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[quote=Anonymous][quote]But the thing is, wouldn't classifying it as a "real" diagnosis enable more people to get treatment, by making it insurance worthy? Even if it came with an upper age limit while you figure out what else is going on? Other diagnoses in the DSM come with age brackets.

A diagnosis should be recognized when there is some scientific basis for recognizing it as a distinct disorder, not so parents can get insurance to pay for their child's "treatment". SPD is a symptom, not a disorder. [/quote]

What do you mean "scientific basis for recognizing it"?  What is the scientific basis for recognizing ASD or ADHD?  What should you do with a set of symptoms that you don't have sufficient information to classify as ASD or ADHD or whatever diagnosis a kid may later end up with?  How would you suggest the symptoms of SPD be treated?   Or are you suggesting there's no value in addressing the symptoms?  Do you realize that many medical treatments address symptoms only and not the underlying disorder/disease?  Diabetes, hypertension, hypothyroid are the ones that come to mind first.

Like many of your DCs, my DS's behavior wasn't typical and he was suffering.  The pediatrician and psychologist recommended an OT evaluation and he got the SPD diagnosis.  I have to say that OT helped him tremendously and I'm very grateful we were able to afford it. Do I think it was a 'placeholder' diagnosis?  No, it wasn't.  The developmental pediatrician didn't have enough information for a diagnosis of something else (although he did note that DS was at risk for ADHD) and I think that's true for a lot of kids.  Sometimes there just isn't enough information to identifying a 'disorder'.   You do the best you can to address the issues you can identify and if others come up or you don't see improvement, you investigate further.  Even if we'd gotten the ADHD diagnosis, it wouldn't have changed what we did.  We sought interventions that helped the most challenging sympotoms first.

We had a similar experience with DS2.  We knew he had issues long before DS1 and he had numerous evaluations by NIH, dev peds, psychologists, OTs/PTs/SLPs, etc - all by the time he was 28 months.  His first diagnosis at 16 months was SPD and gross motor delay. There wasn't enough evidence to earn him a different one at that point - in fact, at that age, his speech/communication was age appropriate.  We sought interventions that targeted his symptoms.  As he got older, the primary diagnoses changed. By age 2, we recognized significant speech delays.  At age 3, his primarly challenge was apraxia of speech; By age 7, although apraxia is still present, it's not the issue it was at age 3.  He's now got an ADHD diagnosis and LDs that are more problematic.   My older DS is the same way.  Some years anxiety is a bigger issue for him than his ADHD.

If you don't think SPD is a 'real' disorder, what do you suggest be done with those symptoms that are life impairing but for which there isn't enough evidence for a different diagnosis?

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