could my three year old neice have asperger's?

[tiff_87]

About two years ago, my in laws that I live with, recieved custody of their four grandchildren the two youngest both girls came first, then last christmas their two older brothers came to live with us. Their parents were drug addicted and neglected the children, living in unfit living situations, little food, the older two were not attending school, and they had little or no supervision. The youngest child Melodie is now three years old, and we have noticed many things about her that don't seem normal. She is very destructive, destroying all of their toys and other objects. Instead of playing with them normally it seems she just try's to break them. She hits and bites herself, pulls her hair out, try's to rip off her nails, and pulls her fingers painfully far back. She continually gets in trouble for the same things, she says she knows it's wrong but continues to do it. All punishments like time out and taking things away seem to have no effect on her, she don't seem to care about anything. She's obsessed with touching everything, if you close something she has to reopen it and then close it again. She is easily emotional espically with anger, she very quickly throws tantrums and harms herself. She seems to have issues expressing her emotions, and noticing other peoples emotions, she asks me all the time if I'm happy, sad, or mad even if it's very noticable like when I'm upset with her and giving her a timeout. She seems to be in her own little world a lot, she gets so captivated in an activity, she will not respond if I tell her to stop, she just continues not even looking up, I have to get up and stop her. About a year ago she begin to hump various objects like her bed. She continued to escalate beginning to hump her toys, chairs, her siblings, if you try to rock her she will begin to hump your leg, the slide, the porch bannisters, pretty much any object she can. If she doe'snt have an object she will hump her hand, or actually put her hand in her pants and do it that way. The doctors told us to ignore it, it's been almost a year it just keeps getting worse, we've tried various types of punishments, reward systems, everything, and nothing works. She has problems learning new things it took us almost a year to potty train her, I try to get her to copy her ABC's under the set I have, and she draws lines and pictures of various objects, no matter how many times we sing and practice she continually only says abc next time want you sing with me, she believes this is the entire song. With numbers she don't want to start with 1 but with 3 instead and usually the following numbers will be correct. I've tried to teach her to spell her name, but she will repeatidly only say her name not the letters, when doing small, age appropriate puzzles, she can not understand how the pieces go, like this one puzzle is a bananna man, I'll show her a piece and ask her what comes next, and usually is correct like if I show her the face and ask her what comes next she will pick up the body and hand it to me. But she can't no matter how hard she tries, physically put it together, she can't understand shapes and how the pieces fit together. She also asks me strange things like "Am I going to die?" "Are you going to die?" Will this make me die?" I tell her no and then a few days later she will ask again. She also has problems interacting with other children at her headstart, like she don't understand how to become friends and play with them. She also had difficulties learning to talk, she was almost three before she began pronouncing words right, and using more than one word at a time. It was very difficult to understand her at first, she reminded me of the toy "Furby", kindive like she was speaking a foreign language. The best way I can think of to describe her behavior is like her mind is one sided, to her things can only be and go one way. No matter how many times you describe these things to her, she don't get it. Like after using the bathroom she will never wipe, and when I remind her to she doe's it the wrong way. She's been potty trained for almost a year and has been shown how to do this almost daily, and can never do it. With all other children I've been around, after being shown something so many times, and doing it themselves for a while it becomes almost habit, just like with adults you don't even have to think about it, you just do it. But it's very hard for her to learn things and apply them in daily life. Her older sister Libby is four, when she was three the behavior aspect, learning capabilities, and learned responses are totally different from Melodies. I've never seen a child act like her, she is different in many aspects of emotional, behavior, and social aspects. With all children I've known, when they do something wrong and get disipline they eventually learn it's wrong and quit doing it. But everyday she doe's the same things over and over again, after talking to her, if you ask her what you just said, she will not know. Their are so many aspects of melodies behavior and emotions that worry me. I just want to know what is going on with her, so we can help her. I want her to be a functioning adult who can process her emotions, know how to communicate how she feels and what she wants, have emphathy for others, be able to have a functioning and interacting social life, be able to learn new and understand new and important things, and be able to apply them in life, because right now she is lacking in all facets of these things. Could you please let me know if you believe this may be asperger's syndrome, and how we can begin to diagnose and help her. I believe this is what Melodie has, all of the symptoms remind me of her. Thank you so much for your time sorry it became so long. Any advice or input on what she may have, would be greatly appreciated.

                                                       Thank you,
                                                          Tiffany

[suziet]

I am so sorry no one has taken the time to reassure you that what is in your gut feeling is usually right. Can you encourage your in--laws to take her and have her evaluated?  That is probably the best thing for everyone in the house.  If you can get her evaluated and she test aspie a therapist will come to your home and work with her.  Theraphy has helped my grandson so much.  He is almost 3 and he is able to talk now.  Just in the past 3 months he says my name when he sees me.  Before he would just fall on the floor with his face down when I walked in. His big brother (7yrs) is working with him on sign language and his vocabulary.  He has obsessions but he also has melt downs.  Some days I can touch him but not all the time.  I hope you can encourage your in-laws to have her evaluated.  I don't think you will notice any difference until she gets help.  Thank you so much for caring so much to ask for help for her.  You must be very special and compationate.  She is so lucky to have you.