Evaluation Update

[Bayoubaby1]

My DS is highly functioning, extremely intelligent, beautiful, and to meet him you would never know at this age...except that he gets frustrated easily and his tantrums may be worse than normal...and wwe need a lot of work on social skills. I am learning that there are so many signs and symptoms that no two children with spectrum disorders are the same...if you observed ten children they would all be so different that you may not even associate them as having alot of the same issues.

We saw the dev ped on Monday. Chance was prescribed .25 mg of Risperadal (sp?) to take at bedtime nightly for two weeks. He said that it should help him sleep and help with some of the mood swings and aggression, self-destructive behavior, etc. I am not thrilled with the prospect of him being put on more meds, considering the fact that he already takes breathing treatments and allery/asthma meds already.

As far as further diagnosis...he said that it is definitely a PDD (HFA or Asperger's...he is thinking Aspergers) but that he wants further evaluation before "putting an exact label"...plus he wants him to be seen in NOLA (but that is over a year wait). He told me that we should definitely move forward with the EI (waiting for the call for testing) and that I need to notify the school board (already have today) to see about starting preschool there at 3, and move forward with therapy. He did put the diagnosis as: PDD/312.02(undersocialized conduct disorder aggressive type moderate)/307.46(sleep arousal disorder).

Well...we had the eval at the Autism Alliance clinic on Friday, and DH came with me...thank heavens! He was there to answer questions and to hear everything that has been going on with Chance and I am SO glad that he went. The therapist who worked with us is phenomenal! We all love her, and she is blown away at how brilliant Chance is...she could not believe how huge his vocabulary is or how sweet and polite he talks (please, thank you, you are welcome, etc.). We always knew that he is really smart but tried not to brag too much when he was smaller, but as he has gotten older I have stopped even talking about it because it was like no one believed us unless they see it and then I started wondering myself WHY he was so smart, if that makes any sense. He scored way above the qualifications to start services (70 is the score that you have to make to be borderline and qualify, he scored 103), and we were told that he meets all of the criteria for Aspergers.

We still have to take the autism evaluation (we opted to take the Aspergers first because she was quite sure from just talking to him that he would fit the profile for that for sure so we did that one first). So, we are seeing her every other week for behavioral modification therapy and she is lining up speech therapy, occupational therapy, and they are going to help us get insurance approval for ABA therapy, and we are starting floortime at home.

I am better now because I know that there is help out there, and he is high-functioning and extremely intelligent.  They are telling us that the prognosis is good because he is so young and we are going to be agressive with his treatment.
We are still waiting for an "official" diagnosis from NOLA next year, but we a relieved to be getting services for him now, and all of the things that we are starting are not his "official" early intervention...we will not start that until some time in Jan. He will be starting Pre-K at 3 in the public school system, but for now his therapists will be going to the private preschool that he goes to now.

It really isn't the end of the world like we were thinking...it is just a different world...if that makes sense? He is going to be okay because he has us. His main issues are behavioral and social, at least we do not have all of the physical complications that some have. I am relieved to be finding resources for all of us. There is a library that is sponsored by a local special needs support organization, and they have tons of books and videos, so I have been doing a lot or research.

[shaz71]

Hi Sally i just assumed because she was struggling with speech etc that she wasn't high functioning so i have got wrong end of stick...Thanks for that i rung the salt today but she wasn't in but i left a message she should ring back tomorrow i spoke to another salt but i will ring again tomorrow just incase. I will ask the salt for a referral to an autism specialist or could the ed psych give a diagnosis? Sharon x

[Sally44]

You need an Educational Psychologist to assess your daughter's abilities to find out if she is high functioning.  My son is higher than average intelligence but he cannot read or write because of his speech disorder, autism and suspected dyslexia.  So performing poorly academically is not necessarily an indication of low IQ.  Only testing using non-verbal assessments can give a clearer indication of cognitive ability.  It is exactly the same as expecting a blind person to complete an exam paper.  Of course they will fail because they cannot see, but that failure to complete the exam is down to blindness, not low IQ.  In exactly the same way some autistic children can be brilliant at puzzles, construction, letter and number recognition.  But when they start school they do not learn to read or write because of the difficulties they have with the 'concept' of reading and writing, not due to low IQ.

[shaz71]

Hi i am pleased to hear you have answers now and at least they can get things going for him to help him. I am worried for my 6yr old daughter as i think she is on the spectrum but maybe middle of it she is definately not high functioning, but my younger one is she is already under a peadiatrician as she also has allergies and severe reflux that they said she would grow out of at 1yr old she is now nearly 2 and still suffering badly with it, she has allergies and intolerances but don't know totally what to we know milk and soya but not sure what else she has an high ige count, but they don't want to do allergy tests?????? But her temper is violent, she hurts herself but when she is tantruming she doesn't feel it, she also attacks others and breaks things and pushes chairs and god knows what else and throws things they are getting worse, i am going on an intensive course to help me cope with both my younger children, but to be honest i am at a loose end at the moment, my stress levels are through the roof, went to see my family who listen to me but very rarely understand what i am going through as once in a blue moon they will see us for a couple of hours but they got the full gist of it today Melissa was very defiant and Zoe did a major tantrum, banging her head against wall and kicking my grandma and door my grandma couldn't believe it, neither could my mum. Hopefully they see what i am going through 24-7 now. But at least you are on the ladder so to speak and hopefully all the help is available to you. Sharon x

[Sally44]

I'm glad to hear you are finally getting some answers and things are starting to make a bit more sense.   As you say, you need to tease out your own child's specific difficulties.  For example all children on the spectrum have difficulties with social interaction.  But one child might be totally withdrawn, another may attempt to interact but in an odd way, another child might fight as a way of interacting socially, or another child might be obessively talking about interests or pursuing a child around the playground who just isn't interested in playing with them.  That is a huge range of different in behaviours, but all those children have social interaction difficulties.   And that range of difference is in every aspect of autism/aspergers.
Finding a school that has experience and expertise in teaching children on the spectrum is very important.  Visit all of the potential schools to see where you think your child will fit in best.