Asd thing or just a personality trait?

kcisthebombdotcom

So you know how flat affect tends to be a characteristic associated with autism? My child lands at the polar opposite of the spectrum and her face is expressive all.the.time. Even watching a tv show she tends to show concern when characters are sad, smiles big at the end when everything is ok, etc. She still reacts when her brother cries though that may be due to wanting to always be the center of attention. Anyone else's kiddo like this?

Keeptruckin

I kind of wonder about this too. My daughter is going through assessments now. In the beginning we kind of wrote off the idea of autism as she is super animated and overly dramatic. To the point we joke she will be an actress. Now I am wondering if she is copying expressions and over doing it. The more I learn the more I realize I don't really know anything about autism. I think especially with girls, it just may look different. Glad to know there is someone on this board with a girl. Can I ask when she was diagnosed? We had step one of our assessment done and were told point blank DD shows extremely atypical behaviour. We just need to find out what's causing it.

thetwinkies&Vivi

Sort of related, DD1 (ASD/SPD) has been pretty flat this whole time. Her psychologist noted this extremely over done sad face recently and asked which show she had picked it up from. Last week, I caught her standing around just practicing it. It's the only big expression, aside from some smirks/smiles we have so far. It cracks me up how over done it is,reminds of a clown's face paint in fact.

kcisthebombdotcom

Dd was dx right before her third birthday though I suspected starting around 15 months when I noticed that while her language hadn't regressed, it hadn't progressed either. I'm kind of lucky in a sense dd is language delayed unlike many girls on spectrum which helped her development be tracked starting at a very young age. After meeting lots of kids on spectrum through DDs school/support groups/social skills groups it's pretty insane how differently girls present vs boys. I really hadn't thought the animated personality could potentially be a female asd characteristic vs a male one.

Micelle78

I see what you are saying because my son is very animated.  When he is happy (most of the time) his face is a smile ear to ear and a dimple.  When he is sad it is also very dramatic.  This is why everyone tells me he does not have an ASD (although he got a "at risk" from the school district at 2 we have not tested him officially yet and he just turned 4). 

What I find interesting is that he was late to notice other's reactions and act sympathetic/empathetic.  He is speech delayed but when his sister is crying he will say "Is sister sad?" "Is sister crying?" but he is not instinctually comforting her. 

However, when she is asleep he may lay beside her and smile or when she is awake he is always trying to get her to play games with him and give her a hug or a kiss on the head unprompted.  I know he loves her and he shows it but I don't know how much of this is due to the language delay or to his personality or to the suspected ASD. 

Yesterday he was trying to get her to chase him around the room.  He took her hand to try to lead her at first.  She is only 17 months but seems so advanced verbally and physically and totally different than he was at the same age.  They play together really well.

I should also add that he has experimented with more purposeful faces --even some recently-- to try to con me into feeling sorry for him so he can have just one more cookie or something.  Now that his language is getting more advanced, he can be more than just cute and actually use his inflection of speech to get what he wants.  Its pretty cool since I can see higher level thinking here. His favorite thing to say right now with a pitiful look is "Just one more cookie, mom, just one more" all while tipping his head and opening his eyes super big and leaning on me on the couch.  His receptive language is still really really bad.  It makes things hard. Its not like I can explain why he can't have the cookie more than a basic "there's no more cookies".  Still waiting for the day that I can have a real conversation that is close to age appropriate.