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possible ASD, best source for evaluations?


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So, I'm really feeling that I need to get one of my children thorough evaluations, with ASD a likely candidate for diagnosis. Kiddo has already had LD evals through the school system as well as an evaluation through a private neuropsych. Current diagnoses include ADHD, anxiety, and a speech articulation disorder. Has also had issues with OCD and tics, and has definite social skills difficulties. We've had medical professionals suggest that he has multiple ASD characteristics.

 

I'm trying to figure out what kind of professional/team would be best to do a thorough evaluation and tease out the various issues going on. I wasn't super impressed with the neuropsych we went to before so am looking for someone different.

Edited by maize
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Is there an autism center you could look at? They bring together the team based on the child’s profile (psych, OT/PT, SLP, etc).

ETA: An autism center will include professionals that are experts in autism.

Edited by Guest
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If you can connect with people in your area who are part of the autism community (social skill group leaders, behaviorists, etc.), they can probably give you some names. As you say, autism is a separate issue that really benefits from extra time. There are autism clinics, also. A clinic will usually do multi-faceted, so then you get OT, SLP. I'm taking my ds for some more testing by another SLP who specializes in social thinking. Like you would think oh superfluous, he has lots of language, but actually I suspect that this one eval would probably turn out to be the most insightful of ANYTHING we've done so far. We'll see, but I think so.

 

The person doing this eval is from the training list for dynamic social assessments at SocialThinking.com We got introduced on how to do them and why you want them at the conference, and now I'm really psyched. She's going to run some additional standardized tools. Should be very interesting, and she can correlate it to IEP goals.

 

Remember, the issue is not just what the DSM label is. That's the easy part. The hard part is sorting out what to DO with that info, how you apply it, how you make a difference. So I like multi-factored evals, whether it's piecemeal or at a clinic. The more eyes, the more perspectives, the better.

Edited by OhElizabeth
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For certain benefit programs, they want to see a M.D. such as a developmental pediatrician, psychiatrist, or pediatric neurologist diagnose rather than a PhD./PsyD. psychologist. It can be a concurring diagnosis if you find a non-M.D. that you really want to do the eval. But if you do go to a multidisciplinary center, I would confirm that they have a M.D. who can sign off on the report for you.

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In our state the MD doesn't matter. An MD diagnosis can get a door open, sure, but it's all about the psych here. And really, psych evals can be so disatisfactory. They're high paid hatchet jobs sometimes, seems like, throwing out labels and opinions with impunity, without follow-up, without consequences.

 

But yeah, I have a bad attitude about a lot of things.

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Do any of the kids receive services or therapies currently? If so, their current team members may be your best source for names. It was our Early Interventionist who told me where to go when it looked like a year-long wait list to get DS4 into our children's hospital clinic for evaluation (they give priority to children under 3, because of early intervention, and Marco was JUST over the age of 3 when we asked). She was able to direct me to one of the autism clinic's psychs who happened also to operate a private service, but didn't really advertise it. 

Since our medical insurance doesn't require a referral, it was easy-peasy to just call myself, although I could have just had the pedi write a script for it and take it wherever I wanted, I guess.

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I've gotten in touch with a local special needs support group, hopefully they can point me in the direction of more resources.

 

It's frustrating to try to access services and help and find that getting anywhere is really difficult.

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I've gotten in touch with a local special needs support group, hopefully they can point me in the direction of more resources.

 

It's frustrating to try to access services and help and find that getting anywhere is really difficult.

Yes.  In fact it is way more than frustrating.  Hoping you can find a good avenue for help.   :grouphug:

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At least, I couldn't find any when I was looking into this a year ago. I really ought to check again I guess.

 

does your state have a medical school?   I ended up taking dudeling to their child dev. clinic (full team) as I was (incorrectly) told it would be faster than trying to get into the children's hospital clinic.

have you checked for a clinic associated with your children's hospital?

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