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And the diagnosis is...


maize
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Quirky.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

That's what the neuropsych told me today when we finally got to meet to discuss results of recent evaluations for one of my children, including the ADOS as he has some definite autism like characteristics. The guy remarked that yes he saw the autism characteristics everyone has been telling me to get him evaluated for but that there weren't enough/enough severity to fit an autism profile.

 

IQ bumping the 99th percentile and executive function scores around the 10th. Ayup, that's my kid.

 

His official diagnoses remain ADHD and anxiety.

 

The quirky label I applied to him myself many years ago, though I don't mind having it confirmed :tongue_smilie:

 

We talked about a few ideas to work on executive function and social skills. The Neuropsych dude said he sees quite a few kids like this and that normal school settings generally do not work well for them because of their executive function demands. Yeah, I knew that. At least he isn't telling me I'm ruining the child by homeschooling him.

Edited by maize
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That sounds like you got some good information :)

I really wish it were more information.

 

In some ways I was hoping for the autism diagnosis--it would have explained some things and opened up more resources for addressing them.

 

It's been a rough year for him.

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This is just one of those things that comes up here ---- but do you think you have good observations of him without supports, in settings where by age he would be expected to do well but he has a hard time?

 

That is something that comes up sometimes because in public school kids will show their struggles sometimes, where with homeschooling parents can give their kids more support so they don't have as many struggles.

 

Which is good until that comes across as "no problem to see here" at an eval.

 

You might even be able to add more observations to what he has now.

 

Not sure if you know this but the ADOS is not a 100% screening tool, it does miss kids and I have seen numbers that make it seem like it misses a lot of kids.

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I have an older son where I had the autism question and got the same answer you did here -- but it fits for him. He is doing pretty well. He just does have spectrum traits!!!!!!! So I got confirmation he does have spectrum traits but not diagnosable.

 

But sometimes the answer doesn't quite fit, too. And then people do get a different answer with a different eval, sometimes.

Edited by Lecka
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Another thing is, with observations parents can score kids better because they see them better.

 

I do observation forms periodically that have a parent and teacher form, and a couple of times I have scored my son differently and it is me doing a bad job of observing him.

 

Other times he does have different behavior at home than at school, for various reasons.

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I feel like an autism diagnosis would have sort of tied things together because it aligns with the severity of issues we are seeing.

 

The neuropsych just doesn't think the profile is quite right.

What that leaves us with is a cluster of symptoms to deal with individually. Of course we would be dealing with the exact same stuff if the diagnosis had been different.

 

I guess mostly it just makes it harder for me to explain to other people why he is struggling so much.

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I think a lot of times getting an autism diagnosis doesn't really help that much for explaining -- it is a really broad diagnosis and it is misunderstood a lot ------- you could tell people and have them either say they don't see it, or not make any connection you might hope they would make.

 

It depends if this is telling people like relatives, friends.... or if it is things like telling an activity teacher or something like that.

 

If you need to tell someone you have advice about how to have things go better -- you can still say that. 

 

If you have any recommendation then saying "we are following this recommendation we got" type of stuff can go a really long way, it can be more informative than a diagnosis in a lot of ways. 

 

 

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