Almost 5 yr old girl, having issues at PreK

by Lucy
(Wisconsin)

My daughter Hannah will be 5 on Feb 21. I just got a letter from the school psychologist stating they want to test her for autism. There is a whole list of behaviors at school that have her teachers concerned. She has 20 other kids in her class. Transition times are difficult for her, she seems lost and is unable to follow directions when it's in the middle of a transition. Gym class with the other twenty kids jumping running and yelling, she'll wander off and go play by herself. She'll walk out of her classroom and into another without noticing that anything is different. She's very intelligent and is average to advanced in academics but she's unable to apply her knowledge in a large group setting.

At home, we dont notice what the school has. She picks up new skills quickly and communicates just fine. She has always been super sensitive to noise and will cover her ears especially with the chatter of a crowd of people. Parades and fireworks terrify her, she covers her ears and crys till it's over. We live near town and without even going to the events and being in the house she can hear it and is affected. She cant stand having her nails clipped or cleaned and hates to have her hair brushed. She also shush's everybody. While in the van I have the older kids asking me to turn up the radio then 10 seconds later Hannah's covering her ears and yelling "turn it down!"

We are just beginning the testing with the school. We've done questionnaires for autism and asberger's. Her ped appt is 3/11 and I'll be bringing all the stuff from the school and the checklist from here along to show her. Any helpful tips to parents just starting out with all this?

The school is suspecting autism, I'm thinking her sensitive senses may be so distracting to her in that environment that she may be acting like she's got autism at school. Going through the checklist, pardon me if I muddle the terms, she's very Auditory Hypersensitive, and both Hyper and Hypo for touch.