2 1/2 year old with possible mixed receptive expressive language disorder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our original appointment was about 45 minutes. Evaluator spent most of the time talking to me and only a few evaluating my child. Every time we see him, its about 45 minutes, at most.

You all say it never happens but that is how our developmental ped appointments go.

NP here. Our first developmental ped was like this. She ruled out autism, btw, based on a cursory evaluation. A fuller evaluation (with a different provider) diagnosed autism (which is undoubtedly the correct diagnosis). So a cursory diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean that you'll leave with an autism diagnosis. But does absolutely mean that you are getting poor care.

We've gotten great care, poor diagnosis. He's been amazing at offering us every kind of possible service to try, getting funding continually approved for the services I wanted, and supportive of our choices. More importantly, when I knew something wasn't right (new concern), I called and emailed and he called me back within hours talking me through what I needed to know and getting us a speciality appointment within days. He now has changed his thinking as the child gets older. It depends on the provider. The strengths outweigh the negatives as the important thing was getting the services which our regular ped could not get for us despite trying. Him getting insurance to help pay for the services we were privately paying for has been a huge help.

You realize this is why you derail threads.

A MERLD diagnosis given by a SLP for a preschool aged child or younger doesn't eliminate a autism as a possible cause. Language disorders unrelated to autism are diagnosed when a child is school aged by developmental pediatricians or psychologists in full evaluations.

Many kids diagnosed with autism do great and don't need continued interventions. Many kids with language disorders may need interventions all their lives. And vice versa.

No one cares that your elementary school aged child is no longer considered autistic. Brava to you, but it's irrelevant to pretty much every discussion on this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our original appointment was about 45 minutes. Evaluator spent most of the time talking to me and only a few evaluating my child. Every time we see him, its about 45 minutes, at most.

You all say it never happens but that is how our developmental ped appointments go.

NP here. Our first developmental ped was like this. She ruled out autism, btw, based on a cursory evaluation. A fuller evaluation (with a different provider) diagnosed autism (which is undoubtedly the correct diagnosis). So a cursory diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean that you'll leave with an autism diagnosis. But does absolutely mean that you are getting poor care.

We've gotten great care, poor diagnosis. He's been amazing at offering us every kind of possible service to try, getting funding continually approved for the services I wanted, and supportive of our choices. More importantly, when I knew something wasn't right (new concern), I called and emailed and he called me back within hours talking me through what I needed to know and getting us a speciality appointment within days. He now has changed his thinking as the child gets older. It depends on the provider. The strengths outweigh the negatives as the important thing was getting the services which our regular ped could not get for us despite trying. Him getting insurance to help pay for the services we were privately paying for has been a huge help.

You realize this is why you derail threads.

A MERLD diagnosis given by a SLP for a preschool aged child or younger doesn't eliminate a autism as a possible cause. Language disorders unrelated to autism are diagnosed when a child is school aged by developmental pediatricians or psychologists in full evaluations.

Many kids diagnosed with autism do great and don't need continued interventions. Many kids with language disorders may need interventions all their lives. And vice versa.

No one cares that your elementary school aged child is no longer considered autistic. Brava to you, but it's irrelevant to pretty much every discussion on this board.

How many times are you going to have your autism rant that all kids with language disorders are autistic per your diagnosis. Your way with all kinds of evaluation by your providers only are not best for all kids. Psychologists do not specialize in language issues. They have general knowledge as do developmental meds. By age 6, most parents have a good handle on what is going on with their kids. If a parent waits till 5-6-7-8, there are a lot more issues in that family. OP, identified a concern and is getting her kid services. I don't find the developmental ped or any of the other people we went to outside of our SLP particularly helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our original appointment was about 45 minutes. Evaluator spent most of the time talking to me and only a few evaluating my child. Every time we see him, its about 45 minutes, at most.

You all say it never happens but that is how our developmental ped appointments go.

NP here. Our first developmental ped was like this. She ruled out autism, btw, based on a cursory evaluation. A fuller evaluation (with a different provider) diagnosed autism (which is undoubtedly the correct diagnosis). So a cursory diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean that you'll leave with an autism diagnosis. But does absolutely mean that you are getting poor care.

We've gotten great care, poor diagnosis. He's been amazing at offering us every kind of possible service to try, getting funding continually approved for the services I wanted, and supportive of our choices. More importantly, when I knew something wasn't right (new concern), I called and emailed and he called me back within hours talking me through what I needed to know and getting us a speciality appointment within days. He now has changed his thinking as the child gets older. It depends on the provider. The strengths outweigh the negatives as the important thing was getting the services which our regular ped could not get for us despite trying. Him getting insurance to help pay for the services we were privately paying for has been a huge help.

You realize this is why you derail threads.

A MERLD diagnosis given by a SLP for a preschool aged child or younger doesn't eliminate a autism as a possible cause. Language disorders unrelated to autism are diagnosed when a child is school aged by developmental pediatricians or psychologists in full evaluations.

Many kids diagnosed with autism do great and don't need continued interventions. Many kids with language disorders may need interventions all their lives. And vice versa.

No one cares that your elementary school aged child is no longer considered autistic. Brava to you, but it's irrelevant to pretty much every discussion on this board.

How many times are you going to have your autism rant that all kids with language disorders are autistic per your diagnosis. Your way with all kinds of evaluation by your providers only are not best for all kids. Psychologists do not specialize in language issues. They have general knowledge as do developmental meds. By age 6, most parents have a good handle on what is going on with their kids. If a parent waits till 5-6-7-8, there are a lot more issues in that family. OP, identified a concern and is getting her kid services. I don't find the developmental ped or any of the other people we went to outside of our SLP particularly helpful.

I think a large part of your persecution complex is that you don't actually understand what people are saying because you are blinded by your paranoia. Nowhere did the poster above say that all kids with language issues are autistic. But she did say something I very much agree with, which is that MERLD is its own scary diagnosis, that I personally was devastated to hear. I know many many kids with autism who are doing phenomenally. I know less with MERLD. Even on the FB groups, which I joined when I first started this journey, are full of kids with problems much, much more severe than many of the autistic kids I know. I would say most of the kids. Very few report no lasting issues. So much of your label avoidance is just plain ignorance. Nobody wants MERLD either, it is just that fewer people know what it is because it isn't as common. But its clearly a neurological disorder and none of them are awesome.

[Anonymous]

OP your son has a tentative diagnosis because it is very unusual to not speak at all by 2.5. It's not "the 2 year old in him." Not speaking is not a sign of a typical 2 year old behavior. Don't bury your head on this. Get an appointment with a Dev ped ASAP and get him evaluates by your local early intervention for free or reduced therapy. It is a big deal to not be talking at 2.5.

[Anonymous]

I went to the first page when this started and it was not the MERLD mom who raised autism. It was someone else who did. This same person said MERLD was woefully out of date as a diagnosis and told OP to avoid the MERLD facebook groups because they spend their time obsessively denying autism diagnoses.

I don't really have a dog in this hunt but I do have a child who was diagnosed with MERLD when that was in the DSM. In today's world an ASD diagnosis may have been cheaper, and thus preferable, for us because perhaps insurance would have covered all the language therapy DC needed.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to know what the MERLD facebook groups say because they are closed, not open. But this recent Babycenter thread suggests that there are online sources that try to scare people into thinking that ASD treatments will harm a MERLD kid: http://community.babycenter.com/post/a60782200/merld_vs._autism

[Anonymous]

They recommend that you see the camatras. They act like all the county and all school assessment teams are out to slap an autism diagnosis on everyone because they get "more money" which is nonsense. They frequently seek numerous opinions and refuse aba therapy. These are simply the realities of those online communities. I'm not starting "drama". Please.

[jsteele]

I am going to lock this thread because I am tired of removing posts that are simply fighting about MERLD.

In the future, I would love it if posters would immediately report any posts -- either pro or con regarding MERLD -- that deflect from the primary topic of discussion. This is a ridiculous case of dogmatics making it impossible to have a useful discussion and I am completely over it.