ODD symptoms?

[goallist]

My friend's son was recently diagnosed with ODD. She does not have internet right now and I am trying to do some research for her. Can you experienced parents tell me if any or all of these symptoms, largely not addressed by the evaluation, are common in kids with ODD?

• • Complains of extreme boredom

o demands constant attention
o has a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
o has a sense of entitlement, unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his expectations
o lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
o obsessed with 'fairness' and will throw a fit if he feels he is being treated unfairly, but his version is biased toward him and not fair to others at all
o is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
o shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
o Jared will often be quick to do any chore asked, but does a shabby job
o makes unreasonable demands and struggles with personal limits
o fears abandonment, calls adults semi-daily for non important 'emergencies' or to make sure they will pick him up, feed him, etc
o exaggerates everything to bolster image as victim, even when this results in false accusations against others
o extreme defensiveness. Will lie if he feels accused.
o No remorse for past aggressive behaviors, grins when you talk about it
o Oddly breaks rules then points it out to authority figure innocently, as if he just realized that he accidentally broke that rule
Thanks
Jessica

 

[Sara PA]

How old is the child? Many of those behaviors are normal for young children but red flags for older children.

 

[goallist]

Sorry. He is 12 1/2.

 

[BusynMember]

If I were her, I'd take him to a neuropsychologist for a complete evaluation. We are just moms, but do have opinions. Although we can't diagnose, and I'm not saying he has this, to me he sounds like he could be on the very high end of the autism spectrum, maybe Aspergers. He does have a lot of red flags for it. ODD rarely stands alone and in my opinion only it doesn't sound like ODD anyways. I'd tell her to contact a Children's or University hospital to schedule a neuropsychologist evaluation. It is quite intensive, much more so than a regular therapist or even a Psychiatrist. They tend to pinpoint things that others don't look for and often don't consider.

 

[Nancy]

http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/odd.htm

Diagnostic criteria for 313.81 Oppositional Defiant Disorder
(cautionary statement)
A. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful or vindictive
Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.

B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.

C. The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood Disorder.

D. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.

 

[AmyLeigh_1]

I'm new at this forum...but not new to behavior issues. I agree that he should see a specialist in neuropsychiatry. My son exhibits many of the same behaviours, and has been diagnosed as ADHD. We do not agree with this diagnosis, as the medications are not helping at all (he's been on Ritalin for 2 years, Stratera 1 year before that).

Good luck to your friend...she's lucky to have someone like you who can help her out.

 

[goallist]

Sorry, I did not poist enough info! The diagnosis was from a comprehensive evaluation, so he's already had that. I just wanted to see if his severe problems with social understanding and empathy were part of ODD from those who have experience with ODD. Sounds like theyre not. The evaluation comments on this problem, and recommends a social skills group, but does not attach a diagnosis that seems to go with it. He is not Asperger's. I know this kid, I've read the criteria, and I have a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) not otherwise specified son. He simply does not meet that criteria; his problem with empathy stands alone and you need more than that to be autistic (like stereotyped movements or fixed interests).

 

[busywend]

These things are all part of my difficult children personality. I would say, yes, these sound like a lot of the ODD difficult children we have on the site.

I have seen many kids that do not portray these attributes in their personality - so maybe it is an ADHD thing or an ODD thing - but either way it sounds difficult child-like.

 

[goallist]

What is difficult child?

 

[nvts]

Hi! difficult child is "Gift from God" which is what most of our kids consider themselves!

You can go to the help forum and find a list of the abbreviations that we use!

Welcome,

Beth

 

[goallist]

I was thinking it might make sense for ODD kids to have empathy problems, because picking fights and disprespecting authority involve social skills so it makes sense. I just wasn't sure if it was all ODD kids, or some of them, or just him. It's hard to memorize rules (like rules around manners) when you don't understand the reason behind the rule, and can't generalize it from one situation to the next. So no matter how many times you teach him, he's rude the next time, and doesn't understand why he's in trouble, and if you lecture him he learns to spit out what you said without understanding it so he can go on with life.

 

[flutterbee]

What you described could be my daughter. I've had several tdocs and psychiatrists tell me that ODD has become a garbage-bin diagnosis, meaning that when they can't figure out what's going on they call it ODD. It does really exist, but it's also over-diagnosed. She does have what I call ODD behaviors, but not one professional (tdocs, psychiatrists and neuropsychologist) have even offered that as a diagnosis.

If he's not understanding they why's how can he be expected to not repeat those mistakes? I would be looking into WHY he's not understanding the why's instead of just settling for a behavioral disorder diagnosis. Something's not connecting in his brain, in my opinion.

I worried for years about my daughter's seeming lack of empathy. Until we had a very enlightening and spontaneous discussion in the car. Turns out she has tons of empathy. Too much. She takes on other people's problems as her own. She's super-hyper-sensitive. Her defense mechanism is to shut down which then looks like she just doesn't care. I'm not suggesting that is or is not the case with Jared, but just wanted to offer another perspective.

 

[wakeupcall]

I feel like the resident with the most experience with ODD! My difficult child is 12 1/2 also. At age four he was diagnoised with ADHD and treated with behavior mods and medications. Didn't help much. A few years later they added ODD, but all treatment he's had has also not helped much. He's been in treatment with medications and therapy since the age of four and we still struggle. The biggest improvement is that he's less violent and aggressive than he used to be. The list you provided....well, my son fits every single one of them except the one about "chores"......NO way is he's doing chores in the first place. After struggling forever, we have taken the "Explosive Child" (book) approach just for survival. A lot of things have to go into basket C. I wish I could give out words of wisdom, but I'm still looking for them myself. Our family life isn't very good, we've just learned to accept it, I guess. He's better at school than at home, but we worry about him being able to function in the working world some day. He NEVER learns from his mistakes; never learns with repeated teachings of the correct way. He's in a social development class in his middle school and he loves it. He doesn't go from class to class with his peers, but remains in the same classroom most of the day ( he has band with his peers and PE ). At least he doesn't have to make those transitions over and over. He makes very good grades...that's the good part.

I hope I'm not getting in here too late. We've had our hands full with him lately and I've not been on the site as much as I usually am. If you want to pm me, please feel free.