Evaluation at Kennedy krieger's department of neuropsych vs. Center for development and learning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a clinician in the behavioral psychology department at KKI. In my experience reading patients’ charts, the neuropsych evals are typically more comprehensive. CDL employs a lot of nurse practitioners who will diagnose any kid with attention difficulties as having ADHD without ruling out other conditions that could be contributing to executive dysfunction. I have also seen notes from the CDL that state “no concerns for autism spectrum disorder” while also indicating sensory sensitivities, difficulties making friends, social skills deficits, and repetitive behaviors, which are core symptoms of autism. I would not trust pediatricians or nurses to diagnose your kid with any mental health/psychiatric condition. They are not trained psychologists, who receive years of training dedicated to psychological assessment, psychometrics, and differential diagnosis.

Thank you for posting this. CDL at KKI misdiagnosed and totally mistreated one of my kids, causing YEARS of problems and even trauma. We are much better, but trusting CDL is my biggest parenting regret. In hindsight, I regret placing trust in their branding, the definitiveness of their diagnoses, their degrees, and the apparent certainty. Those relatively short developmental ped appointments are covered by insurance but not worth it, in my opinion.

I don't post here much, but I stumbled into this because a friend mentioned it. I was glad to see this post. Certainly glad others have had positive experiences in this thread, but I would remain very, very, very cautious as a parent.

Interesting. We got an autism diagnosis from KKI - CARD (now CASSI). I didn’t request that center but was triaged there by the person who did the intake from the general KKI appointment line. The assessor was a young clinical psychologist who seemed pretty thorough but didn’t really do a great job at all explaining what such a mild autism Dx meant or what to focus on in parenting. It seemed like just a diagnosis and not any sort of comprehensive overview of the child and their challenges and strengths (which in our kid are not hard at all to perceive - no “teasing out” needed). No connection to services and no help to parents to adjust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a clinician in the behavioral psychology department at KKI. In my experience reading patients’ charts, the neuropsych evals are typically more comprehensive. CDL employs a lot of nurse practitioners who will diagnose any kid with attention difficulties as having ADHD without ruling out other conditions that could be contributing to executive dysfunction. I have also seen notes from the CDL that state “no concerns for autism spectrum disorder” while also indicating sensory sensitivities, difficulties making friends, social skills deficits, and repetitive behaviors, which are core symptoms of autism. I would not trust pediatricians or nurses to diagnose your kid with any mental health/psychiatric condition. They are not trained psychologists, who receive years of training dedicated to psychological assessment, psychometrics, and differential diagnosis.

Wow. I'm a parent who has been going to the KKI CDL since my DS was 2.5. I also recently had a neuropsych done with them as well. Frankly, it's concerning that you feel the need to trash your colleagues. It makes me wary of YOUR department. Not theirs.

Also, stay in your lane, there are many different reasons that kids can have sensory sensitivities, difficulties making friends, social skills deficits, and repetitive behaviors. No, they aren't trained psychologists, but then again, you aren't a trained neurologist or developmental pediatrician. And you can't diagnose someone off of a chart.

Thirdly, the phrasing you used above sounds very similar to what would be in my own son's chart. So tomorrow, I'm most likely going to draft up an email and send it to KKI and let them know that they have a seriously unprofessional person in their department and I'm concerned about privacy.

So yeah, I sound like a Karen, but I don't care. No doctors are perfect but you are out of line.

As to the original question, the CDL DevPed will conduct an assessment and testing, but it will be different from the neuropsych. They will also do physical testing, not just cognitive. For me, the DevPed is more long-term monitoring and intervention planning whereas the neuropsych is a snapshot not done very often. Some kids will only ever get one.

Not everyone has a great experience there, but I've really enjoyed ours.

Wow okay take several deep breaths. First, I am not diagnosing based on anyone's chart alone. I am talking about my very own patients who I interact with on a weekly basis. Second, I used very broad language that in absolutely 0 way can be traced back to any particular patient. Third, yes there could be a number of reasons for sensory sensitivities, social skills deficits, etc. However, if during an initial evaluation, you list all the core feature of Autism and don't recommend any follow up testing for Autism and instead say "no concerns for autism at this time", then what are you doing?