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[quote=Anonymous]My dd is only a freshman in high school, so I can’t offer advice on college, but my dd sounds extremely similar to your dd. She had a neuropsychological exam done at age 10 for educational purposes and received an ASD diagnosis, which really surprised us because multiple doctors had told us for years that dd wasn’t on the spectrum. Our developmental pediatrician disagreed with the diagnosis. A second developmental pediatrician didn’t feel that the diagnosis mattered because dd is too high functioning for ASD-specific interventions to be appropriate. We finally took dd to a speech pathologist for ADOS. The SLP said that dd was borderline and probably was on the spectrum, but agreed that ASD interventions weren’t appropriate. She said that the only intervention she would recommend is if, and only if, dd felt like it would be beneficial, dd could book a single session with her to role play and practice more subtle things, like sarcasm.

We were told that ASD presents differently in girls than boys, and that the brains of girls who have ASD are most similar not to boys with ASD or girls without ASD, but to boys who don’t have ASD. The combination of being told that ASD interventions weren’t appropriate for dd and that her brain is very similar to neurotypical boys made the ASD diagnosis seem worthless. She has a diagnosis, but we’re not supposed to do anything about it? She’s on the spectrum, but not in a meaningful way? Her developmental pediatrician told us that there are tons of people like dd, who are on the spectrum but high functioning, and they’ll never know it simply because they’ve never had a neuropsych exam.

The one person who forecasted gloom and doom was the neuropsychologist. She said that dd would have to be in a special autism program or she would be mercilessly picked on in middle school. Our public school was not about to put dd in a special program. All of the educators said dd was much higher functioning than the students in the program. We didn’t feel that everything in the neuropsychologist’s report was accurate, and the specialists who knew dd much better felt that she belonged in a gifted program more than a program for students with ASD. We went ahead with our public middle school. We have no regrets. DD wasn’t mercilessly bullied. There were a couple incidents, but they were more about her being female than about her being on the spectrum. (Boys sexually harassing her.)

The important thing, IMO, is to use the neuropsych exam as a framework to better understand your dd, but not as a rewrite of everything you know to be true about her. The neuropsychologist has some insights that you don’t, but you have insights that he or she doesn’t. You know your dd the best. If you and dd feel confident that she doesn’t need to be at home to be successful in college, then don’t let someone who spent a few hours with your dd in an artificial setting dictate her college experience, especially if you won’t be financially ruined by dd transferring back home after a semester or two if it doesn’t work out.[/quote]

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