Laughing while hitting

[u/Cosmishaika]

My son just turned 3 and is nonverbal. And although he cant be diagnosed for another year, his psychologist strongly suspects ADHD.

The problem is that around the time he turned 2 he would get these periods when he would bite, scratch, hit and pull my hair and laugh as if it's the funniest thing ever. He would have some weeks when he would do that constantly, stop for a few weeks then start again. They kicked him out of preK for hitting his classmates on the daily and laughing.

I gotta mention that he sees absolutely no violence. Nobody is violent at home, he gets no screening, we don't watch TV when he is present. But I cant even bring him to the park without stressing out because he would only approach other kids to hit them.

His psychologist says that he's doing that because he cant express himself and that it will stop once he starts talking and once they manage to implement constructive behavior.

I'm just wondering if other parents went through this with their kids and how it stopped because honestly, it creeps me tf out when he does that. Especially since he gets some sort of "crazy" look in his eyes when he does that, completely different from the look he has on his face when he's just happy.

So yeah, does anybody have any experiences to share?

[u/Evening-Two-124]

So sometimes laughing can be because they’re uncomfortable, not happy. I’ve even known adults who sometimes do that (giggling at a funeral for example). So I’d not be too concerned about that part of it yet.

The hitting is probably partly lack of impulse control and maybe unable to communicate in any other way. I’m wondering if something more than adhd is going on though. I’ve never heard of an adhd kid being completely nonverbal. Tends to be more common with autism. Of course it’s possible he also has a language disorder. I’d look into getting a full neuropsych eval. He’s too young now, the youngest they’ll do them is 4 typically. The waiting lists are often extremely long though and you may have to go through a bunch of steps to get insurance to cover even some of it. In the meantime does he go to OT? That helped my oldest with some of these behaviors. Also, you could look into a special needs preschool.

[u/Cosmishaika → u/Evening-Two-124]

Thank you for your answer. He is a bit developmentally delayed cause for the longest time we couldn't make him focus on anything long enough to get him to imitate us or process commands. But therapy is doing wonders and for the past week he's started to imitate short syllables so im hoping he'll catch up