Girl with high-functioning, light form of autism

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As long as your daughter is doing well at school and progressing somewhat in social/communication areas, I wouldn't worry about each autistic or weird behavior that pops up, sticks for awhile, and goes away. These are just normal parts of autistic kids growing up, I had a bunch of them when I was her age, and focusing on them and trying to solve them doesn't really do anything in short or long term.

All the best to you with these new symptoms.

You are attentive and that is important.

Bullying can't always be avoided, unfortunately, but making sure your daughter gets good social tools to deal with it is important for her, and also creating a knowledge of what she is good at so she has something positive to replace the negativity.

Again, I will say it. You are attentive and that is important.

Welcome to WP - this is such a great resource and I am sure you will find a lot of support here.

I have a 14 your old daughter with Asperger's and I understand your many concerns. You are on the right track though by getting some early intervention. That can make a huge difference. I don't know what types of therapies etc are available where you are, but you might consider some social skills therapy if it is available - this can help her understand how to interact with her peers more effectively. My daughter struggled with social skills and friendship for years and now she has several friends that she enjoys - so there is hope.

As for having another child, that is a personal choice. I will tell you that we have a 2nd child who is not on the spectrum and we found that to be helpful for our older child. They are 5 1/2 years apart so when our youngest was supposed to be learning manners and how to share etc we would have our older child 'help' teach her by showing her the 'right' way to do things. This type of interaction really seemed to help our older child understand that what she was learning in therapy actually applied to everyone. There have also been times when the younger child was able to explain things to the older one in a way that she understood, when we hadn't been able to get through to her on our own. But again, this is a personal choice and you should do what you are comfortable with - your child could get these same benefits from interacting with a cousin or neighbor child too.

Good Luck and be sure to come back whenever you have a question or concern - we are always glad to help and at least provide some support.

Thank you all for your support.

bbtnnyr: You are absolutely right that these "phases" are to be expected in a life of an autistic kid (and adult I suppose).
She has undergone 2-3 major phases like this in the past, and each dissapeared in their own time, no matter how we tried to intervene. This is a lesson to us parents that I have learnt and always have in mind.

managertina: True, bullying can't always be avoided, although where we live in Greece is not as big as in other countries in Europe or US. I do have it in the back of my mind and chances are that sooner or later a kid will start picking on my daughter for one reason or another but I believe that we can help her deal with that.

Dmarcotte: Unfortunately, social care in my country is not good. I ve been following AutismDaddy blog for some time now and I am amazed at the level of social care (classes, therapies, etc) they receive for their autistic son in the US. Nothing like that here and of course no social skills therapy available by a specialist. You may ask a child psychologist or an occupational therapy specialist to work on social skills, thats the best you can get.

Thank you all again and I will come back with more updates
P.

Some general thoughts:

1.) Clearing her throat is almost certainly "stimming", although it might be some OCD traits. However, assuming that this is stimming, then there's really only two things that you can do: Help her create new stims that are more socially acceptable, and try to alleviate the negative things in her environment that are causing her to stim. She'll do it, anyways, because it's natural to us, but it's more frequent and needs to be more intense the more problems we're having with our environment (See #3).

2.) Going to the bathroom might be for a separate reason altogether --she may want to go the bathroom because it's quiet and she can control the light.

3.) This hasn't been mentioned yet on this thread, as near as I can tell, but you said that your daughter was looking out of the corner of her eyes. I saw a lecture by Temple Grandin where she said this is common amongst ASD children with serious light sensitivity. It's worth considering investing in glasses, and trying to figure out if there's a color that's bothering her. If so, trying out sun glasses that block certain lights might be worth the try. If this is a large cause of her freaking out, then doing this will help alleviate at least some of her anxiety about being outside.

4.) Has she shown any signs of interest in any special subject? I know you mentioned her being good at English; there's a chance she might have a verbal mind. If so, I can only strongly suggest helping (Not pushing!) her into something that she could turn into a career. If she has mild ASD and is also quite smart, then she could have a very bright future if her parents and teachers help her.

Hi Wizard and thank you for your thoughts which are indeed very helpful.
As far as her stimming is concerned, we are still trying to figure out why she does it when she does it. We ve looked into a range of possibilities and we believe it is a number of things that stress her and make her clear her throat repetitively. One of the possibilities we look into is our home and its location. We are living in this house for 3 years now and she never had any obvious issues with it (in terms of light and/or noise) but lately she behaves as if she doesnt want to live in our house (or with us, or both). The reason I am saying this, is because for more than a year now she likes to spend Friday night until Sunday morning with my parents in their house downtown (my house is near the countryside in a quiet area, not isolated but not busy like my parents home). Up until now, every time she stays with my parents all her stimming behaviour dissapears or is greatly reduced. As with many grandparents, they never say no to her and never put any pressure to her about anything! She eats what she wants, she visits all the places she wants and she lives a life like a queen! This means that when it is time for me to pick her up and return home, she gets depressed and whines a bit, not because we treat her bad in anyway but because she knows that at home with us she should do things like homework, clean her room, eat the right foods and even wash her teeth ! ! (I hope I don't sound too mean, lol).
Please don't take me wrong, we do have fun at home as well, but obviously she is not completely free to do whatever she wants! So this transition between our own home and my parents home settings, could have contributed to this stimming behaviour, but I believe it is not the only reason.

As far as the light sensitivity thing, I have never considered it. I know that some autistic kids have issues with light or light patterns etc. Now that you ve mentioned it, I recall my daughter staring for several minutes at dim lights, or light patterns on the walls from the morning sun or shadows etc, since the age of 3. She still does it quite often, so this is something I will further investigate. It may be that our home lets in light patterns that upset her. As I said in my earlier post, this phase starts daily at about 4-5pm, which is sunset time and gets better (or dissapears) after 8pm. So light may have something to do with it.

About her special interests, she is great at painting-drawing-sketching and she loves gymnastics. She attends a class for each and she is very happy when there.
Thank you again for your insight
P.