Anonymous wrote:Yeah, but as a PP pointed out, getting the diagnosis right is crucial if there are medical issues involved. I would guess most of the people who say that the diagnosis doesn't really matter have kids who primarily have behavioral issues.

12:49 Exactly. My condition was progressive and could lead to blindness and seizures in some cases so having a diagnosis was crucial for treatment and prognosis.

Yeah, but as a PP pointed out, getting the diagnosis right is crucial if there are medical issues involved. I would guess most of the people who say that the diagnosis doesn't really matter have kids who primarily have behavioral issues.

My son started out as classic Autism, then Asperger's, now ADHD.

I don't really care what the actual label is, as long as I'm getting him the treatment he needs and seeing improvement in his condition.

I've been asking myself for several years, "what IS it ?", but now it doesn't really matter to me. He's a whole person, and I don't want him to get the idea that I'm trying to change who he is inside.

Our pediatrician comes in and says "So, what's the diagnosis du jour?" Our kid has been through so many of them, it doesn't really matter any more. You can believe any one you want. They all make sense, none are really perfect. What's important to me, as another poster pointed out, is practical every day solutions to what's going on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since most of the time you are treating the symptoms, I don't know that the diagnosis always matters.

Speaking as someone who grew up with a chronic (very rare, like <30 in the world) condition, it's nice to have a diagnosis even if you are only treating the symptoms. It's good to know "why" you're different.

Yes, but for a younger child, I think a general explanation will suffice. My dc has bits and pieces of many things (adhd, ld, sensory, social issues). The therapists are treating the person, not the label.

OP, are you trying to get a specific diagnosis to get more services from your school? If not, then I don't understand why the diagnosis/label is so important.

In our case we've been told SPD by an OT, "possibly somewhere on the spectrum" by a dev ped, and two SLPs have told us that the problem is motor in origin. I tend to believe that HFA is possible since that was the feedback from a dev ped, and I think they are more qualified to diagnose. Also, SPD isn't really recognized by the DSM yet. That being said, this is a frustrating issue for me because my DC doesn't fit many of the criteria for ASD. I suspect that in the future the spectrum won't be as broad reaching. Our knowledge of ASD and developmental disorders is very much in it's infancy, so for now we are just treating the symptoms according to the worst case scenario (ASD) and hoping for the best!

Anonymous wrote:Since most of the time you are treating the symptoms, I don't know that the diagnosis always matters.

Speaking as someone who grew up with a chronic (very rare, like <30 in the world) condition, it's nice to have a diagnosis even if you are only treating the symptoms. It's good to know "why" you're different.

Since most of the time you are treating the symptoms, I don't know that the diagnosis always matters.

Probably none--not that there isn't a problem but no one really knows what it is. The problem is that there is no etiology for many diagnoses--and usually none for anything that's in DSM for instance. So it's whatevfer the doctors or evaluators choose to see, and we know how reliable that is.
We had a friend in our condo who was a pediatrician and I'd often ask her for a diagnosis for silly things like rashes, or something involving a fever, etc. right before taking my kids to the pediatrician. I would say she and our pediatrician came to different conclusions two-thirds of the time.
Can you imagine what the error rate must be for psychological problems?

We believe our developmental pediatrician who looked at all the testing/reports from psych, OT, speech, teachers and who did additional testing as well as an observation at school.

If your child has had several evaluations, but the doctors or evaluators came to different conclusions, how did you decide which one to believe?