IEP meetings, do they always suggest autism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Hmm. Interesting. My earlier post disappeared.

Scientific research has found that joint attention skills and the ability to read nonverbal cues separate non ASD from ASD.

You keep posting this. Do you have a kid who was diagnosed with ASD? I'm guessing not since if you did, you would know it's more subtle than that.

It's not like when you take your kid in for an evaluation, they check off "joint attention" and " ability to read nonverbal cues" as the criteria for diagnosing ASD or ruling it out.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and he never had issues with joint attention and his ability to read nonverbal cues have improved greatly to the point that it's not much of an issue at this point. So according to your criteria, he is "cured" which he certainly is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how an IEP would differ based on HFA vs. MERLD ADHD and SCD. The challenges seem so related that I have trouble seeing the distinction.

Exactly. They would get Speech, social skills class, Sp Ed support, OT and PT if needed.

Speech, OT, PT, and social skills are driven by "need" rather than diagnosis.

So all the supports are pretty much the same.

[Anonymous]

Does the code OHI (other health impaired) still exist in the system? If so, OP, would you be more comfortable pursuing this?


And, agreeing with a pp, I would get a good advocate on board to help write your IEP, regardless of how the coding shakes out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how an IEP would differ based on HFA vs. MERLD ADHD and SCD. The challenges seem so related that I have trouble seeing the distinction.

Exactly. They would get Speech, social skills class, Sp Ed support, OT and PT if needed.

Speech, OT, PT, and social skills are driven by "need" rather than diagnosis.

So all the supports are pretty much the same.

Forgot to put "sp ed support" is driven by "need" too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does the code OHI (other health impaired) still exist in the system? If so, OP, would you be more comfortable pursuing this?


And, agreeing with a pp, I would get a good advocate on board to help write your IEP, regardless of how the coding shakes out.

Yes, OHI is still there and what's generally used for ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hmm. Interesting. My earlier post disappeared.

Scientific research has found that joint attention skills and the ability to read nonverbal cues separate non ASD from ASD.

You keep posting this. Do you have a kid who was diagnosed with ASD? I'm guessing not since if you did, you would know it's more subtle than that.

It's not like when you take your kid in for an evaluation, they check off "joint attention" and " ability to read nonverbal cues" as the criteria for diagnosing ASD or ruling it out.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and he never had issues with joint attention and his ability to read nonverbal cues have improved greatly to the point that it's not much of an issue at this point. So according to your criteria, he is "cured" which he certainly is not.

I've read the research as I have a child with MERLD. At at young ages, it's the joint attention and nonverbal cues that are the major indicators that differentiate ASD from non ASD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how an IEP would differ based on HFA vs. MERLD ADHD and SCD. The challenges seem so related that I have trouble seeing the distinction.

Exactly. They would get Speech, social skills class, Sp Ed support, OT and PT if needed.

Speech, OT, PT, and social skills are driven by "need" rather than diagnosis.

So all the supports are pretty much the same.

Nope, they are really NOT the same.

Autism parents only see the world through the autism prism. It's like no other kid matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how an IEP would differ based on HFA vs. MERLD ADHD and SCD. The challenges seem so related that I have trouble seeing the distinction.

Exactly. They would get Speech, social skills class, Sp Ed support, OT and PT if needed.

Speech, OT, PT, and social skills are driven by "need" rather than diagnosis.

So all the supports are pretty much the same.

Nope, they are really NOT the same.

Autism parents only see the world through the autism prism. It's like no other kid matters.

Uhm... what? Can you elaborate your statement? Don't you put your child's needs first? And the supports are not the same, especially if in a case like OP the child may not be mainstreamed. Autism classrooms are very different from non-cat classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hmm. Interesting. My earlier post disappeared.

Scientific research has found that joint attention skills and the ability to read nonverbal cues separate non ASD from ASD.

You keep posting this. Do you have a kid who was diagnosed with ASD? I'm guessing not since if you did, you would know it's more subtle than that.

It's not like when you take your kid in for an evaluation, they check off "joint attention" and " ability to read nonverbal cues" as the criteria for diagnosing ASD or ruling it out.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and he never had issues with joint attention and his ability to read nonverbal cues have improved greatly to the point that it's not much of an issue at this point. So according to your criteria, he is "cured" which he certainly is not.

I've read the research as I have a child with MERLD. At at young ages, it's the joint attention and nonverbal cues that are the major indicators that differentiate ASD from non ASD.

You'd do yourself a favor by citing links to what you keep repeating, otherwise it sounds like you are just convincing yourself that your child does not have autism. Also, there is a LOT more that should go into an autism diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hmm. Interesting. My earlier post disappeared.

Scientific research has found that joint attention skills and the ability to read nonverbal cues separate non ASD from ASD.

You keep posting this. Do you have a kid who was diagnosed with ASD? I'm guessing not since if you did, you would know it's more subtle than that.

It's not like when you take your kid in for an evaluation, they check off "joint attention" and " ability to read nonverbal cues" as the criteria for diagnosing ASD or ruling it out.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and he never had issues with joint attention and his ability to read nonverbal cues have improved greatly to the point that it's not much of an issue at this point. So according to your criteria, he is "cured" which he certainly is not.

I've read the research as I have a child with MERLD. At at young ages, it's the joint attention and nonverbal cues that are the major indicators that differentiate ASD from non ASD.

You are doing everyone a disservice by making it sound like this is the criteria that is used for evaluating ASD or ruling it out b/c it is much more than that.

Also, many kids who are on the spectrum have joint attention and the ability to read nonverbal cues - but they are not as good at it as NT kids. A complete lack of joint attention and a complete inability to read nonverbal cues is true for the most severely affected kids with ASD.

[Anonymous]

Here's one study:

http://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2012/10/19/early-nonverbal-cues-autism-risk

Referential communication refers to the use of gestures, eye contact and the like to convey information about events and objects of interest. Typically it develops before speech. Previous research has shown that many children with ASD show deficits in these skills. We wondered whether we could document the emergence of such difficulties in high-risk baby sibs between 8 and 18 months of age. We explored whether such patterns might predict the severity of future autism symptoms.

This month, we reported the results of our study in Infancy, the journal of the International Society of Infant Studies.

Compared to a group of low-risk infants, the high-risk sibs showed less initiation of joint attention activities as early as 8 months of age. For instance, they were less likely to look at or point to an object to share interest with another person. Similarly they lagged in responding to joint attention cues. The classic example would be failing to follow someone else’s point. As a group, these children also lagged in the development of gesturing to request something.

Importantly, these early behavioral differences predicted outcome. Specifically, high-risk siblings who showed low levels of initiating joint attention tended to have higher levels of autism symptoms in their third year of life. High-risk siblings who showed fewer gains in signaling requests between 8 and 18 months likewise tended to have higher levels of autism symptoms.

These findings suggest that, during the first year of life, difficulties with nonverbal communication can predict later symptom levels and autism diagnosis.

Along with other BSRC researchers, we are now working to confirm these findings. By studying more children, we hope to pin down how early these differences in nonverbal communication can predict later symptoms.

For the moment, it appears that early communicative behaviors such as showing and requesting objects are key markers of early autism symptom in high-risk siblings. By monitoring these behaviors, healthcare professionals may be better able to screen for autism risk during infancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hmm. Interesting. My earlier post disappeared.

Scientific research has found that joint attention skills and the ability to read nonverbal cues separate non ASD from ASD.

You keep posting this. Do you have a kid who was diagnosed with ASD? I'm guessing not since if you did, you would know it's more subtle than that.

It's not like when you take your kid in for an evaluation, they check off "joint attention" and " ability to read nonverbal cues" as the criteria for diagnosing ASD or ruling it out.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and he never had issues with joint attention and his ability to read nonverbal cues have improved greatly to the point that it's not much of an issue at this point. So according to your criteria, he is "cured" which he certainly is not.

I've read the research as I have a child with MERLD. At at young ages, it's the joint attention and nonverbal cues that are the major indicators that differentiate ASD from non ASD.

You are doing everyone a disservice by making it sound like this is the criteria that is used for evaluating ASD or ruling it out b/c it is much more than that.

Also, many kids who are on the spectrum have joint attention and the ability to read nonverbal cues - but they are not as good at it as NT kids. A complete lack of joint attention and a complete inability to read nonverbal cues is true for only the most severely affected kids with ASD.

[Anonymous]

<<It's not like when you take your kid in for an evaluation, they check off "joint attention" and " ability to read nonverbal cues" as the criteria for diagnosing ASD or ruling it out. >>


Actually, I can't tell you how many doctors have cited this in initial evaluations for dismissing autism in my child and looking for other issues. So actually, it is almost like they have a check list with these two items.

[Anonymous]

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/33/5/781/

Systematic studies of infants with autism have not been previously carried out. Taking advantage of a new prospective screening instrument for autism in infancy (S. Baron-Cohen et al., 1996), the present study found that, compared with developmentally delayed and normally developing children, 20-month-old children with autism were specifically impaired on some aspects of empathy, joint attention, and imitation. Infants with autism failed to use social gaze in the empathy and joint attention tasks. Both the infants with autism and the infants with developmental delay demonstrated functional play, but very few participants in either group produced spontaneous pretend play. In the developmental delay group, but not the autism group, pretend play was shown following prompting. The implications of these findings for developmental accounts of autism and for the early diagnosis of the disorder are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

[Anonymous]

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/358/1430/315.short

Why is joint attention a pivotal skill in autism?

Joint attention abilities play a crucial role in the development of autism. Impairments in joint attention are among the earliest signs of the disorder and joint attention skills relate to outcome, both in the ‘natural course’ of autism and through being targeted in early intervention programmes