Does my daughter have Asperger yndrome?

My daughter is extremely shy to the point that she does her homework, but fails to turn it in because she is embarrassed to talk to her teacher. When people approach her to greet her, she remains quiet, and avoids eye contact. She is otherwise a talented girl, but does not socialize with people other than family. She is OK at home with sister and other family members, but only has one or two school friends. When she visits her former school, her former teachers and some classmates talk to her and she only mumbles an answer. Her extreme shyness is interfering with her grades, since the homewrok is not turned in timely, and it does not matter how much I talk to her and how upset I become over her bad grades, she does not not improve this behavior. She still fails to turn in her homwork because she is just too shy. At this point I do not know what to do, and do not have any more words to make her understand my point. Can you help?

[Jessica L Thomason Sassi, Ph.D., BCBA-D]

Asperger’s Disorder is diagnosed based on narrow or repetitive patterns of behavior or interests and severe and sustained impairment in social interactions. Given the number of problems you are seeing and the impairment it is causing for him at school and home, you should speak with your pediatrician – only a professional who sees your child in person will be able to provide you with an accurate diagnosis.  Whether he is diagnosed with a spectrum disorder or not, I’d also suggest that you consider seeing a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) to address some of the behavior problems that you are seeing. You can find a BCBA in your area at the BABB website (http://www.bacb.com/consum_frame.html).

[KarenDiane]

How old is your daughter? I can see why you might think autism, given the social aspects but autism is usually a range of behaviors and delays. There is no set test for autism, your daughter would have to evaluated by an expert. My daughter was diagnosed by a child psychologist. You may want to start there. Good Luck.

[tejodouro]

How old is your daughter? If she has one or two friends, that is not that bad.  Girls tend to be shy depending on their age.  Talk to her teacher about the issue with homework and make sure that the teacher is aware of the issue.  Maybe she can put her homework in a special basket or the teacher can pick up the homework from her desk.  You should also expose your girl  to lots of  social situations.  Have her join the Girl Scouts and make sure that she goes to the meetings and events (tell the leader that your girl is shy).  Have lots of playdates at home with girls from her school.  Call their moms (choose three or four) and invite one girl at a time for a two hour playdate at your home.  If you can afford, look for social skills classes in your town and have her join a class where they teach her the social language and skills that she needs.  Talk to her teacher and principal about having the school help your daughter. Maybe they can put her in a social speech class at school where she practices with other children how to use social language.  If you live in the USA, the school needs to help her by evaluating her issues and proving help.  If her behavior is impacting her academic performance, she might be eligible for an IEP.   Google IEP and public school intervation to make sure you understand the help that is available to you (assuming she is in public school in the US).  You need to advocate for her because nobody else will.  Good luck (I am the mom of a similar girl).

[tejodouro]

By the way, just because she is shy does not mean that she has autism or aspergers.

[prncessme]

I have a 12 year old daughter that had the same problems when she was in elementary school. She is now in middle school and my how things have changed. Some kids just take longer to develop socially.
Some of the things that we did to help with the social aspect in school was to 1) talk with the councelor. She has a wealth of information and can be a HUGE help. 2) talk with her teacher, explain to her that she is doing her homework, she is just to shy to turn it in. The teacher will come up with some suggestions. More times than not the teacher has seen this before. 3) Call for an ARD-the teacher or the ladies at the front office will tell you what it is that you need to do. If it's like here, you will need to call the diagnostician and request one-no one can tell you no. It's your right to request one. Before you get to the ard make sure you have all your questions written down and all your "proof" with you. They can give her some help to succeed in school and an IEP (it is special education, but it can help her in school). If they don't believe she needs an IEP then ask for a 504 plan-and have some ideas on what you would like to see for your child (accomodations)...i.e a homework folder that she can leave in her desk and after school the teacher can get it and grade her papers.
I hope that helps!

[Kage_no_Taren]

I had a similar problem when I was in middle school (I'm 18 now).  It's worth keeping in mind that grades as such don't -usually- matter before the highschool level, in terms of her long term prospects.  I was often unable to turn in assignments if I was slightly late, or if I didn't have them done on the day they were due, because I didn't want to draw attention to myself by speaking to the "turn in" kid at my table about it, or subject myself to their judgement of the fact that I was turning in late work.  The usual advice to think about how much I noticed when someone else turned in late work didn't work for me, because I have too much extra brain space, and I notice everything.  
Please don't force your daughter to socialize, or work on her social skills in an artificial context.  In my experience it doesn't help, and will probably embarass her.  That said, you also shouldn't go out of your way to indulge her lack of social skills.  Don't do things for her that a girl her age should be able to handle, whatever that amounts to at her age. See if for some classes, she could submit homework as an email attatchment.  Many aspies have an easier time with online interaction than by phone or in person, and she may socialize more with friends if she can talk to them, and arrange to hang out in person, via internet (with age appropriate supervision).  If she's highschool age, and interested, you could help her enroll in a general psych class at a local community college, which could help if she has aspurger's because it goes over the "what" and "why" of aspects of human nature and interaction which are intuitive to most people, but not to aspies.