"You Look Like A Lion Scratched You"

This comment was made by the 10 year old brother of a little 6 year old who has many labels including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and Reactive Attachment Disorder. The child had scratched up her face after having gotten in trouble at school for scratching at the classroom aide. And her face did indeed look like she had been attacked by a very large animal. After the incident at school she had been admonished by her teacher, and a call had been made to her foster mother. When she got home she immediately told her mother what had she had done and then after being talked to about how she shouldn't behave in that way, she was taking a bath and going to bed early and the mom left the bathroom for a minute and when she returned the child had mutilated herself with her fingernails. The horrified parent asked why she had done that and the child stated that she was bad. The foster mother gathered the child up from the bath, dried her off and helped her dress and tended to the scratches on the child's face all the while telling her that she was not bad, that she was a beautiful little girl and that sometimes she got upset and did things she didn't mean to do. The foster mother then set about trying to find out what had happened at school to trigger her child. You see this mom knows that something set her child off; something that her child cannot yet identify and may never be able to identify. This mother tries to be a "sensory detective" to help the teachers, as well as the family be able to see what might begin such an incident...the incident that led to her "attack" on the aide.