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jdsm514
member
Concerned and confused (long)
jdsm514
member
Hi ladies,
I wanted to introduce myself in the hope that you can give me some input on my daughter's behaviors. I'm really not sure if hers is within the range of typical toddler behavior or if she has some sort of disorder.
Here is a little background. My daughter is 29 months old. She was a very "intense" infant, crying a good amount of the day for the first several months. She was very verbal at an early age. She had several words at 10 months old, over a hundred of words by 15 months old and was talking in short sentences at 18 months old. Now she has 6 word sentences and uses phrases like "how about we read this book?" She understands directions and follows them well (some of the time). She seems to be typically developing in terms of gross and fine motor skills. We have no problems with her sleep or eating patterns. She LOVES to cuddle and have books read to her. She loves to talk about the world around her, asking us questions like "what does that say?" or "i see a helicopter." She is very affectionate toward us and the whole family. She still does mostly parallel play with her peers. I'm a SAHM but she recently started a preschool program 2 mornings a week. She seems to have adjusted fine to that setting after a few weeks of crying. She doesn't mind going there now and then loves to answer questions about her day.
So here are our issues:
1. Pica: She eats hair. When she sees hair on the floor, she picks it up and eats it. She will do it even when she's fully engaged in a fun activity like coloring. If she notices a hair on the floor, she will stop and eat it and then go back to playing. She seems to like the texture or feel of it in her mouth. I've seen her hold it between her fingers and then kind of stretch it across her tongue. It may have started as a way to get attention, but now she does it even in the another room when she doesn't know we're watching. It seems to calm her down, and we notice she tends to do it more when she's frustrated or anxious. We find hairs in her diaper all the time. She never pulls out her own hair, but I have seen her pull out the hair of one particular doll. We confiscated that doll and she hasn't done it with another doll yet. This seems to have gotten much worse about 4 months ago when I gave birth to her baby sister, but we did see her do it previously. We even give her a lollipop sometimes to try to satisfy her oral fixation, and I've seen her take out the lollipop, eat a hair and then put the lollipop back in. I'm concerned about her developing a bezoar.
2. Cries when baby cries: She cries and screams whenever a young baby cries. We first found out about this when we used to drop her off at the Y childcare room while we worked out. They told us she cried whenever their babies cried. I thought after living with a newborn for the past 4 months, she would desensitize herself to the sound, but it hasn't gotten any better. Whenever her sister cries, (albeit it is a loud shrieking cry sometimes), DD1 will scream and cry. At home, I have been able to keep it under control by separating them when possible, keeping the baby happy as much as possible and distracting DD1. In the car, life can get hellish. If the baby starts whining or even whimpering lightly, DD1 will start screaming bloody murder and kicking the seat. She has hyperventilated to the point where she looks like she is having trouble breathing; it's a true panic attack for her. I tried facing her forward now that she's near the height limit of her seat anyway, but that didn't help. I've tried giving her toys and stuff to distract her in the car, but she seems to get anxiety just walking up to the car these days. I'm a SAHM, but cannot stay stuck in the house all day either. It's important for my PPA to get out everyday, but I absolutely dread car rides.
3. Loud noises: She seems to be bothered by loud or strange noises. When the neighbor's lawn mower goes on, she sometimes has a look of panic on her face and wants me to identify the sound. At preschool, they said she cried one time when they put music on, but hasn't done it since. My parents said she cried once when their phone rang and startled her. She tends to need to be picked up when we vacuum the house. She even tells us, "The noise scares me," which breaks my heart.
4. Frustration tolerance: She seems to have very little tolerance to frustration. Small things can easily and frequently cause a meltdown. Some examples are a sticker won't stick to the paper, the toy ran out of battery power, the marker ran out of ink, the sock won't go on her foot, her backpack falls off her, etc. She will usually start whining and that usually progresses to crying and screaming, and sometimes stomping. When we step in and help her with the task, she will usually calm down but then 5 minutes later, something else will set her off in the same way. It's tiring spending all day like that, especially when you have a newborn in the house! Not every day is bad, but she definitely has several days a week where she just seems so irascible and irritable, and it just seems like we are all waiting to see what will set her off next.
5. Demanding: She seems to sometimes get anxious when one of us is not holding her or playing with her or giving her attention. Sometimes if DH is reading her a book, and I want to talk to him, she starts whining and demanding that he keep reading. Even if he finishes the book and then wants to do something else, she demands that he reads another book. If he doesn't oblige, she starts breathing heavy and crying. It's impossible to give her all the attention she craves all day. I'm a SAHM and I have a 4 month old in the house. At 2.5 years old, I expect her to play with toys independently some of the time so I can cook, eat, clean, and tend to the other baby. We've spent hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on toys in her playroom, but she seems bored of them.
We did have EI give her an evaluation a few weeks ago, and she scored above average in all the areas they evaluate. They told us to rule out nutritional deficiency as a possible cause for the pica (which we did). They also told us that they think her crying when the baby cries is more an empathy reaction than a sensory issue. However, they did say they will send over an OT 2x a month to work on other sensory issues (lawnmower, etc.) and the frustration tolerance. I know they are not qualified to diagnose a global issue, so we are scheduled to see a developmental pedi in December.
So based on my novel here, what do you think? Do you think there's a global issue at play, or is she just a "high needs" terrible two with a quirky habit that will pass? Thank you for reading all this, and I appreciate any input you may have.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Concerned and confused (long)
Both of my DDs were early talkers, and their language skills developed at similar times to your DD's (words by 10 months, lots of words by 12-15 months, sentences by 16-18 months). But there were differences that I see now that might have clued me in on DD1's atypicality sooner. DD1 had pronoun confusion that seemed to last longer than it should have. She also had quite a bit of functional echolalia, and she was so adept at using her borrowed phrases that they pretty much always made sense in context. Also, her articulation was excellent--she would often ask me to repeat words so she could correct her own pronunciation. Some of the examples of things your DD says, reminded me of DD1. I remember sitting at breakfast when she was 14 months old and her turning to me and saying, "I see a doggy." "I see a ____" was one she used all the time. Also, the "how about we read this book?" sounds like something she could have heard you or DH say, and now she's appropriated it. Just something to look out for.
In contrast, DD2 had no pronoun confusion. When she started talking in sentences, she was using "I" and "you" correctly all the time. She had little to no echolalia, and by two she was saying things like, "mommy, my lips are chapped. I need some chapstick."
I had DD1 evaluated through the school system, and she didn't qualify for any services, so that's great that your DD will be seeing an OT. Have you talked to your pedi about the pica? How long has it been going on?
@-auntie- I truly appreciate your insightful and thorough response. I am so grateful to get the input of so many intelligent mamas!
Yes, I did address the pica with her pedi. It's a group practice. One of the docs there sorta laughed at the pica and said "Just sweep your floors," while another doc suggested EI.
Your son's interest in reading is similar to my daughter's. My DD1 starts probably 90% of her mornings being read to by DH. It usually lasts for at least 40 minutes, after which she will be interested in playing.
I will look into adding Zn or Mg to her diet and also look into the chewelry suggestion. The EI team suggested we offer lollipops or foods with strong flavors to help with the oral fixation. We have been giving her a slice of lemon or a lollipop and she seems to like to mouth that, but as I said previously, I have seen her take that out of her mouth to eat hair. I will be adding Epsom salts to her bath tomorrow- that's another good idea! I love the idea of noise-cancelling headphones for the immediate future. Until we set up a regular schedule with an OT to establish long-term plans, do you have any advice in terms of simple CBT we could start doing with her to get her calmer in the car?
DD1 does know how to play for the most part. She seems to play with toys in the appropriate way. She loves to color and draw, although she usually demands that we sit next to her and do it simultaneously. She likes to play imaginatively with her toy phone or toy kitchen. She loves her wooden puzzles. She has one puzzle of the United States, and she used to love for us to narrate where each state was. Now she doesn't ask us to narrate that anymore, but we have noticed she can verbally identify a good number of states when we point to them. She does LOVE books and my iphone apps.
She doesn't seem to have any intense special interests or obsessions, but she does seem to memorize some stuff and then enjoy regurgitating them back to us, such as a favorite song or even pages from a book. But she'll only do that if we start singing the song or we start reading the book. It's not a random or non-stop thing for her.
@mrszee2b Thanks for sharing your experiences. The way you describe your DD's functional echolalia sounds familiar.
DD1 does have some functional echolalia and some pronoun reversal. We were concerned about it and mentioned it to the EI team. They assured us that some echolalia & pronoun reversal was normal and that her expressive language skills were advanced. So we convinced ourselves that all was well, but I will definitely be bringing up this point with the dev pedi in December.
She definitely has a good amount of speech that is spontaneous and self-generated and meaningful. I would also say a good amount of her speech is pronoun-appropriate. She will correctly say "I want my blanket" or "That's my favorite song."
However, when I pick her up from preschool, she often says "Did you go to the gymnasium today?" prompting me to ask her the same question. When I do, she says "Yes" with satisfaction. And she likes to do this regularly. Or if she is struggling to do something, she might say "You want Mommy to help you!" Sometimes I'll try to correct her and say "Want Mommy to help WHO?" and she'll say "ME!" So I'm not sure if in those instances, she is just being lazy to formulate the sentence properly.
Another example of this happened today. She saw my stomach and said "Mommy doesn't have a baby in her belly anymore" which is verbatim what we told her after I gave birth. She also said right after that "The baby already came out" which again is the exact same phrase we had told her previously. She tends to do this regularly, but it's always within the right context. However, some of her speech is definitely normal and self-generated. Is any amount of functional echolalia normal or is it always a red flag? And is it a red flag for mostly ASD or something else as well?
We noticed the pica when she was probably 15-18 months old, but it definitely worsened after the baby was born.
I think it's great that you have a dev. pedi appt scheduled.