Expert: Catherine Ridenour - 8/25/2005

Question
My question is what signs and symptoms did your child exhibit.  I am a educator so I have extensive knowledge of child devlopment and have recently begun to suspect that my 6-year-old son may have very mild PDD.  He has normal intelligence and can read and add and subtract though he hasn't started first grade yet, but he has difficulty with simple directions such as "go get a red pair of shorts".  He also has difficulty communicating when asked questions like "did you break the radio?"  He uses a very loud tone of voice but has a severe adversion to loud noises and covers his ears when the vaccuum cleaner gets turned on, when he flushes the toilet, or the bus goes by our house.  Last year he was diagnosed with a mild hearing loss due to fluid build-up in the ears and had tubes put in the ears in May 2004.  I thought maybe that was why he was having problems because he couldn't hear anything but here we are 15 months later and very little has changed.  Are these similar to your child's symptoms?  I hesitate putting him though all kinds of testing if I'm just being paranoid but he does seem to frustrate everyone who comes into contace with him.  

Answer
Hi Judy,

You are wise to heed these signs.  Hearing loss can interfere with speech development and direction following.  But, once resolved you should see progress toward the normal.

I'm guessing you may be looking at Asperger's Syndrome.  Social functioning and sensory issues are the paramount features of this Spectrum Disorder.  You may know that each individual on the Autistic Spectrum has a unique combination of symptoms and variations in intensity.  So, you son may not be "classic" in his presentation but none-the-less be on the spectrum.

My daughter reacted strongly to loud or sudden noises, bright lights, strangers, tight clothing and food textures.  She had advanced speech abilities and read early (and copiously).  She also had had frequent ear infections, but no hearing loss.  Her social functioning was quite impaired though, when very young, she looked quite adept because she would wade in and organize a group of children into a game or pretending of her own imagination.  But, as she got older and encountered children who had their own ideas, she could not participate in the play of others.

Your son may benefit from social learning stories as well as speech and occupational therapy. As an educator, you know about the IEP.  

Getting a diagnosis before he enters school is wise.  He will then have services from the outset instead of floundering in the regular classroom and feeling defeated before he even begins.

Also, many people on the spectrum seem to benefit from a gluten free diet.  Visit any web site that explains the diet for Celiac disease.  This is a fairly easy intervention that may help and will certainly do no harm.

Visit http://www.autismasperger.net for some good information and links to books and other web sites.

As an educator, you will be interested in "theory of mind" which is the idea that people on the spectrum do not have an understanding that others have thoughts or what those thoughts might be.  http://www.autism.org/mind.html has a nice article about this.

Best wishes,
Catherine