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Where to get a formal diagnosis for help with college...


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DD is finishing up 10th grade and has always been homeschooled.  Other than a Sensory Processing Disorder diagnosis at 2 1/2 we have had no formal diagnosis.  She really wants to go to college, but has many issues that affect schooling that we just try to work around at home as best we can.   I know she cannot make it through college without some kind of help.  Where do I start?  Pediatrician?  The college?  I have no clue.

 

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I agree check your insurance. Ideally you want a neuropsychologist that does a pretty lengthy, in depth evaluation, not just for college help but also hopefully to give better clarity to the underlying struggles so that maybe remediation is also possible. Another thing that will hopefully come out of evals is an idea of any strengths that may have been masked by the struggles and hopefully a way to tap into those strengths.

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Some girls with SPD are going to go ASD and some are going to go ADHD or I suppose not an additional diagnosis. Then it gets sticky, because you could benefit from language testing as part of the eval, screenings for those behavioral things and anxiety, etc. So the *most* important thing is that the testing is long enough to do that. A clinical psych (1-2 hours) is going to be hard-pressed to get everything done. We just did a fresh CELF on my ds. I know, I know, people are laughing cuz I slam it so much. It's data! Anyways, to do a thorough pragmatics (SLDT) and the CELF was 2 1/2 hours. He needed a lot of breaks. I think just in general they probably plan about an hour for each.

 

If you think ASD is on the table (or just want to make sure it's not), you could go through an autism or developmental clinic. You might want a fresh OT eval. Sometimes they will do that an ASD clinic. When she was little like that, they couldn't test for retained reflexes. At this point, that would be something really good to check and be eliminating as a concern!

 

Sometimes a psych will do APD screening, and sometimes it gets done by an SLP as part of a multi-factored eval. Again, another thing you want to make sure gets considered and done if there's any indication it's an issue. 

 

So that's why I said look more for the number of hours and what they're actually going to DO than just the name on the door. Some big name psychs are so busy they outsource a lot of their testing to assistants. 

 

 

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