Loaded question: MERLD and autism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm poster above who posted that I have child diagnosed with MERLD as well as many medical issues. To answer the above question, yes, my child has done a couple of MRIs, as well as five EEGs

Buried in the long debate about MERLD vs ASD, someone mentioned medicating for an irregular EEG even if no seizures. To the poster who suggested that, did it help with language and cognition? We are currently not medicating for seizures but are considering a trileptal trial...

Yes, that's me. my son has benign epilepsy BUT he has delays so we are medicating and it has helped. Apparently it does in like 10%of cases. It's hard for me to separate them out but when he turned 4 we started medicating and he got a normal language test for he first time and since has had cognitive gains. We're your son's MRI results normal? ours were which I guess rules out some stuff so means that medicating is I think more at the discretion of the neuro. What kind of activity was on the eeg?

In cases of ESES, the medication is different from the typical anti-seizure regimens because it is intended to supress the epileptiform discharges, not just seizures: steroids and benzos. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18555191

Not sure if this is the same or different from the idea of medicating for BECTS.

It's different because we're doing a basic aed, lamictal. There is by no means consensus in the neurology world about mediating for abnormal eeg btw. Neuros decide on an individual basis.

[Anonymous]

^also it's not really a question with eses - you medicate. Most parents with bects don't medicate because there are no seizures, or very rare seizures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^also it's not really a question with eses - you medicate. Most parents with bects don't medicate because there are no seizures, or very rare seizures.

I understand this slightly differently -- you medicate with ESES (or Landau Kleffner) (even in the absence of seizures) to eliminate the epileptiform activity because that is what interferes with learning; not to supress seizures. Those medications may be different from the more commonly used AEDs (ie steriods and benzos). With BECTS medication would be an AED to supress the seizures, and since the seizures are generally infrequent or not severe, and remit, in many cases BECTS patients don't medicate. However there now is evidence that BECTS causes lingering learning disabilities, so maybe the idea is to medicate to supress epileptiform activity similar to ESES? Anyway, very confusing, and the #1 thing is to have a great neuro that you trust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, Camarata published the "Late-Talking Children" book in 2014 (as was the interview) and republished it in 2015. It's not that recent and nothing new, it's just based on all his prior research b/f DSM V changes in 2013.

It's also bizarre your obsession on treating language disorder when Camarata talks about clinicians conducting a “confirmatory” diagnosis. As a parent if you're just looking to SLPs to confirm a language disorder--guess what, that's what you'll find. SLPs are not qualified to diagnose autism without specialized training: http://blog.asha.org/2014/04/10/can-speech-language-pathologists-diagnose-autism/

We all know that most children with autism are late talkers and most late talkers don't have autism. We also know that the numbers of children with the autism "label" is artificially inflated by IEP designations.

The OP's child is just 3, stop trying to "help" her by ramming your obvious skew that it's not autism. Come back and rant all you want about language disorders when your child has actually a had a neuropscyh evaluation. At 3, her developmental pediatrician was being conservative and not over zealous with a diagnosis. What her child's diagnosis will be in a few years will be anyone's guess.

However, it doesn't matter if it's a language disorder or autism (btw, kids with autism can have language disorders too), her kid sounds in need of practical help.

OP's child is not 3. She said the 3 year testing is coming up to rule on special education eligibility, so more around 5 or 6. Meaning the Developmental Pediatrician's diagnosis will most likely stand as the child would have been past the age where ASD is readily indentified.

OP, what we did in this case was allow for everything but the ASD evaluation. So language and academic testing was done, and our language impaired child qualified under the speech and language category -- which meant he was able to get speech, OT, and resource room.

Why would you refuse the ASD evaluation? I can understand refusing a school district ASD evaluation (or any evaluation) if you doubt their competence or think that they're trying to shirk language supports with the ASD label. But why wouldn't you have your own dev ped do one if there was any cause for concern?

B/C PP's kid was initially diagnosed as autistic, but her SLP diagnosed MERLD. She's avoiding a diagnosis obviously b/c it a kid isn't autistic it's much easier to diagnosis when a child is older and she's afraid of what the results would find.

I'm also curious as to what the "language category" is for an IEP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, Camarata published the "Late-Talking Children" book in 2014 (as was the interview) and republished it in 2015. It's not that recent and nothing new, it's just based on all his prior research b/f DSM V changes in 2013.

It's also bizarre your obsession on treating language disorder when Camarata talks about clinicians conducting a “confirmatory” diagnosis. As a parent if you're just looking to SLPs to confirm a language disorder--guess what, that's what you'll find. SLPs are not qualified to diagnose autism without specialized training: http://blog.asha.org/2014/04/10/can-speech-language-pathologists-diagnose-autism/

We all know that most children with autism are late talkers and most late talkers don't have autism. We also know that the numbers of children with the autism "label" is artificially inflated by IEP designations.

The OP's child is just 3, stop trying to "help" her by ramming your obvious skew that it's not autism. Come back and rant all you want about language disorders when your child has actually a had a neuropscyh evaluation. At 3, her developmental pediatrician was being conservative and not over zealous with a diagnosis. What her child's diagnosis will be in a few years will be anyone's guess.

However, it doesn't matter if it's a language disorder or autism (btw, kids with autism can have language disorders too), her kid sounds in need of practical help.

OP's child is not 3. She said the 3 year testing is coming up to rule on special education eligibility, so more around 5 or 6. Meaning the Developmental Pediatrician's diagnosis will most likely stand as the child would have been past the age where ASD is readily indentified.

OP, what we did in this case was allow for everything but the ASD evaluation. So language and academic testing was done, and our language impaired child qualified under the speech and language category -- which meant he was able to get speech, OT, and resource room.

Why would you refuse the ASD evaluation? I can understand refusing a school district ASD evaluation (or any evaluation) if you doubt their competence or think that they're trying to shirk language supports with the ASD label. But why wouldn't you have your own dev ped do one if there was any cause for concern?

B/C PP's kid was initially diagnosed as autistic, but her SLP diagnosed MERLD. She's avoiding a diagnosis obviously b/c it a kid isn't autistic it's much easier to diagnosis when a child is older and she's afraid of what the results would find.

I'm also curious as to what the "language category" is for an IEP.

Interesting how quick and insistent you are everything is autism without even meeting a child. We are so lucky to have someone like you, so we don't even need professional diagnosis because you know it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, Camarata published the "Late-Talking Children" book in 2014 (as was the interview) and republished it in 2015. It's not that recent and nothing new, it's just based on all his prior research b/f DSM V changes in 2013.

It's also bizarre your obsession on treating language disorder when Camarata talks about clinicians conducting a “confirmatory” diagnosis. As a parent if you're just looking to SLPs to confirm a language disorder--guess what, that's what you'll find. SLPs are not qualified to diagnose autism without specialized training: http://blog.asha.org/2014/04/10/can-speech-language-pathologists-diagnose-autism/

We all know that most children with autism are late talkers and most late talkers don't have autism. We also know that the numbers of children with the autism "label" is artificially inflated by IEP designations.

The OP's child is just 3, stop trying to "help" her by ramming your obvious skew that it's not autism. Come back and rant all you want about language disorders when your child has actually a had a neuropscyh evaluation. At 3, her developmental pediatrician was being conservative and not over zealous with a diagnosis. What her child's diagnosis will be in a few years will be anyone's guess.

However, it doesn't matter if it's a language disorder or autism (btw, kids with autism can have language disorders too), her kid sounds in need of practical help.

OP's child is not 3. She said the 3 year testing is coming up to rule on special education eligibility, so more around 5 or 6. Meaning the Developmental Pediatrician's diagnosis will most likely stand as the child would have been past the age where ASD is readily indentified.

OP, what we did in this case was allow for everything but the ASD evaluation. So language and academic testing was done, and our language impaired child qualified under the speech and language category -- which meant he was able to get speech, OT, and resource room.

Why would you refuse the ASD evaluation? I can understand refusing a school district ASD evaluation (or any evaluation) if you doubt their competence or think that they're trying to shirk language supports with the ASD label. But why wouldn't you have your own dev ped do one if there was any cause for concern?

B/C PP's kid was initially diagnosed as autistic, but her SLP diagnosed MERLD. She's avoiding a diagnosis obviously b/c it a kid isn't autistic it's much easier to diagnosis when a child is older and she's afraid of what the results would find.

I'm also curious as to what the "language category" is for an IEP.

Huh? Speech or Language Impairment is an enumerated disability category in IDEA. I imagine that many language impairments might also overlap with Specific Learning Disabilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^also it's not really a question with eses - you medicate. Most parents with bects don't medicate because there are no seizures, or very rare seizures.

I understand this slightly differently -- you medicate with ESES (or Landau Kleffner) (even in the absence of seizures) to eliminate the epileptiform activity because that is what interferes with learning; not to supress seizures. Those medications may be different from the more commonly used AEDs (ie steriods and benzos). With BECTS medication would be an AED to supress the seizures, and since the seizures are generally infrequent or not severe, and remit, in many cases BECTS patients don't medicate. However there now is evidence that BECTS causes lingering learning disabilities, so maybe the idea is to medicate to supress epileptiform activity similar to ESES? Anyway, very confusing, and the #1 thing is to have a great neuro that you trust.

I think that's correct but even for lk or eses you may use an aed. And yes there is new research that all spiking can cause lingering issues so that's why some neuros believe it appropriate to medicate in some cases. Our neuro described the spikes as making the brain irritated which makes sense. And explains our son's just totally erratic behavior at times.

[Anonymous]

^^ I do think children with delays and irregular eeg should at least trial an aed. I know not all neuros agree but some do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, Camarata published the "Late-Talking Children" book in 2014 (as was the interview) and republished it in 2015. It's not that recent and nothing new, it's just based on all his prior research b/f DSM V changes in 2013.

It's also bizarre your obsession on treating language disorder when Camarata talks about clinicians conducting a “confirmatory” diagnosis. As a parent if you're just looking to SLPs to confirm a language disorder--guess what, that's what you'll find. SLPs are not qualified to diagnose autism without specialized training: http://blog.asha.org/2014/04/10/can-speech-language-pathologists-diagnose-autism/

We all know that most children with autism are late talkers and most late talkers don't have autism. We also know that the numbers of children with the autism "label" is artificially inflated by IEP designations.

The OP's child is just 3, stop trying to "help" her by ramming your obvious skew that it's not autism. Come back and rant all you want about language disorders when your child has actually a had a neuropscyh evaluation. At 3, her developmental pediatrician was being conservative and not over zealous with a diagnosis. What her child's diagnosis will be in a few years will be anyone's guess.

However, it doesn't matter if it's a language disorder or autism (btw, kids with autism can have language disorders too), her kid sounds in need of practical help.

OP's child is not 3. She said the 3 year testing is coming up to rule on special education eligibility, so more around 5 or 6. Meaning the Developmental Pediatrician's diagnosis will most likely stand as the child would have been past the age where ASD is readily indentified.

OP, what we did in this case was allow for everything but the ASD evaluation. So language and academic testing was done, and our language impaired child qualified under the speech and language category -- which meant he was able to get speech, OT, and resource room.

Why would you refuse the ASD evaluation? I can understand refusing a school district ASD evaluation (or any evaluation) if you doubt their competence or think that they're trying to shirk language supports with the ASD label. But why wouldn't you have your own dev ped do one if there was any cause for concern?

B/C PP's kid was initially diagnosed as autistic, but her SLP diagnosed MERLD. She's avoiding a diagnosis obviously b/c it a kid isn't autistic it's much easier to diagnosis when a child is older and she's afraid of what the results would find.

I'm also curious as to what the "language category" is for an IEP.

Huh? Speech or Language Impairment is an enumerated disability category in IDEA. I imagine that many language impairments might also overlap with Specific Learning Disabilities.

Some may overlap, some don't. Not that poster but we only have a Language IEP. Not sure why you are so surprised by that. It is one of the 13 qualifying categories. Learning disability is different than language impairment. They can be joint or a child can have one and not the other.

[Anonymous]

From Wrights Law: Speech or language impairment. Disability category under IDEA; includes communication disorders, language impairments, voice impairments that adversely educational performance. - See more at: http://www.wrightslaw.com/links/glossary.sped.legal.htm#sthash.tJ3gdCIv.dpuf

From the Dept. of Ed
"Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance."
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/,root,regs,300,A,300%252E8,

MERLD was never a language impairment when it existed in the DSM. Your kids have communication disorders and you don't even know it. Ignorance is bliss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From Wrights Law: Speech or language impairment. Disability category under IDEA; includes communication disorders, language impairments, voice impairments that adversely educational performance. - See more at: http://www.wrightslaw.com/links/glossary.sped.legal.htm#sthash.tJ3gdCIv.dpuf

From the Dept. of Ed
"Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance."
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/,root,regs,300,A,300%252E8,

MERLD was never a language impairment when it existed in the DSM. Your kids have communication disorders and you don't even know it. Ignorance is bliss.

Doesn't that Dept of Ed quote say a language impairment is a communication disorder such as a language impairment that adversely affects educational performance? Not very helpful. As language is a major way of communicating it is not surprising that a language impairment could be viewed as a communication disorder. And the old MERLD was definitely a language disorder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, Camarata published the "Late-Talking Children" book in 2014 (as was the interview) and republished it in 2015. It's not that recent and nothing new, it's just based on all his prior research b/f DSM V changes in 2013.

It's also bizarre your obsession on treating language disorder when Camarata talks about clinicians conducting a “confirmatory” diagnosis. As a parent if you're just looking to SLPs to confirm a language disorder--guess what, that's what you'll find. SLPs are not qualified to diagnose autism without specialized training: http://blog.asha.org/2014/04/10/can-speech-language-pathologists-diagnose-autism/

We all know that most children with autism are late talkers and most late talkers don't have autism. We also know that the numbers of children with the autism "label" is artificially inflated by IEP designations.

The OP's child is just 3, stop trying to "help" her by ramming your obvious skew that it's not autism. Come back and rant all you want about language disorders when your child has actually a had a neuropscyh evaluation. At 3, her developmental pediatrician was being conservative and not over zealous with a diagnosis. What her child's diagnosis will be in a few years will be anyone's guess.

However, it doesn't matter if it's a language disorder or autism (btw, kids with autism can have language disorders too), her kid sounds in need of practical help.

OP's child is not 3. She said the 3 year testing is coming up to rule on special education eligibility, so more around 5 or 6. Meaning the Developmental Pediatrician's diagnosis will most likely stand as the child would have been past the age where ASD is readily indentified.

OP, what we did in this case was allow for everything but the ASD evaluation. So language and academic testing was done, and our language impaired child qualified under the speech and language category -- which meant he was able to get speech, OT, and resource room.

Why would you refuse the ASD evaluation? I can understand refusing a school district ASD evaluation (or any evaluation) if you doubt their competence or think that they're trying to shirk language supports with the ASD label. But why wouldn't you have your own dev ped do one if there was any cause for concern?

Because we already had it done -- 3 times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From Wrights Law: Speech or language impairment. Disability category under IDEA; includes communication disorders, language impairments, voice impairments that adversely educational performance. - See more at: http://www.wrightslaw.com/links/glossary.sped.legal.htm#sthash.tJ3gdCIv.dpuf

From the Dept. of Ed
"Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance."
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/,root,regs,300,A,300%252E8,

MERLD was never a language impairment when it existed in the DSM. Your kids have communication disorders and you don't even know it. Ignorance is bliss.

Doesn't that Dept of Ed quote say a language impairment is a communication disorder such as a language impairment that adversely affects educational performance? Not very helpful. As language is a major way of communicating it is not surprising that a language impairment could be viewed as a communication disorder. And the old MERLD was definitely a language disorder.

I don't know what that PP is talking about. MERLD falls under speech/language.

http://www.understandingspecialeducation.com/13-categories-of-special-education.html

There are 13 categories of special education as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In order to qualify for special education, the IEP team must determine that a child has one of the following:

Autism
Blindness
Deafness
Emotional Disturbance
Hearing Impairment
Intellectual Disability
Multiple Disabilities
Orthopedic Impairment
Other Health Impaired
Specific Learning Disability
Speech or Language Impairment
Traumatic Brain Injury
Visual Impairment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From Wrights Law: Speech or language impairment. Disability category under IDEA; includes communication disorders, language impairments, voice impairments that adversely educational performance. - See more at: http://www.wrightslaw.com/links/glossary.sped.legal.htm#sthash.tJ3gdCIv.dpuf

From the Dept. of Ed
"Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance."
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/,root,regs,300,A,300%252E8,

MERLD was never a language impairment when it existed in the DSM. Your kids have communication disorders and you don't even know it. Ignorance is bliss.

Doesn't that Dept of Ed quote say a language impairment is a communication disorder such as a language impairment that adversely affects educational performance? Not very helpful. As language is a major way of communicating it is not surprising that a language impairment could be viewed as a communication disorder. And the old MERLD was definitely a language disorder.

The IEP language impairment means physical impairment or communication disorder. Language disorders are separate and not captured by the handful of IEP designations. Because some people got IEPs under "Language" doesn't mean their kid isn't autistic. That may be the case, but it's pathetic that they don't even understand the IEP labels.

What's obvious is that they're so relieved and/or self-congratulatory that it wasn't "autism." BFD. My kid has a communication disorder and isn't autistic. I'm am sick to death of the evident prejudice. Autism isn't an insult.

Parents should be sticking together to advocate for qualified SLPs in the public school--not just squawking about how their kid isn't autistic and it's so different. It's really not. Let's hold the public schools accountable for not providing services and not using evidence based reading programs for a start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From Wrights Law: Speech or language impairment. Disability category under IDEA; includes communication disorders, language impairments, voice impairments that adversely educational performance. - See more at: http://www.wrightslaw.com/links/glossary.sped.legal.htm#sthash.tJ3gdCIv.dpuf

From the Dept. of Ed
"Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance."
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/,root,regs,300,A,300%252E8,

MERLD was never a language impairment when it existed in the DSM. Your kids have communication disorders and you don't even know it. Ignorance is bliss.

Doesn't that Dept of Ed quote say a language impairment is a communication disorder such as a language impairment that adversely affects educational performance? Not very helpful. As language is a major way of communicating it is not surprising that a language impairment could be viewed as a communication disorder. And the old MERLD was definitely a language disorder.

The IEP language impairment means physical impairment or communication disorder. Language disorders are separate and not captured by the handful of IEP designations. Because some people got IEPs under "Language" doesn't mean their kid isn't autistic. That may be the case, but it's pathetic that they don't even understand the IEP labels.

What's obvious is that they're so relieved and/or self-congratulatory that it wasn't "autism." BFD. My kid has a communication disorder and isn't autistic. I'm am sick to death of the evident prejudice. Autism isn't an insult.

Parents should be sticking together to advocate for qualified SLPs in the public school--not just squawking about how their kid isn't autistic and it's so different. It's really not. Let's hold the public schools accountable for not providing services and not using evidence based reading programs for a start.

We get SLP services at school. I have no idea what those service are or what is done as the SLP does not communicate with us. The school system is not going to change, so as parents we need to make sure kids get what they need with or without the schools support. I don't think the school SLP works on reading/comprehension and other things our private SLP does. But, there is also a huge difference with 1-1 services and group speech when kids are not even grouped with similar concerns but out of convience.