social skills question!
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| Fri, 05-13-2005 - 1:54pm |
Hi,
Brief background - my son Robbie is almost 5, and is in a special needs public preschool. Recently dxed PDD-NOS. His teacher disagrees with the dx, claiming that they see all kinds of kids like him who have a language delay that naturally delays their social interaction skills. Once he catches up on the language he'll be fine.
He's very interested in other kids, always has been, but doesn't seem to quite understand how to interact with them well. He does well with adults, though, and is charming and polite, so I think that fools his teachers in part. His pragmatic skills are immature.
Anyway, I was talking with his teacher today. We had kindergarten orientation this morning, and the K teacher told her how blown away they were with his reading skills (he's academically very bright, which frankly isn't helping my case much either). I mentioned that on the other hand, today is the first day that Robbie took it upon himself to say hi to his friends instead of telling me they were there and me having to prompt him to say hi.
Teacher went on about how he's using his cognitive strengths to learn social skills, and that once his language is up to speed, by 1st or 2nd grade, he'll be fine. She told me that PDD kids are not interested in other kids, so they "aren't putting a lot of stock" in the PDD dx.
I agree that in a couple of years, he might be just as socially mature as his peers (or at least seem that way), but only if he gets extra help in that area at school (and in a private social skills group, which I'm not telling the school about yet). When we go for the IEP meeting, I know that's going to be the sticking point - whether he needs social goals.
Can anyone give me something concrete about whether a child with PDD can be interested in other kids, but just not have the social skills to relate? I'm not good at confrontation, and this teacher has been doing this for many years so she's quite sure of herself.
I'm going to go re-read all my spectrum books!
Thanks in advance!
Maribeth

I do agree with the teacher. Same thing happened with my oldest son.
At Robbie's age, my oldest son's teachers were also blown away by his academic skills, yet his speech and social skills were way behind. By 1st grade his social and speech skills were good. He blossomed a LOT in kindergarten and is now very social as a 2nd grader. (He also is still way ahead academically.) His social skills are not the greatest, but he's very outgoing now and loves to be around other people. That's a big change from a couple of years ago! He used to be very shy and clingy and he didn't say much to others or try to play with other kids.
Since he was my first child and I was just learning about child development and parenting, and since it was obvious he was very intelligent, I didn't seek much help for my oldest son in the preschool years, except for speech therapy. But now I can see that he would have probably gotten a PDD diagnosis. I do think he's in the autism spectrum like his younger brother who does have the PDD diagnosis. He does have a lot of autism characteristics. I remember people mentioning that he might be autistic when he was a preschooler, but I never had him evaluated for it.
Well, the problem with these borderline kids is that they get more and more left behind the OLDER they get without help in social interactions! They can get by when they are younger, but as the maturity and complexity of the other children continues to grow, they cannot keep up and get more and more confused and left out and without friends and skills. These skills don't get picked up be proximity and observation by spectrum kids.
PDD kids can indeed be VERY interested in other kids. The teacher is wrong. It is the inability to really hold a conversation and participate in the interests of others, the real inability to read non-verbal language and basically to be guessing about human interaction, where spectrum kids reside, not in interest level! This teacher is not a specialist. I would most certainly fight for social assistance and teaching with the big guns, not wait until your child is alone and ostracized, or at best pitied and marginally included.
You might want to include your own specialist's opinion in IEP meeting. A PDD-NOS dx isn't given without careful observation, and the teacher isn't a qualified evaluatior. It seems to me that you have the dx, now go for the services appropriate to your child's needs and dx. If he REALLY doesn't need them, great, pull them later. Big gamble, but the school district shouldn't try to save money based on this teacher's opinion. I would err on the side of helping him and put up a good hard fight.
yours,
Sara
ilovemalcolm
I agree with Sarah. PDD kids can be very interested in other children. So can asperger's and autistic children. The complete disregard of others is a misnomer. They don't understand social skills and have a hard time reading others. Often or sometimes this frustration will develop to the point where they become more aloof as they get older. They want and feel just like every other person, they just don't know how.
2 examples similar to your situation.
1. My dd Cait, was not interested in peers much at all, but was quite polite with adults. The doctors told me that she was PDD-NOS BUT that as soon as her language caught up her social skills would too and she would be undiagnosed. More likely CAPD or similar. Her teacher seeing her with other kids and being around tons of preschoolers of varying levels (integrated preschool class with a variety of needs) was the one to say, Nope this kid is definitely PDD. BTW, Cait's language skills caught up but her social skills didn't. She has been rediagnosed as Aspergers.
2. Mike was incredibly interested in other kids as a youngster. He had no language delay but had loads of behavioral, social, obsessive-compulsive and sensory issues. He could meet a kid in 5 minutes at any park and start to play with them. Only Mike's behavior kept him from keeping or making any meaningful friendships. This ability and desire to meet other kids convinced my DH and I that he was NOT on the spectrum. We were able to use it to convince doctors and insisted his problem was sensory only in nature.
By the time Mike was ending Kindie and going on he became more and more withdrawn. BTW he was diagnosed with AS at 7. This is very common with AS kids actually. THey desire freinds and do ok for a while, but as they get older and more becomes expected socially then they begin to withdraw from thier failures.
Mike is 9 now and often is alone and doesn't have friends. When he is in a really good place he will initiate like this again and can play with younger children very nicely at parks. But he is unable to keep any friends and unable to play nicely usually at the park with kids his own age. Usually something happens.
He even told me a couple weeks ago that he likes to play alone better because he doesn't have to try to figure out or follow other kids rules for playing.
Renee
Thank you everyone!
I'm very confident that Robbie will be able to learn how to interact with other kids - I just think he needs to be taught.
It's so good to know that I'm not crazy. :) At least the teacher has been honest with me about her point of view. I know what information I need to bring to the meeting next month and what I'm up against. I'll have reports from the evaluations done at Children's, and with any luck, the school psychologist will understand where we're coming from better than the teacher.
Also, we found out that there's an open spot in a private social skills group, so we're trying that out tomorrow!
Again, thank you!!!
Maribeth
Hi Maribeth,
I'm new to the board and was reading other posts and came upon yours. For some reason it got my attention.
My 5 yr old has also been diagnosed with PDD/Asperger's. His neurologist says he is EXTREMELY bright but does show some signs of the disorder. He is in a Intervention Program Pre-school and will be entering mainstream kindergarten this Fall while also attending the Learning Disabled class in the afternoon (I hate that term). He is academically ready but they feel he is not socially ready.
" today is the first day that Robbie took it upon himself to say hi to his friends instead of telling me they were there and me having to prompt him to say hi" I have the same problem with Nicolas. I have to point out his friends are there and to say hi.
He too loves other kids and likes playing with them but I think sometimes he just doesn't know how to go about it.
Does your son have any other symptoms aside from social disorders?
You also mentioned a private social skills group....how did you find one of those? I think Nicolas was benefit tremendously from one of those.
Nancy