KKI or Children’s for autism?

[Anonymous]

I’m considering an autism evaluation for my son who will be 3 next month, who may fit the profile for Asperger’s/level 1 autism. I know we will be on a waitlist regardless, but are there advantages to either KKI or Children’s that I should consider?

Mostly just interested in having a developmental eval. We might pursue some OT in the meantime but no need for speech therapy.

[Anonymous]

Get on both waiting lists. No need to make a decision now.

[Anonymous]

See if your pediatrician can recommend a specific evaluator at KKI or Children's. Also OT is a great idea. You can get an OT eval more quickly and get services started. Make sure they have experience with autism, things like DIR Floortime and the Zones of Regulation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:See if your pediatrician can recommend a specific evaluator at KKI or Children's. Also OT is a great idea. You can get an OT eval more quickly and get services started. Make sure they have experience with autism, things like DIR Floortime and the Zones of Regulation

I don’t think you can request a specific evaluator. You just get on the list and see what pops up. Fwiw, I have not heard good things about how the KKI reports are written, so I’d go to Children’s if I had the choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See if your pediatrician can recommend a specific evaluator at KKI or Children's. Also OT is a great idea. You can get an OT eval more quickly and get services started. Make sure they have experience with autism, things like DIR Floortime and the Zones of Regulation

I don’t think you can request a specific evaluator. You just get on the list and see what pops up. Fwiw, I have not heard good things about how the KKI reports are written, so I’d go to Children’s if I had the choice.

We requested a specific evaluator at KKI, and were offered an appt with her. Had scheduled with another group already so turned down the appointment.

We heard the opposite - don't go with Children's and know people who were very happy with KKI. It seems like there is a lot of variability within each of them.

[Anonymous]

Do you have his 3 year old IEP meeting scheduled yet?

[Anonymous]

Get in both waitlists and take the first available appointment.

[Anonymous]

Get on all the waitlists. Given your child’s age, you should go through the child development clinic which is used to looking at younger kids and are able to diagnose a range of issues. Because they only deal with kids under age 4, the waitlist when we were on it was about 7 months which isn’t bad.

What are your concerns? Have you done early intervention—are you doing childfind? DD was diagnosed as what would be consider HFA at 2.5 by the child development clinic. This after being rejected from early intervention because she didn’t have enough of a delay. With the diagnosis we were able to get an IFSP and then an IEP (though she doesn’t get much).

The Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s has a 18-24 month waiting list last we heard when we were discharged due to age from the child development clinic. It now says on their website they are no longer doing evals for children >4. So because of your child’s age you may still be able to get on that waitlist too. As I said sign up for all of them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get on all the waitlists. Given your child’s age, you should go through the child development clinic which is used to looking at younger kids and are able to diagnose a range of issues. Because they only deal with kids under age 4, the waitlist when we were on it was about 7 months which isn’t bad.

What are your concerns? Have you done early intervention—are you doing childfind? DD was diagnosed as what would be consider HFA at 2.5 by the child development clinic. This after being rejected from early intervention because she didn’t have enough of a delay. With the diagnosis we were able to get an IFSP and then an IEP (though she doesn’t get much).

The Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s has a 18-24 month waiting list last we heard when we were discharged due to age from the child development clinic. It now says on their website they are no longer doing evals for children >4. So because of your child’s age you may still be able to get on that waitlist too. As I said sign up for all of them!

Whoops I wasn’t clear—the child development clinic at children’s National.

[Anonymous]

I am told children hospital autism evaluation is closed for now for NEW application because the waiting list is too long. The developmental ped at children hospital tell me.

[Anonymous]

Children's would not even put us on a waitlist. We are on KKI's waitlist but we went with a private psychologist (recommended by our Children's pediatrician).