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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The OP's post  mentions one of the huge issues around an ASD diagnosis in this country -- money. There is an industry now that makes money off of an autism diagnosis, particularly in states where laws require coverage of speech therapy and ABA once an ASD diagnosis is made.

Just look at all the posters saying to keep the diagnosis for the free therapies![/quote]

The issue isn't that kids with autism who live in certain states get therapies covered, it's that kids with very similar symptoms don't.

The reality is that diagnosing a child with developmental issues, especially this young, isn't an exact science.  Diagnoses like ASD, ADHD, Social Communication Disorder, and Language Delay and continuous, and there's a lot of gray areas.   Two highly skilled and qualified examiners can look at the same kid on different days and come up with different labels, and neither is wrong, they're just seeing slightly different views of the same picture and choosing slightly different words to describe it.  Unless OP is very wealthy, a diagnosis is needed so that therapies will paid for, but the current ASD diagnosis will serve that purpose.

Putting a child through multiple rounds of testing, at this age, isn't helpful.  What is helpful is watching how they grow, and what they respond to, and then increasing the time spent on things that they respond well to, whether that's inclusive preschool, or ABA, or speech therapy with Jane, or whatever.  In OP's case, it seems that OP does know what's working for her daughter, and that ABA isn't working.  If nothing was working, then more testing might make sense.

In a few years, diagnosis will be much easier, and the results are much more helpful in making educational plans.  Revisiting the question then makes sense.  It does sound like it's possible that down the road a diagnosis other than ASD, or even no diagnosis might make sense.  Or it might be that new symptoms will emerge and an ASD diagnosis will continue to be the best fit.  But even if OP had her daughter retested this year, she'd still need to do that testing too.  [/quote]

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