Reply to ADHD, not autism -- what now?

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "ADHD, not autism -- what now?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]KKI also diagnosed my DC with ADHD, not autism.

She has autism.

[/quote]

OP, what 9:04 and I am trying to say is that the testers often don't know what they are doing and that it is too early to tell.  I'm the PP who went through at least five testers (maybe more - I have a huge file) until we finally got a then-High-Functioning-Autism diagnosis on a girl.  And she is truly autistic.  It is very very clear now as an adult.  Even my 80+ parents (who just don't have a clue about this ADHD/HFA/Aspergers world) have said "Can't you get her speech lessons"?  They just don't "get it" and the complexity of the diagnosis and that there are certain things, like eye contact and speech that can't be fixed, especially if your very special special private and SN private didn't even catch the problem.  Even more frustrating, our pediatrician of two decades never caught it notwithstanding all my concerns about DD's digestive problems, gut issues, anxiety issues and toilet training problems.  I have watched this SN world develop from when one guy on T.V. announced @ 1990  he had discovered "ADD" and diagnosed my husband as having it after a one hour meeting with us and threw him on Ritilan to this explosive, enormous cottage-industry of everyone and anyone who has a Masters in Social work and above trying to get bucks out of us frustrated parents.  I don't know what causes ADHD/autism, SPD, exec. functioning disorders or if it was always with us.  Certainly my DH has always had "it" and his mother took him to every therapist she could find but there were no names for the dysfunction (if it is one) 50 years ago.  I have been through hell and back with husband and with two children who have some sort of ADHD.  But the one thing I can say is that the autistic label, when we finally got it, was true and it becomes much more apparent as the child develops.  She may be brilliant and excel at things I cannot, but she is clearly autistic and I just wish one of the 100s of professionals along the way had "caught it".  Lord knows, we've spent probably close to a half a million dollars on testers, therapists, doctors and private schools.  Fortunately, you are just starting and have better testers, but my advice is to go with your gut.  If you have any question about a tester, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a pediatrician or a private school, try again.  I could give you a list of 60 providers who have failed to catch the autistic diagnosis because our girl was a good, hard-working kid.  And she was needlessly punished and harassed by many teachers and students along the way because we didn't get a proper diagnosis until @ age 16, even thought we had been through many testers, therapists and doctors.  Even our pediatrician thought she was just brilliant and didn't address her late toilet training problem (classic Aspegers) or serious gut issues (we now know our DD has had impacted fecalomas in her intestine her entire life).  If you have a question or concern, don't rely on your current specialist.  Try again.  I wish I had.  And I did everything I could possibly do at the time and was exhausted by the process.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics