DOES MY SON REALLY HAVE AUTISM?

[rebeccaholloway]

My son who is now 7, has been diagnosed with a number of things. Mild retardation, adhd, expressive language disorder, and aspergers, with ocd. I see alot of all the different signs of each disorder in him, except for the retardation and adhd. He is currently on concerta, yet I do not feel that he needs it. He has never been hyper, he just prefers to be alone, and goes into hysterics when his daily routine is disturbed. His iq rose 15 points in the past year, but yrt he is really behind his peers socially and academically. His therapist said she thought he had a auditory deficit. Iam so confused and do not know where to turn to.Please help!

[rebeccaholloway]

Thank you. You know I thought the same thing but his therapist told be that intelligence in aspergers children was highly misread. She said that although most children do have an extrodanary vocab, there are some who do not. My sons main thing is his obsession with spiderman and with dogs. I think that he knows the entire anatomy of a dog, but lacks knowledgd in other areas. Like I said before I do see alot of autistic traits in him like lining things up repetition and hand/arm flapping. Is it normal for a child to take a notebook and draw the same thing over and over again, never to change anything about the drawing, through out the entire notebook?I will research your suggestions, you have been very helpful to me

[Natta1980]

If I am not mistaken, diagnosis of Aspergers assumes that there is no intellectual deficit involved.

His "slow" learning may be due to his sensory/communication difficulties. He also may have areas where he is more advanced than peers, while in some areas he will be very behinnd.

Spectrum of autistic disorders is quite wide; search ASD and also PDD-NOS. The line between "really autistic" and "not really autistic" is blurry; things also tend to change with age.

My twin sister went through the stage where she did not want to socialize, threw tantrums when she was asked to go outside and play, preffered to read books inside. Did not want to take a bath or shower. Did she have "autistic traits" - probably. Was she "autistic" - if she was taken to the doc at that given period of time - she may have been diagnosed with something.

She is a social batterfly now (28 years old)



Any ASD may contain OCD symptoms as well - so two separate dx's appear redundant.

In terms of medication, see what they were trying to achieve with the meds and whether it helps the problem, if not, may not be needed.

The biggest question is: WHICH DX IS RECOGNIZED BY HIS SCHOOL?

[rebeccaholloway]

Yes, however at the time he had never been in school. I had him retested a couple of months ago by a adifferent doctor. This doctor assured me that he was not retarded and that he had an auditory deficit, along with aspergers syndrome. However I only see some of these traits in my son. I know that he is not retarded, he can learn just slowly. I do not know where else to turn to. I wnt to do whats best for him, but I am not sure if he really is autistic.

[Natta1980]

Mild retardation and aspergers? Are these diagnosis given by the same doctor?