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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've been reading all these posts about the Cameratas, and people seem to have had such positive experiences, but I find it a little bit befuddling what exactly makes them different, and why knowing your kid is a late talker versus a PDD-NOS dx makes any therapeutic difference, when the PDD bucket (which I know has been removed from the DSM) is so broad anyway. I have a 10 yo with an (educational) autism diagnosis and some language/social communication delays, and I know a lot of kids with similar profiles (often dx'd in preschool as PDD-NOS). As I've watched the dc I know grow up, they all have become more typical in their language use and are most in mainstream settings with some supports. As a dev psych said to me years ago, "These kids do pretty well as they grow up, regardless of what therapies you do." Some have NVLD dxs now, some are ADHD, some are more Aspergers-like....it's just that the types of therapies they get aren't really all that different, and that while they have different profiles, the differences are not that astounding.[/quote]

We have considered it.  For us, it directs us for what services are best for our child.  We have a PDD diagnosis and speech delay.  I think we are more speech delay/late talker vs. autism.  We have gotten a lot of criticism from our developmental ped for not doing ABA.  We tried it and I didn't get the point of having a woman blowing bubbles with my kid in my living room for 2 hours twice a week trying to get basic language when the speech pathologist got far more, far quicker and far easier.  Early on it would have helped us focus that we primarily needed speech vs. ABA, which he pushed over speech.  I went with my gut and did speech as well as a speech specific preschool and for us it was the right call.  Sometimes you just want a reassurance when you are at a low point that you are making the best decisions for your child and guidance as to what is best.  Developmental peds are generalists for all special needs.  The Camerata's seem to specialize in speech as the primary issue and other things as the lessor issue.

We decided against doing one right now (partly because we didn't want to chase theme down and got tired of trying) but we don't need an IEP for school as we are going to a small school that accepts my child for who he is and is willing to work with him (no behavioral issues, just developmental delays that seem due to the speech and speech).  If we were going to public next year, there is no question in my mind we would be getting an second opinion from them to help us advocate with the school system.  We have found very few people who really understand speech delays (beyond our wonderful speech therapists but our developmental ped will not listen to them) and are very frustrated by it.  Our child is doing well and starting to catch up, but a year or two ago, had I known about them, we would have gone.

Sadly, having an autism label is a life long stigma.  If my child has it, I am fine with that but if he does not, I don't want him to have that label as life is hard enough with labels that keep you a bit different.[/quote]

You make some good points. I feel like dh and I have been good about making our own calls about what interventions we want to pursue for our child. I thought OT was useful for handwriting, useless for sensory regulation, and I have no regrets about deciding to stop, for example.

I do quibble with your assertion that autism is a "life long stigma." How would we know that? The adults who have autism now were diagnosed as children twenty or thirty years ago (or more) and they are a very different population than the children who have received the diagnosis in the last decade. Most of the adults I know who were diagnosed with autism as children are living in sheltered group situations, and have very involved needs. They don't share a lot of similarities with the kids I know who have more recent Asperger's or PDD diagnoses. There are so many of those kids, and I really doubt they will face lifelong stigma for that label - if anything, the meaning has eroded until people use it in pop-culture to mean anyone with any socially odd behavior, and doubt that these kids can have real and serious challenges.

I have an adult sibling who is very much "on the spectrum" - he would unquestionably receive an ASD diagnosis if he were a preschooler today. But he was born in the 80s, and although many different syndromes and diagnoses were offered over the years, autism was never one of them. He was diagnosed instead as mentally retarded, but he's an adult in the community who works and goes to school, certainly doesn't think of himself that way and is in no way stigmatized by that label, which was applied to him in elementary school.[/quote]

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