loblob

Sorry, I lost this thread for a few days! Glad things are moving!! Great

Oh, and pecil grippers are great and if you havent got any some chioldren prefer a blob of blue tack w3raped around the pencil where the fingers go (less embarassing too).

I'm sorry, due to ADHD I've not read all the answers so if I'm writing something you've heard sorry! My handwriting as a child was terrible. scrawley, smudgy, different sized letters, some reversed, above and under the lines, capitals haphazerdly placed, illogical spellings and weird word order. I found writing very hard work and my improvement has been a slow and steady process. Becoming teaching assistant has really helped and I easily break down all the processes in my head now and can really concentrate. I believe my problems were due to concentration issues trouble with left and right and also a dificulty absorbing writing rules and spellings. As a teaching assistant, here are some tricks I have learned/developed for helping myself and children. Space Monsters! These are my favourite! I encourage the children to design their own little space monster the same size as a letter o with well sharpened coloured pencils. We copy a short sentence and put a little space monster between each word. Then we turn the space monster invisible and have a go at copying the sentence invisible space monsters. It can help to make a laminated book mark copy of the space monster to act as a reminder when they are doing other writings. Vacume cleaner (can't remember how to spell vaccume today!!!) I put a tiny dot at the motom of the page and say that it is a tiny buit super powerfull vacume cleaner pulling the letters down. The lines stop the letters getting down but the thin decenders 'tails'(qypgj)manage to get past the line. Make sure his pencil doesn't have to be held too tight to make a mark, concentrating on letter form can loosen the grip and similarly pushing too hard can make it hard to manipulate the pencil. You could have some fun writing pens at home so that he may experience some joy writing. Make sure they don't smudge easily. Make sure he knows how to sit well to writer and that his teacher knows to keep checking and remind him. Chair tucked in and back upright, page fixed with spare hand. If he is a fidgeter, the are wedge shaped rubber cushions thast can help some children called wobble cushions. Don't make too much of an issue of it as concentrating too much actually made my writing worse! For my own boy, who with speach and writing forgets that other people have to work out what you have said/written and that they do not know what he is thinking I used to help him write lists. The lists also helped him cope with a day out but were ultimately for his writing. If we were going out, I would ask him to make a list of things he wanted to do while out and things he wanted to buy. Sometimes he wasn't in the mood for this and I never forced him. Sometimes he would do it pictorally but found that somethings were actually easier to write. Any way, once out, because his memory is not so good, he would forget what he had written and have to read his list but couldn't allways do it as he has not taken care to make his letters clearly defined. I am sure this has helped him to see where his own writing can be improved for next time. Ok now I have to go and put a nit comb through my son's hair before he escapes from the bath!!

Hi there, my son has dx adhd, also displays ASD traits, Tourette type issues paranoia, defiance disorder traits and hypermobility syndrome(not diagnosed bu I am diagnosed and he is worse than me) I have been told that they are all(apart from the hypermobility) just part of the ADHD. So many paernt I talk to with ADHD kids have ASD tendancies and other ADHD related things. I think there must be a root cause for ADHD/ADD ASD Dyslexia dyspraxia dyscalcula Tourettes communication dificulties emotion regulating ocd odd sensory processing dificulties anxiety hypermobility and I'm sure I've forgotten some as I'm having a block... Oh yes, some memory problems! It fustrates me that as many people/kids have different combinations of these sort of issues yet we all get different diagnoses depending on who we see. I think the powers that be need to group all these things into one category relating to the cause not the symptoms but give people, aditional to their diagnoses a break down of how they are affected. I know that my son has literal interpretations of things and sensory issues but his diagnoses doesn't say that. It says ADHD and the world doesn't know how similar ADHD and ASD is so it doesn't help him with this to simply say that this is due to ADHD. I think DAMP is an attempt to group a set of 'symptoms' into one diagnosis but we would have to create lots of these groups to give each child one diagnosis. I hate the term damp too!! Makes it sound like the child is a wet blanket! Multiple diagnosis are very worrying and leaves us feeling 'what next?' Usually all the behaviour traits and dificulties are all diferent presentations of the same thing with the same nuerological root cause.

Hi there. As a teaching assistant, what I get from this is that your girl Is learning and remembering some key words, there seems to be evidence that she may be looking to wall displays for inspiration when stuck(hindi)or that may be coincedence. It is common if a child is struggling with phonetics (decoding the sounds in words) for them to relly on learned words and look around to get clues from things off the wall. She has had a jolly good go which shows intelligence. I think she may have trouble hearing what sounds are in a word, or remembering what letters represent those sounds, and possibly with letter/word order(just sequencing) and left/right issues. These are things that can make learning towrite an extra chalenge for her but she can learn eventually if given good teaching. I think she needs a good phonics programme to follow, and practice sequencing things (putting pictures of events in order). I would show this to your peadiatrician. He may say dyslexia or suggest assessing for it but I just think these issues are usually part of the ASD or ADHD. I was diagnosed as dyslexic but now I am being assessed for ADHD. My writing is so much better as we all continue to learn as we get older and have never had the issue forced. It just all clicked into place eventually. I'm late for work and will revivit this thread laterr!!! xx

I appologise If I have missed any points as I have ADHD and have only really skim read all the replies since mine and got a bit lost to be honest but I do want to add my thoughts. If my comments are out of context, sorry, this hapens to me a lot. My concern is thart I work in a school, and I don't know why but in our ks1 we seem to have a good handfull of children with ASD/ADHD issues. Only 2 of them are presently being assessed. The rest of them are just doing their best to fit in. My concern is that when they get cross, they are percieved as naughtly and staff roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders. When they are not doing the right thing because they wern't aware of what they are suposed to be doing, they get a warning when they only need an explanation. If they get silly or restless they are also warned instead of making the situation calmer and less distracting. I see missed oportunities for these children to show off the things that they are good at and 'promote their strengths' to themselves and their peers. It seems that the child and their parents are blamed rather than simply recognising that they think diferently and helping them to adjust. I can't remember the organisation that did the advert!!! But Perhaps this is what they were thinking about. Demonstrating that there are other reasons for misbehaviour and that they do help. My son percieves that CAMHS helps him. But what he doesn't realise is what goes on behind scene for helping his teachers and myself better understand how to make life easier for him. Ownership of his own 'issues/differences' helps him deal with it as one of his dificulties is blaming everything on everyone else and as much as the people around him can try to reduce these situations he is the one who will be moving out into the worl who will not be trained to help him. He is learning srtategies and concepts to help him self. I think I could see how this advert focuses on missbehaviour and the concept that it can be corrected easier than it can but the aim of the advert was to suggest that the child was not coping and what the organisation did helped. It was not an autism awareness advert and it is not their fault that people have a poor veiw of autism. You can't do that without pointing out the negatives.

rock chick

Hi Super Suzie, I didn't mind it, nor did I think anyone would object. I was pleased to see it aired frequently and was particularly pleased that it highlighted to some people that may not know, that some childrens behaviour that could be perceived as troubled or even 'naughty' could be due to autism. Many people have a narrow veiw of both what autism is and the reasons for negative behaviour in children. I was just interested to know why it upset people.

Thanks for the welcome Kathryn and NickyB. Kookoo, I love the goldfish avatar! I usually use a Dory picture as she reflects my lack of short term memory. Thanks for the heads up on the book, I'll look out for it. I'll go shopping online when I've finished up here. Your boy does sound like mine. Mine can start retelling a story in town and continue to tell the same story all of the 3/4 of an hours walk back home (on a 'hyper' day). I often wonder if he is talking because he is hyper (most likely ADHD) or is he hyper because he is facinated by the subject matter(which would be more ASD). You said bad 'hand day' I have those too due to hypermobile joints, or do you just have dfays that your hands are naughty!LOL!

Hullo folks, I'd like to be part of this forum out of couriosity due to my son and mine's ASD tendancies. My son, aged 11 has an ADHD diagnosis and though I know ADHD can result in some ASD characteristics I think these two conditions are far more closely linked than generally understood. He can be very blunt, bossy and appear inconsiderate at times. He obsesses over certain things and talks like he is the expert on everything. Language is one of his strong points but not necessarily comunication. He can take things quite literally but I am only really noticing this now as I believe his verbal abilities have compensated for this and he often asks the meaning of things and remembers them. This is also so for social issues. I have taught him how to deal with certain situations and he takes note but if the scenario differs he can have troiuble adapting what he has learned He doesn't like rough play in the playground and can get cross and hit out if someone won't leave him alone and we have struggles with his apearance as he can't stand having his hair cut or brushed and all his clothes 'feel wrong'. At the moment CAMHS say this is all just the ADHD. His ADHD is mental rather than physical, and his biggest issues with ADHD is impatience, impulsive noise making and trouble controlling emotions. He can also be paranoid and get very depressed. He's great fun and loves anything to do with fish, trains, cars and war hammer. I am waiting for my appointment to be assessed for ADHD/ADD but have always felt socially awkward and have little obsessions and quirks and am generally a bit nerdy. I think I just want to get the feel for the forum and the topics to see if we 'fit' here! I have a friends whose son, we have allways suspected has aspergers and is currently being assessed for it and I have previously worked with children with ASD, in fact I have a 5 year old at the moment being assessed. I look forward to chatting with you guys.