker charts to reinforce positive behaviour but it was questionable as to whether that even worked. Basically I ended up leaving quite early most visits from three years of age onwards as soon as any of her "negative" behaviour occurred. She'd been going to the same Playgoup from the age of six months as well as weekly Music sessions and Playdates. This wasn't about a child who wasn't used to being in a group of children.

After several weeks of this behaviour at Playgroup The Head Teacher there agreed with me that I should get Amy checked out. The first step was going to Plunket for an assessment. She was due for one anyway since she was three years old at the time. The Plunket nurse agreed I should explore things further and wrote a letter to our family Dr. The family Dr also agreed there were issues and referred Amy to the Paediatric Department at Nelson Hospital. It took a few months to get an appointment, but at three years and five months Amy was assessed and consequently diagnosed with a mild form ASD. (autism spectrum disorder). This was in August 2008.

The appointment was about an hour and a half long and entailed me answering lots of questions. I knew she was on the high-end of "The Spectrum" (as it is called) for autism - meaning that she didn't have all the characteristics under the autism umbrella and that developmentally she was right on track, if not above average with learning the alphabet, numbers and colours for instance. If her speech hadn't have been delayed she would have been diagnosed with Aspergers.

Amy also went to audiology around the time of her diagnosis being made where her hearing was deemed to be almost perfect. But the test wasn't completed as it was quite an intense half hour for any three year old. She'll be going back sometime soon for another test. There is nothing to worry about with her hearing at this point.

Amy started at Kindy around the same time as getting a diagnosis. She was close to three and a half years old and thanks to her diagnosis and the support of her teachers, she is thriving at Kindy.