Is 10 another one of THOSE ages?

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You know how 7 seems to be one of those ages in which kids on the spectrum seem to have a sudden developmental lag when compared to their peers?

Is 10 one of those ages too?

My daughter made it the whole last year without supports in school. She has the same teacher this year, and she informed me that she seems to be having a significantly more difficult time than she did last year. We have decided to pursue implementing social supports again. She seems to be having a lot more difficulty with emotional regulation, switching sets, and perseverative behavior/thinking.

Don't know what kinds of responses I hope for. This is mostly just a vent, I guess. Seems like I have a problem in that every time a "coasting period" is interrupted by autistic behavior, it is like I am completely jarred and unprepared, but I know that is ridiculous as I realize this is a lifelong condition and just because we have hit a smooth stage does not mean she will never have issues again. But each time the issues crop up, I feel like I am being blindsided. I thought things were going so well. <sigh>

Is there any clue why she is having more problems this year?
I think ages of difficulty are highly individual, and there are not really any special ages like 7 or 10 at which more autistic behaviors occur.
The only obvious age factor is greater adaptation with increasing age in childhood, but there may be dips in adulthood as adults face greater demands in most areas.

I think part of it is that she is more self-aware and she is more aware that she has deficits that others do not have. I think another part of it is that she has always kind of "skated" through school. I don't think she has ever really been challenged, but now that she is in 5th grade she's being pushed more. In the past, she was always OK with her issues with "social smarts" because she had clearly superior "school smarts." Now that school is becoming more challenging, it is causing her stress.

She has the same teacher and all but two of the students are the same from last year, so I don't think the teacher or her classmates are the issue. But she is having meltdowns over things that she would have not melted down over last year. She says she feels "overwhelmed" but cannot explain why, and honestly, the things that she says she feels "overwhelmed" about are well within her wheelhouse of coping with. Yesterday it was because her teacher told her she had to finish her classwork before she could work on an extra credit project. Her teacher could tell that she was "losing it" (as my daughter calls it), so she suggested that she go to the bathroom for a few minutes to "get herself together" (also the words my daughter chooses). She became very upset at this suggestion and proceeded with loud wailing and defiant behavior. Once she started, she had a very hard time (more than 30 minutes) collecting herself enough to return to the classroom. She really hasn't had this kind of behavior at school since 3rd grade.

Later, she was able to "walk through" things from a rational perspective with me and was able to say that her teacher has a right to tell her to finish her classwork first. She did think that she was being punished when she was asked to leave the room, but I explained to her that her teacher was trying to protect her to prevent her from "losing it" in front of her peers. She agreed that in the future she would leave when her teacher suggested it, but did ask if she could go to the school psychologist instead of the bathroom.

One of the things she was yelling during her meltdown was that her "hormones were raging." I do not use language like this, so I am not sure where she heard it, but I do wonder if there is some pubescent hormonal thing going on. Usually she is able to articulate what is going on in her head after an incident is over, but now she seems like she is not entirely sure why she is responding the way she is, and she does recognize that the strength of her reaction was out of proportion with the incident.

FWIW, many parents feel that age 7 is a critical age, and if I remember correctly, that is a common age for higher functioning kids to be first diagnosed because it is the first time that their deficits become too obvious to attribute to immaturity or something else. I am wondering if somewhere around the age of 10, something similar happens again. I know that in 5th grade my son also gained self-insight, only for him it was a positive thing, because he was better able to self-reflect and monitor his social interactions.

I have a 10 year old boy, and we have had some interesting changes this year. I home school, so his world is much better scaffolded than it would be in school.

Here is what I have noticed that is new this year:

Better communication skills
More perseveration, but he is explaining it better (see above)
More questions about why he has to do certain things ---like why he has to do school during school time etc. For us this is an improvement to non-verbalized frustration, but in school teachers would have issues with it and it would be interpreted as back-talk.
More issues with focus
Less acting out in a non-verbal way (We a very happy about this)
A greater willingness to do things himself -- greater desire to do bigger kid things
Increased surliness when people don't read his mind. This is better than shrieking but he is doing it at new and different times ---I am wondering if this is hormonal, myself, as it is similar to teen surliness in appearance

I don't know if this helps or not, but since our kids are the same age, I figured I would put it out there

I can understand why your daughter would not like being told to go to the bathroom to hold it together. Maybe a more subtle non-verbal tap on the shoulder or a signal they both agree on, would be better. I would think it was presumptuous (even if the teacher meant well, and was right) and for sure it would be embarrassing. I would not like it if someone told me I should go to the bathroom to get myself together either. (Yeah, I am an adult, and can figure it out and evacuate myself, but kids with ASD at a certain age fancy themselves as adults. I think I hit that point around 9.)

I'm sorry...that sounds hard.

11 was a really hard age for both of my kids (a lot of aggressive behaviours mostly). But they are boys so maybe whatever that was happens earlier in girls. I suspected that the problems at 11 were at least partly due to hormones too.

I have heard the 7 and 10 theory too, and my kids are much younger. Other parents and therapists told me about it. I think at 10, there are supposed to be two big jumps that happen. 1) schoolwork gets harder and 2) higher order social interactions start to take place. Sarcasm, innuendo, cliques, etc, etc. Then finally, hormones could play a part as well. It could be any or all of these things that are making things more difficult for your daughter.

Could you try to break it down piece by piece? Maybe take each one individually? What are the academic expectations, especially in reading comprehension and conclusion drawing and math? There is usually a big jump in "inference" expectations around 5th grade. Could she be having trouble with not being literal and reading between the lines? From a math perspective, I believe "induction" and "deduction" are introduced, although not with those labels. Could she be having trouble there?

In general, I've heard that 10 is when kids are supposed to begin to "fill in the reasoning gaps" both academically and socially. So maybe this is what's adding stress. I'd be cautious about attributing it all to hormones because that may not be true (could account for some, but makes it seem like she's irrational). It may be that she really is being tested in an area that's challenging for her, and tested in that same capacity across every experience she's having at school (academic across subjects AND social). Just my thoughts.

My daughter has a ASD girl friend.

Her mom said 5th grade (age 10) was the absolute worse. Her daughter would melt down more than she ever did in 3rd. The screaming escalated, and the refusals to do things too.

5th grade is horrible because the school drops the hammer to prepare for 6th, which is middle school here. The social skills up by magnitude of a billion for girls. All the social pressure really started last year. The conversations were almost all about boys/clothes/TV/music. Very little about toys or younger kids topics.

6th grade is also miserable. My daughter says her friend really struggles with more people being around (bigger school), she's way out of her legal social skills wise.

Her daughter doesn't want "sped" help. She stands out enough as it is, and getting pulled for social skills help mortified hers.

So no, you aren't imagining it. Bonus round her daughter started her periods last year.

I started to have more social problems around 4th grade. Kids at that age are trying to be more grown up and more mature so they start to do social chit chat than play and I found that all difficult. I was still a little girl and everyone was growing up. Their interests were changing so it was difficult for me to still relate to them. Playing with toys all of a sudden became taboo so kids did that in private. Plus I started to have more anxiety and I went for younger age groups because I could relate to them more. I did want friends my own age but it was so hard so I went for younger kids because I didn't want to be alone. Plus I started to have depression. There is more pressure and work gets more abstract and social skills do change and so do the rules.

Temple Grandin also had the same problem too around that age. She was very social and had friends and then it got real hard around puberty. I am sure anyone with a disability might relate to that.

Yes, 10 is definitely one of THOSE ages. It's a notorious "sandwich age": you (the child) are too old for the joys of childhood, but too young for the simple pleasures/freedoms of adolescence. I myself became suicidal right at that age. I was no longer allowed to engage in things like playing with toys or talking about toys; this was enforced equally strictly by both parents and peers. At the same time, I was too young to hop on a city bus to my favorite museum across town; instead, I hard to earn the privilege of being driven there by bringing home good grades and being on my best behavior at all times. Not to mention still having bedtimes and enforced food choices. Me being very book-smart further alienated me from everyone else, since my "smartness" was simply a proof that I was being an idiot for still wanting to play with toys. (Umm, hello: why should I give up toys if I'm still not allowed to do anything fun?)

What's worst is that age 10 being a sandwich age is a modern societal construct; that's why it's so unpleasant to the kids. It's an unnatural as a small child sleeping alone in a dark, cavernous room. Biologically, humans are meant to become fully independent right after puberty. So at age 10, they'd be at the tail end of being dependent on parents; hence, the ever-present early-teen rebellion. Once the puberty process is complete, they split off from the parents, and find their own game to hunt and fruits to gather, as fully independent adults.

Another "sandwich age" is 14: too old for most camps, too young to get a real job. But being older, at least for NT teens, it's easier to cope, and the sandwiching is during summertime only. In an urban area, public transportation is an option for getting to places. Not to mention you're finally old enough for at least some of the simple pleasures of adolescence.

10 year olds are not supposed to like toys? I think when I was growing up, it might have been 12 or 13 when peers were less into toys. No one ever tried to take my toys away. I don't think that is a usual practice to take away toys from kids who still like them, regardless of age, is it? I think , Aspie, your parents, in many ways were not especially typical. Parents often will want to get rid of them once you stop using them; but not if you still play with them.

I would never take my son's toys away. We still have toys from his baby years b/c sometimes he remembers one and wants to play with it. Often we can't find it --- but that is another issue. We still have them. I am still hoping he will grow into many of them, mostly b/c I want him to share them with me so I can play with them too.

(Yes, I know I could get my own toys--and sometimes I do.)

Well, my daughter has never really been big on toys. In fact, we would have never even unpacked them the last time we moved, except she brings them out when her friends are over. So we should be OK with that part!

Academically, her teacher said she is not really having problems, per se. She is just perceiving she is because she is not picking things up in a snap. And when she can't pick something up, she blows it out of proportion. For example, in a recent reading, she didn't know what a bushel was and it totally derailed her from the rest of the story. She became fixated on not knowing what a bushel was and it took the teacher significant effort to get her back on task. In fact, her teacher made a comment like "I am gifted, too, and so is my son," as if she thinks my daughter is gifted. I don't think she is. I think because she is a gifted artist and on the spectrum, sometimes people conclude that she must be gifted in general. I just think she is of above average intelligence.

To date, I have never told her of her diagnosis. I have never seen the need. She did not recognize she was different than others and was never stressed about it. I am starting to think that an explanation might be helpful at this point. My concern is that she is so perseverative right now and so sensitive. When I told my son of his diagnoses, he was only 7 and he was nothing but relieved to find out that the problems he was having was because of his wiring, not because he was a bad kid. I just don't know how she will react, and I don't think she will react as well as he did. She is complaining a lot about EF issues, though, so maybe it would help her know there is a reason she is having such a hard time. She does know her brain works differently. Maybe I should look at that cats have asperger's book and see if it would help open the topic,

I'm going to act somewhat out of character, and step in to defend my parents. They did not take away my toys. My family moved across the country when I was 10, and all my toys and most books had to be left behind. Getting replacement childhood toys, now that was problematic. I was "too old" for them, apparently, plus, my family was really poor. So they decided it was a good opportunity to get me to "grow up". Ironically, I was allowed to get a stuffed animal while shopping at a thrift store, since they cost less than $5 each. Only I didn't play with them; they just sat on my bookshelf, and the most I did is pet them on the head or flick them on the nose once in a while.

When my interests shifted to "older" toys, like Legos and video games, my parents were inordinately generous with buying them, and even begrudgingly tolerated my hours-long game-playing. (Probably 'cause I had no friends.) I do wonder if the Legos and the video games were just displaced childhood interests, but I'm now old enough to be grateful for at least those. I also to download text of the left-behind books online, if I can remember the titles. And my parents still have those stuffed animals at their house.

Is your daughter quite perfectionist perhaps?
Many HFA kids are perfectionist to maladaptive levels.
Like this thing with not knowing what a bushel is and fixating on it without being to get on with the rest of the story, that seems like a kind of maladaptive perfectionism.

Also I have heard a lot of girls in general start having self-esteem problems as they become more self-aware.
Age 10 seems like a common start to this.

I don't think I would call her a perfectionist. Its more that when her expectations are violated, she has a hard time recovering. She has always found reading easy. While she was not hyperlexic, no one needed to "teach" her how to read. She figured it out on her own in kindergarten with minimal assistance and it has always come easy. So when it is not easy, she freaks out. I wouldn't say she is a perfectionist, though. She makes careless mistakes and does not seem bothered by it.

I do agree that I need to watch for self-esteem issues. She has always seen herself as superior to other people. I don't mean that in a conceited way. She just has always thought highly of herself. Now that she is starting to notice that she has deficits, I think it is affecting her self-esteem. She seems much more self-conscious than she has ever been.

Aspie1: They might have assumed you would grow out of them soon, so maybe they thought it was a waste of money, and as you say, maybe thought in someway they were helping you mature??? I still think it sucks. They should have been able to fit at least one toy in there somewhere. Moving is tough for kids, and even with an NT, you would want to bring a familiar toy for the kid.

InThisTogether: We have that kind of derailment too, during school, where my son will perseverate on something tangential. I also think it is more frequent these days, so you may be on to something.

The "What to you when your Brain gets Stuck," book that MomSparky frequently recommends -- has helped my son understand his perseveration better. We introduced it a couple of years ago=--letting him know he doesn't have OCD, but he does get stuck, so we thought it would help him.

Just recently (Like a month ago--recent- he picked it out of his book bin and started reading it again. He also realized he needs more help redirecting himself and is trying to figure out what to do, and brainstorm ideas. We for a variety of complicated reasons, have not explicitly told him he has a diagnosis. We do talk about people's brains being wired differently. We also let him know when most people look at things in one way, but b/c of his special interests etc. he looks at in another---etc.

Maybe you could start talking about that in general before you decide about how to segue to an actual diagnosis discussion?

4th and 5th grade girls can get very cliquey, in addition to the increased school pressure academically. So I think that can be very difficult.

What is your hesitation about telling her her diagnosis? I am wondering why for your son it made sense and for your daughter you held back on telling her? Whatever the reason I think it would be easier to tell her soon, and you could lose her respect if you keep this from her beyond the young child years. Some teens get very touchy and they think they can keep secrets but adults should not. So I think it's important to think about how she will take this later if you wait. Especially knowing you told her brother, even if he had to be told because he received more services.

9 or 10 was an age I remember becoming aware other girls played with me, so from my point of view, while it is possible the problem is starting with how she feels, I remember clearly that other girls' behavior started being more confusing and horrid as adults cut back the general level of supervision allowing them to get away with being more hurtful. I also think part of having a close positive relationship with her is having a language to talk about what she is going through, maybe helping her with social scripts she can use and with recognizing when to step away from drama and how......and, as she gets older, and you want her to be able to advocate for herself, a lot of this might be easier making sure she is aware of having a diagnosis of ASD. And you wouldn't necessarily have to start by saying she had ASD, you could have one or more books, you could refer to her and her brother having special needs, I'm not sure exactly how you would do it, but you could move her toward understanding. Maybe talk about an adult friend on the spectrum to direct her mind toward autism as part of human diversity and not a forever sentence of hopelessness.