Intro and question about hyperactivity

[Guest guest]

Hello! My name is and I live in Michigan. I have 4 children,

and 2 of my daughters have autism. I am asking for suggestions

regarding my 5 year old daughter Emma. She is probably what you

would consider a " classic " autistic child. She has language and uses

it to communicate, but still does some echolalia and ALOT of

scripting. She can answer yes or no and can ask for what she wants.

She is VERY smart and has been reading fluently since she was 3 years

old (hyperlexia). My oldest daughter is 8 1/2 and is nonverbal, but

also a very smart girl and a very complacent and calm personality.

We did alot of ABA with our oldest daughter, we have done the DAN

protocol, the GFCF diet, play therapy, speech, OT, you name it. So I

guess I feel I am pretty well-versed in all the interventions for our

kids! However right now we are just very overwhelmed with our Emma.

She is an incredibly sweet child, never aggressive or violent. But

she gets just out of control hyperactive and it just seems to be

getting worse. She literally jumps around for hours, jumps on

furniture, jumps off furniture, tries to climb into the washing

machine, turns on faucets and compulsively gets water everywhere, and

the whole time she is laughing and scripting things and has kind of

a " glazed over " look in her eyes. The thing is, she can attend very

well to certain things, like computer games (although she turns up

the volume to the max), she will sit and read books, she will sit and

play with toys. But she just has these spells of absolutely out of

control wild behavior and lately it has been going on until midnight

every night. I have tried melatonin at night, and it did seem to

work for a while, but now seems to have lost its effectiveness.

Last night we decided not to take her trick-or-treating because she

has been so wild we were very concerned about her taking off. We

make her hold our hands, but then she will laugh and fall down and

she is too big (50 lbs) to carry or to drag around. She enjoyed

passing out candy and she was allowed to have some candy from her

GF/CF diet, so she didn't feel deprived at all. At about 8:30pm she

was in our front room watching a video and I was doing laundry. I

never let her out of my sight for more than a few minutes, because

it's just too dangerous. I thought my husband was in the room with

her, but when I walked in, he wasn't there and the front door was

hanging wide open. We have a child safety latch high up but she

pulled a chair up to the door and unlocked it. I yelled for my

husband and we both immediately ran outside. I called the neighbors

who also came out with flashlights. When we realized she wasn't

right in front of the house I called 911. It was pitch dark and I

just couldn't wait any longer. My neighbors and my husband took off

in their cars looking and just as the police pulled up, my neighbor

drove up and said my husband had found her two blocks down, hopping

in the middle of the road in her bare feet and pajamas saying " trick

or treat! Trick or treat " as happy as could be. Needless to say,

it scared the life out of us. She has gotten out before, but never

in the dark. Terrifying.

The thing is, I really feel she cannot control this hyperactivity.

Punishing her is not the answer, as I can see that she is just

completely out of control. She isn't trying to be naughty at all,

but she really is totally out of control and we are at our wits end.

So, what do I do? Of course I know that medication is an option, but

what kind of medication? She isn't ADHD, she can focus on many

things. But something has got to help her get her little body calmed

down. I just don't know anything about the medications or if that is

even what we should be looking at. And is my pediatrician who I

should ask about this? It's always hard to talk to pediatricians

about our kids, they are just kind of clueless. But going to a

specialist is just such a long wait.... we are desperate and just

can't wait months to take some action. We have just never had this

issue with our older daughter. While some would consider her lower

functioning because she is nonverbal, she is so much easier to deal

with behavior-wise because she doesn't have this urge to run and this

hyperactivity. Any advice?

thanks!