How DO you know, for sure?

[Hisrosebud]

My son is in the diagnosing process. When I read the thread, How did you know? I see all the signs except Caleb loves to be around people. He just does not know how to be around people.

He scored 22 out of 30 on the autism scale. 30 being autistic. Because I am a stay at home mother, the doctor wanted to see what he would do in a class. He is in a class room and the special ed teacher is not seeing autism.

They do see speech issues ( 5 evaluations are about to be done), fine motor issues, sensory integration issues and tolieting issues. He has the diagnoses, global developmental delays, possible pdd-nos.

It is looking more and more like he may have sensory integration dysfunction. But I question this. He has speech issues, stims, transition issues etc. I am worried that the school may be pushing for a diagnoses that means less financial burden to them.

So, how do you really know? With all this issues crossing over with similar symptoms? Should I just be grateful? Should I stop worrying? I just feel like they push on us early intervention and then make you feel guilty for trying to get that intervention!

Jane

 

[Young Christian]

The easiest way to know if he has Autism to check to see if he is human, in which case he does, since all humans have Autism no matter what lies certain researchers have attempted to cover it up with.

 

[labellady]

My son was diagnosed with mild autism. Aspberger's actually. I have found that he does better being homeschooled. School was just to hard for him. Not academically but socially. I knew something was wrong but the doctors who only seen him a few minutes didn't think anything was wrong. The doctor that finally diagnosed him was a specialist in childhood disorders and she spent a lot of time with him. PM me if you would like to. My son is now 11 yrs. and it has been difficult finding thearpy for him. (I live in a rural area)

 

[Hisrosebud]

Aspberger's actually

I asked about aspbergers. They told me that because he has speech delays that it rules it out. The developmental psychologist who is conducting the study also says that he does not have any obsessions. She does not see aspergers. If anything, she thought mild pdd-nos.

Jane

 

[nicodemus]

My son is in the diagnosing process. When I read the thread, How did you know? I see all the signs except Caleb loves to be around people. He just does not know how to be around people.

He scored 22 out of 30 on the autism scale. 30 being autistic. Because I am a stay at home mother, the doctor wanted to see what he would do in a class. He is in a class room and the special ed teacher is not seeing autism.

It's hard to say. The range of behavior in autistic children is very wide. My little brother is autistic, but very social, which is atypical, but not impossible. He does display many of the "typical" autistic characteristics.

So, how do you really know? With all this issues crossing over with similar symptoms? Should I just be grateful? Should I stop worrying? I just feel like they push on us early intervention and then make you feel guilty for trying to get that intervention!

I'd suggest trying to connect with some of the Autistic support groups and/or research societies near you locally. They can help a lot. My brother was misdiagnosed at first, he was lumped in the catch all of "retarted," but nothing really specific, which prevented the early intervention. The earlier steps are taken to try to help correct these behaviors the better. By the time my brother was properly diagnosed, it was too late to deal with some things. However, my friend's brother has an autistic child and they've caught it early and he has made MASSIVE strides and now attends regular school. Of course, each child is different, but one of the keys is just to find out as much as you can.

 

[we5frogs]

I have found that for me, the label was not important. They could call it whatever they wanted, but if I found a treatment or intervention that seemed to be working, we used it. By the time they actually wrote Aspergers with Tourettes and SID on his chart, we had already been using treatment methods for these and other disorders with mixed success, and chose new methods to try based on his symptoms and what works best for him.

As for the school, they really were not partial to which diagnosis we used, as long as we had one, so that we could get state aid to fund the services we requested.

No child fits neatly into the diagnostic boxes they come up with, and it can only hurt them to try.

 

[BeanMak]

I found this interesting-
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/pddnos.html

 

[Fangtastic]

my son began with the Vanderbilt crew in Nashville giving him a PDD diagnosis at 2 and half then they were able to give him the autism diagnosis 6 months later.Its so wide open,i've yet to meet a parent with an autistic kid like my own,I hear the variations are so vast....It makes me wonder what my son really has at times,but I see 10% autism.thats all they need.

 

[Cool CD]

The easiest way to know if he has Autism to check to see if he is human, in which case he does, since all humans have Autism no matter what lies certain researchers have attempted to cover it up with.

We all have autism? Do you mean that we can all be anti social at times or daydream?

 

[Zacharias]

In order to have Autism one must qualify according to the DSM-IV Code.

 

[Mirelys]

I don't know what Young Christian meant, but it could have been something like this:
Autism is diagnosed when traits which are common in humans either become exaggerated, or more traits than normal appear.
For example, someone who has sensory issues (common on the spectrum) will not be diagnosed as autistic/AS unless they also have other problems (social difficulty, dyscalculia, CAPD, etc.).

And FYI, not everyone on the spectrum in anti-social. Sometimes I am intensely social (just bad at it ).