Reply to can you have multiple diagnoses? say ADD, Language disorder and Auditory Processing disorder

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^Now you've done it.  MERLD mom will now say that when the kid's speech comes in, the a MERLD kid will be NT.

The catch is that not all MERLD kid's speech "comes in" then it's a good bet that there is something more going on than just MERLD.

If your kid is 10+ yrs old and still has MERLD, it's probably a good idea to see exactly what is going on.[/quote]

My kid is 12 and still has severe MERLD -- as well as other additional diagnosis that complicates things for him academically.

He's still not autistic, though.

[b]Why do you so desperately want MERLD children to be autistic? Is it because it makes your situation not appear so hopeless?[/b][/quote]

Why do you stigmatize kids with ASDs as hopeless?

Kids with MERLD don't have good outcomes. Most kids with MERLD have worse outcomes than kids with HFA or Asperger's.

http://www.medmerits.com/index.php/article/developmental_language_disorder/P10
[/quote]

A study like that doesn't surprise me, unfortunately. Too many people don't do enough research to get the specific help the children need.  Luckily, in the MERLD groups I'm involved in, most of the children are progressing well.

Autism is a severe lifelong developmental disorder. Most do not marry nor hold jobs. MERLD is something different, although with plenty of its own challenges.

Now, lots of kids today are being called "ASD" -- but they are not truly autistic. Instead, the have a mixture of challenges that a sloppy system lops together as ASD.

[/quote]

Oh. My. God. I have no problem with the idea of MERLD, with the fact that your children have MERLD, but for goodness sake can you educate yourself about ASDs?

My DS has an ASD, aspergers type. So do both my brothers and my nephew. Trust me, this is something I know about. It is a spectrum disorder that ranges from people who are nonverbal and intellectually disabled, to people who have learned to compensate for the disability and function fairly well. I assumed everyone knew this, but I guess not. To address some specific misinformation in this thread:

1. People with ASDs are not incapable of social interaction. It is much more difficult for them because they cannot read social cues. But even nonverbal kids can be affectionate and interactive with their parents. My DS has quite a few friends. In some ways he has learned how to interact with them, learned the things that come more intuitively to other children. In other ways its pretty clear that his way of interacting is different than other kids. But the friendships are genuine and he has just as many as my NT DC.

2. It is a severe, lifelong disorder. I would guess that most lower functioning people with ASDs do not marry or hold jobs. But I have a married sibling with an ASD, many people with ASDs do work. This is especially true in the tech industry where the skills align with some people with ASDs (not all -- my DS is not a tech or STEM guy).

Not all kids with ASDs are completely detached. In fact, many of the kids who would have been in a previous generation have received interventions that have helped tremendously. My DS was initially nonverbal but because of extremely early intervention is now a good student in a mainstream school (with some issues -- attention, some challenges with abstractions).

You really, really have to stop with this idea that if a child is functioning well he must not have an ASD. Its a new world and things have gotten much better. You are working way too hard to wall off MERLD, like you are threatened by kids with ASDs who can communicate. You need to educate yourself.[/quote]

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