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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Money is fueling the rise in diagnosis, plain and simple. If a doctor codes it as autism, insurance pays. In some states, it's like a golden ticket to services. If they don't, all those therapists out there don't make money. And parents curtail getting speech therapy, OT, and certainly ABA because the costs become overwhelming. So parents take a diagnosis they don't agree with because it gets their child some therapy.

But there's a very dark side to accepting an inaccurate diagnosis just to get services. Would you, for example, accept a cognitive impairment diagnosis for a child who is not cognitively impaired?  Because hey, they'll pay for services then!

You want a differential diagnosis, OP. That puts EVERY diagnosis on the table, as opposed to using a checklist to just confirm their preconceived notions. [/quote]

OP here. I do agree that I don't care what the label is AS LONG as it's accurate. Whatever it is will clearly be something she will have to deal with her whole life, so whether it's X, Y or Z doesn't particularly matter to me as long as we know what it is and how to help her with that. But how can you really know? I'm not a doctor, let alone a neuropsychologist who studies ASD. So if my gut tells me my child doesn't have ASD, but they say she does, how do I know if one of us is mistaken? Don't you kind of just have to take their diagnosis at face value and work with that? [/quote]

A diagnosis can definitely change through childhood as symptoms change and become more/less apparent.

So you focus on the problematic symptoms. Is social skills/pragmatic language her biggest area of challenge? Get her in a social thinking group. Flexibility? Work with a behaviorist who can teach you how to support growing her flexibility. If technique/intervention A doesn't work, try a different one.

That's all any of us can do. A diagnosis might inform which interventions you might try first, but really you won't know if it works for your particular child until you try.[/quote]

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