Aspies For Freedom

well we have been having a problem with our 6year old son. we cant figure out whats wrong. last year the doctor said he has adhd but none of the pills work to calm him down. i talked to one of my coworkers and she told me i should look into having him tested for aspies. so i have been looking at some of these threads and looks at some things online about it. and to me it seems like he might have aspies instead of adhd. i don't really know what to look for to see if he does have it. hes one that like to be alone allot. he can never look you in the eye or he just zones out everything but what hes doing and when we try to talk to him its like he don't hear us.its really kinda hard to describe on here but the doctors got him on concerta 27 mg. a day which by the way does not calm him down at all kinda like hes taking a vitamin pill or something it don't phase him at all.  i myself think thats pretty high for his age but i don't know. i don't think he really has adhd but rather has apsie. if anyone can give me some suggestions on this i would appreciate it allot.

we are both really confused at this whole thing. and if we could just figure out whats really wrong with him would ease our minds allot.

It's possible he has some Aspie traits, just going by what you've said, but I'm not a professional and I couldn't say one way or the other from just what you've mentioned here.

I do hope you manage to find the answers you seek.

If it is ADHD it is hypoactive/inattentive by the sound of it, sometimes ADD meds don't work that well for hypoactive ADD. 27mg isn't a massive dose, and the dosage does not depend on age or weight it is different for each individual.

I was diagnosed with ADD, but that was only because they didn't really know what was going on with me (not helped by the fact that I don't like to say much to therapists), and the characteristics of the condition never fit me. When I heard about Asperger's, that was a much closer fit and described me nearly perfectly, though I've never gotten professionally diagnosed with it. Like with your son, ADD meds didn't do anything for me at all... They just made me all jittery and anorexic (when I got finally got off them I was significantly underweight and was collapsing and stuff).

I think he sounds more Aspie than AD/HD to me.

I have some form of ADD but it would have to be inattentive type.  I have tried various stimulants to see how they affect me, and they all affect me in idiosyncratic ways contrary to what most people with AD/HD report having happen.. for instance with caffeine it's a great motivator and a decent alertness aid for me, but it variably makes me calm or intensely jittery, sometimes both effects happen at different intervals within the same session.

In short I neither get the paradoxical calming effect from stimulants reliably, nor do I just get extra-jitters, I get both effects.  It seems I have an unusually high sensitivity to stimulants which is very odd and largely unheard of (from comparing myself to other ADD folks and just people in general)...  this is one reason why I suspect I have some other neurological difference that can't be "just explained" by ADD.

Apparently Aspies are more sensitive to low-doses of certain drugs.  This would definitely seem to be the case with me, and not just with stimulants.

What about "joint attention"?
Children from a certain age, normally, if they are interested in something, would show it to their parent(s) by pointing towards it and by having a look to see if the parent(s) are looking there, too.

If he doesn't do that at all, my first guess would be he's on the spectrum. You could look for CHAT something like CHecklist Autism in Toddlers.

Re: Pointing, a "Normal" child starts pointing at 12 months, if they don't do it by 18 months it is considered noteworthy on the CHAT.

Typically (as with walking, which I started just before it became a real cause for concern), I started pointing at precisely 18 months. Although as several photos show, not well - there are two where on the first I stare into a drain fully absorbed and my godmother is pointing up to the window where my Mum or Dad were waving, then on the next I finally realised there was something going on and am pointing to the window whereas my godmother is now staring at the drain

CHAT: (This is for the child at 18 months, not 6 years by the way!)

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=128&a=2226

Developmental Milestones that might be worth thinking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_devel...ent_stages

thank you i definitely have some things to think about. im really thinking about asking the doctor when he goes next time if this is a possibility cause every time he gets his meds. upped to a higher dose it works for maybe one week then hes right back to his old self again. at one point last year when he was in kindergarten the principle tried to kick him out of school because of all the episodes he was having. hes just so hard cause when we try to talk to him about what hes doing wrong and try to corect it he just gets mad and ignores us. and it really gets hard with a house that has 5 children. at first we thought it was just so he could get attention. he first started out by dragging his head accross the floor and climbing up the door ways. his doctor didnt really want to test him being only 6years old. but we made her cause we really needed some kind of answer.



thank you for your opions i amd going to really think about all the answers and ask the doctor if she thinks it could be a possibility.

IT is possible that your son has both AS and ADHD. By the sounds of it, I think that he could very well have both. So the doctor could have gotten half of it right but I would definately make another appointment