Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, we've hit a wall with our insurance and now have a super-high $7500 deductible to meet. I've even had to tell my pdoc to charge me as a patient without insurance (she lowers the amount). It is possible she would do the same for my daughter, though I know the initial intake interview is more expensive than normal appointments. The hard part would be getting my husband to agree to getting her evaluated, and he is so against it. If we wait until January, our insurance will roll over, and the amount we pay will be much lower.

My daughter generally "blends" at school now for the most part. Obviously, she will never buy the school lunch and must bring it from home. She won't even eat pizza when the PTO buys it for parties at Christmas and end-of-year and gets upset if juice gets passed out to drink (she prefers water). She won't wear pants or shorts at all, just dresses. In 6th grade, I'm thinking I might have to get her labeled to somehow work her way out of her having to wear a P.E. uniform because I know she won't take to it at all. She is also very put out at me because I make her wearing a training bra with about half her dresses now since she is developing. She will spend over 15 min. each morning trying to get comfortable, longer if I don't prod her on. Her hair is an unkempt mess, and I've only just gotten her to let me clip it back because she now has to wear glasses this year, and it really needs to be kept out of the glasses during the day. Before that and during the weekend, she looks like a wild child with her hair a huge mess. She is now in 4th grade. However, she is now having meltdowns after school because her math teacher is requiring them to show work in 2 digit multiplication (problems like 25 x 63). It so happened last year, she entered a math competition called Number Sense where students are not allowed to show any math work and only write down answers and learned how to do this multiplication mentally, so she feels the "strategy" is a waste of her time. In addition, the strategy is weird; I didn't even learn to multiply that way; you box up the numbers in a chart, and it's really strange. My daughter feels this is a waste of her time since she can do it mentally and get the right answer then has a giant meltdown after school most days over math homework. I think later the teacher plans to teach them the traditional multiplication technique, but it does puzzle me why they start with this method, which even confuses my daughter who is extremely bright in math.

My daughter does not like the feel of headphones but will tolerate them. She says they don't block out the noise enough and also worries about other kids making fun of her. She was a big target of a "frenemy" last year because of how literally she took things and did not always realize the girl was making fun of her until she saw other kids laughing at some remark this girl made; thank goodness, that girl is not in her class this year.

It has been a lucky thing that my daughter made it into the dual language program in her school district (there was actually testing pre-kindergarten, and she was re-districted from the elementary school she would have attended based on where we live). Those 2 dual language classes have been kept together since kindergarten; sometimes the homeroom kids vary, but they are used to the same group of roughly 36 kids being around them. A lot of them realize my daughter hates loud noises and tend to just take it as part of her personality, the same with her having meltdowns. She had another meltdown at the library because she finished reading a fiction series on her level (which is high so not many books in the elementary school library to choose from). I think she just wants to be able to go to the exact same area of the library and pick a book from a familiar series to check out. She also told me that they are out of animal nonfiction books on her level in English, which will likely lead to another meltdown, even though I've suggested to her maybe she might like to read about something else like space, the rainforest, other countries (since they are a dual language school, the library has lots of nonfiction books focusing on Spanish-speaking countries), or fossils & gems (which she has shown some interest in). She won't hear of it. The worst thing is her 2 best friends had to quit the dual language program, one because her English was falling below grade level and the 2nd (also an extremely extroverted gir) because her father passed away suddenly and the mom didn't think she could keep up with it. The one best friend was so empathic and often helped my daughter during meltdowns, getting through to her during meltdowns (very rare) and getting my daughter do things to calm her down, like encouraging deep breathing. I was so, so sad when that girl had to stop the dual language program because of how well she understood my daughter (she just has a gift for understanding other people, I think). I do think my daughter is doing better at getting along in school than she did in kindergarten, so perhaps she is adapting some socially. At least, I don't get multiple emails or calls from her teachers each week.