Has anyone had experience of this?

[julieann]

One of the girls I support with A/S has difficulties getting up the stairs at school. The school is on three levels.Maths , RE and History are on the top floor.In year 7 she learnt to go up and down the stairs unaided. She has come back to school after the summer holidays into year 8 and is asking me to take her up and down the stairs again. Also I have to go to the toilet with her to hold the door closed as if she bolts it she cannot open it again. She can no longer flush the toilet which she was able to do in year 7.

My son has A/S but doesn't have problems with fine motor skills. Has anyone had experience of their child being able to do something for nearly a year and then for no obvious reason no longer being able to do it?

[smiley]

Hi,

 

Not sure if i'm going to be of any help - but here goes!

 

Does she have any fine-motor/co-ordination problems? OT help around?? Fine motor skills are common in children with AS, from what i've been told.

 

The thing that sprung to mind was sensory.......? My son gets overwhelmed easily (in noisy environment....like school) - and he then cannot do some things that he would otherwise find easy - usually fine motor things like the little girl you mentioned. My son also has problems co-ordinating himself if he is overloaded... (he also has difficulties with stairs etc when stressed). My son also hates the loud noise made by the toilets and refuses to flush it. The panic within himself will make it impossible to physically manage the chain IYSWIM. Do her parents say she has the same difficulties at home?? If so, i'd be pushing to get her asessed by an OT. If these problems arn't happening at home - it may be worth looking into stresses within school (teaching granny here, .... but ABCC etc are helpful).

Does she have stairs at home?? It may be a case of getting herself back into the routine if she's not used to it...

 

Hope that makes sense!

[Bagpuss]

Hmmmm, just a thought, could possibly be sensory sensitivities....noise of flush, are the stairs busy with people moving up and down, crowded etc. Also any sign of muscle weakness? Again, something worth considering.....my youngest dd struggles with stairs due to muscle weakness, and sometimes find flushing a loo a problem.

[Kazzen161]

My guess would be that her anxiety has increased again, and she will need help til she acclimatises to school again.

 

Karen

[Flora]

Problems with going up and down stairs could be a visual processing difficulty (ie.. not being able to gauge where each stair begins and ends). I find stairs a bit difficult, also when the floor changes in big shops... ie from carpet to hard floor etc. Maybe it could be a similar problem with this girl?

 

My youngest son has a phobia about toilets. He won't lock the door, won't go by himself and runs away with his hands over his ears when the toilet is flushed.

 

Flora

[julieann]

My guess would be that her anxiety has increased again, and she will need help til she acclimatises to school again.

 

Karen

 

Hi and thank-you to all who replied,

Karen I think your reply was probably nearest.

To all who replied to my post X does have fine motor/ co-ordination problems, floppy muscle, visual processing difficulties, sensory sensitivities. My concerns aren't that X cannot go up and down the school stairs and flush the toilet unaided. I understand why she wouldn't be able to do these tasks.My concerns are that she has been doing these things unaided five days a week for the last 10 months and after a six week break no longer seems able to do them.

[Kathryn]

Hi julieann,

 

Sorry I'm late to this, just wanted to share my experience.

 

At 15 my daughter experienced a quite a dramatic loss of motor skills, along with language skills when she had a breakdown at school and went through a period of severe depression.

 

At its worst, she couldn't dress herself, pick up a spoon and eat, or walk up stairs (she would crawl up). It was as though she had forgotten the sequence of movements required. Although always somewhat dyspraxic, she had been doing all of these things before.

 

She still has coordination difficulties, how much of it is mental and how much physical I don't know. A bit of both I expect. She has hypermobile joints and is often in pain. She never uses a pen to write with any more and has difficulty with fine motor movements - it takes her ages to butter toast, for example. All her clothes are button and zip free so she can dress herself with ease.

 

My daughter's insight into her school stress was that it was like having 20 computer programmes running at once. This explains well to me why there was some shutdown and some skills deteriorated when things got too much. Could it be for some children with AS, motor control is just one more of these of these 'computer programmes', a complex skill that requires deliberate effort, however capable the person seems? Perhaps for the moment, all this child's energy is going into coping with being back at school and managing all the social and academic demands once again - and something has had to give. As others have said, if other stresses ease off, she might be able to do these things again.

 

Just my views and I don't know if my post has helped any, but I hope you find some answers.

 

K x