Post meningitis

[Lovehope2]

Hi everyone..my now 9 years old daughter had a meningitis when she was 4 n half. She struggles at school, she became a stutter and almost not willing to talk most of the time. It's killing me to see her suffer in her childhood. She doesn't want to play with other kids because of the way she speaks, she knows she's not doing good at school. Is there anyone who has the same experience? I need help, any recommendations?

[IndieRabbit]

Hi,

Has your daughter been diagnosed with any other neurological disorders other than her stutter? Such as other Language Disorders or acquired ADHD (both can be caused by meningitis). And are there any subjects at school that she particularly excels at or does better at least.

I ask this because a lot of neurological problems can be hard to detect and commonly go undiagnosed. But there are treatments and tools that can help people manage and be productive.

I had MenB when I was 6 months old and have ADHD and a Language Disorder which mainly affects my ability to produce fluent language (I struggle with pronunciation, sentence structure and spontaneous speech). There was always concerns about me at school particularly in primary school (5-11 years). I was predicted terrible grades but I am otherwise smart and actually scored above average across the board. So I was never diagnosed even though I did struggle with all my subjects on some level apart from maths which was the only one where no written work was involved.

After finishing school it got much worse. I dropped out of uni twice first physics then maths due to not being able to cope with the written assignments. I struggle with my job as a data analyst because I'm extremely disorganised and struggle with mundane things like writing emails and summarising any significant results.

I've only recently joined the dots at age 27 and I'm starting the process of getting a diagnosis. Which goes to show how difficult some of these problems are to recognise.

[Lovehope2 in reply to IndieRabbit]

Thank you so much for your response. It means a lot. The thing is ..she struggles with everything and pronouncing big words are not her thing at all. She is not diagnosed with ADHD , but sometimes I think of it too. She's having a follow up with a neurologist and he didn't say anything. But her stuttering became more obvious and it's hurting her .

[IndieRabbit in reply to Lovehope2]

I didn't stutter but I mumbled a lot growing up, I still mumble a bit but no one would suspect there is something wrong with me at this point. I still struggle to pronounce some words, if a word has 5 or more syllables, I'll either butcher separating the syllables or I have to make a laboured effort. But my point is that there is some hope that things can get better even without help and I assume your daughter will receive some speech and language therapy.

If you think she has ADHD you should get her tested, it is generally harder to recognise in females because they tend to have a subtype called inattentive ADHD, the other type is hyperactivity and impulsiveness which males generally have and is associated with behavioural problems. You can also have a combined ADHD and show symptoms from both types.

Even if you choose not to medicate her it's always better to know. I personally wish that I had been medicated for ADHD growing up, I think I would have struggled less particularly in school.

From my own experience, I don't think they do enough screening on meningitis survivors. I had no further tests after I turned 4 years old. I've done a lot of reading up on undiagnosed meningitis after effects and frankly, I think its shocking how much is missed.

If you are interested this is one of the most comprehensive studies I've come across and it was conducted in the UK.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

It compares a group of 11,035 children born in the same area within a couple of years of each other and compares behaviour, cognitive functions, etc between meningitis survivors (who had the disease in the first 18 months of life) and the remainder of the group. All children with special educational needs diagnosed before the study are excluded from any comparisons.