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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yup, OP, I am totally with you.  Wish we could get the Aspergers diagnosis back - give it a new name if you must!

We have a kid without an ASD diagnosis.  But outwardly seems super Aspergers.  The whole thing is just so useless now.

Even if we got an ASD diagnosis, I don't understand how that is useful at all - to provide that information to teachers or friends. Because ASD is so meaninglessly broad.

I also recognize the absurd focus on diagnosing basically 1 out of every 10 boys as ASD - essentially, every quicky, socially challenged, math loving boy, of which there's one in every class - is incredibly distracting to real issue of what we think of as traditional autism. Those are the kids who need tremendous help and resources, and research.

I also hate that we've pathologized boys being socially quirky and into math.  Why does that require a diagnosis?? Why isn't that just a personality type? (which incidentally, is the "diagnosis" DS got after a neuropsych. She said sometimes it's okay to just label his social oddities as personality, when they don't otherwise meet the full ASD diagnosis).  [/quote]

I also agree about the need for a specific category for those who need the most support.

I have an older teen who does not have a diagnosis. He also has a quirky personality, but before the pandemic, an ASD diagnosis had not entered my mind. However, since the pandemic, he has been exhibiting characteristics strongly consistent with A.1-A.3 of the DSM (less so with the B categories). I have been wondering whether, for some younger people, pandemic isolation has caused profound personality changes so that, while not exactly meeting the criteria for ASD, they need similar supports to address social and communication deficits. [/quote]

DS is 11 and goes to a big magnet public gifted school (not in the DC area).  We'd always heard it would likely be a better fit for DS and his social issues - that there would be more kids like him there and those who weren't like him would be less likely to bully him.  At the first parent welcome coffee, the guidance counselor straight up said we have a lot of kids that verge into the ASD spectrum (when discussing social skills supports for the general school population).  So it's been that way for a while.  But I was chatting with the teacher supervisor of the new robotics club, and he said something along the lines of "all 30 kids in this robotics club are, while maybe not as severe as DS, definitely in that space of socially challenged" and he went on to question what the heck was happening in the last year or so.  But interesting, our school system is in the south and was fully open by fall 2020 (with mandatory masks, and about 25% who homeschooled for at least part of that first year).  But point is, they weren't isolated to the same extent as up north. Could masks alone be triggering something major on the social front for these kids?  [/quote]

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