9 yr old w/add now being tested for aspergers and ld's??

I have been there to some degree and at least can commiserate with you. Our very bright, verbal child was diagnosed with ADD and medicated in first grade. The medication depressed him terribly and we stopped meds mid 2nd grade. He still had no clue how to read. By 9 years of age we went to a major university who told us not to bother teaching him to read??? After private psych testing we were sent to another university where the pediatric neurologist wanted to diagnose Aspergers, but wanted hospitalization and a sleeping EEG. We were out of there like bats out of hell. We could not think of one good thing that would come from labeling our son as autistic. He is smart and sweet and a little unique. He has tremendous talents and an equally tremendous learning disablilty. He has responded to our coaching him for social situations. I’m a special ed teacher and personnally I think autism is the new diagnosis instead of ADD. We did place our son in a small, private, college prep high school for LD children. He is very successful and happy there. He is growing up very nicely. Other specialists that had worked with our son did not think he has aspergers and we simply decided that we know what is best for our son and unfortunately many “professionals” don’t have a clue. Trust your gut!

I certainly wouldn’t take a school diagnosis. My son was referred by our pediatrician to a neurologist when I wanted to talk about his inattentive symptoms. Because of the way my son presented in the doctor’s office (monotone voice, no eye contact), the pediatrician wanted to rule out other issues including Asbergers. Asbergers is actually a rather specific disorder and the neurologist ruled it out.

Personally, I’d take the referral by your pediatrician and not allow the school to evaluate. You also then have control over the information. Or consider a thorough neuropsych eval.

Beth

I agree that you should ask to see a psychiatrist or neurologist to discuss the dx of HFA/Aspergers/pervasive deveopmental disorder. A big part of the dx is a thorough developmental history, especially of speech, language, social, emotional and playskills. Read up yourself on these disorders on the web, and see if they “click” at all; there is certainly a normal range outgoing - shyness in kids, but kids with Aspergers are different…they have inadequate eye contact, poor social skills, poor understanding of nonverbal social interactions, and they tend to perserverate on a topic way beyond what is normal for a same age child. The school’s testing will perhaps show a learning disability, but can’t diagnose autism.

I too think Aspergers is becoming the new popular diagnosis.

Thats DOESNT mean it doesnt exist but I do believe we all have ‘layers’ of autistic behaviors and folks are over-reacting to some within the normal range

I attended a conference in IN given by an autism expert from one of the Universities. They were actually having difficulties because there was a doctor in Indianapolis who was so easily diagnosing Aspergers, parents were flocking to him. The “high IQ’ component made it a desirable label.

For any parent with a severely autistic child, this kind of thinking must be incomprehensible.

My youngest is dx’d ADD;the psychologist who dx’d this suggested I go home and research Asperger’s. I didn’t need to as I work with Early INtervention and have done play groups with autistic children through age 5.

No question that ds has some of the characteristics but I think his social abilities take him out of the running. He is as shy as can be-soft spoken, head down-please don’t notice me behavior. He has speech difficulties and this makes him more self concious IMO(also monotone in the psych’s office)

But he is NOT inappropriate socially. To me, and I admit I am not an expert but only have a little experience, children on the spectrum don’t fail socially because they are shy but because they are clueless. They smack you to get you attention-not because they’re brats but because they dont observe proper greeting behavior and imitate it. All they know is smacking works!

Like some one mentioned, they dont read body cues. They stand too close, put their face up to your face, they go on and on about a passion(when most kids would have noticed the other party isnt listening). Their pretend play is stereotyped-what you would expect from a child who had been actively taught how to play-take the doll down the stairs, up the stairs, put her in bed. The script tends to stay the same.

DS doesnt fit that profile

He does struggle with inferences and takes things literally(‘cat got your tongue’) He has sensory issues and is sensitive to touch-he loves to cuddle but if you’re sitting next to him and your foot grazes his unexpectedly, he will jump out of his skin!

I say “he flirts with the spectrum”. But then so does my brother(yes, a computer engineer) and my nephew(yep, you guessed it-another engineer)

Hi,
Is he having a harder time, different types of problems/issues, mainly since moving? You mentioned that he had to change both school AND home - that is a big transition for anyone to make and even more challenging for someone with ADD/ADHD where social interactions can be sticky points under good conditions.

Maybe he’s stressed, anxious, depressed and not handling several changed environments at once? i.e. there are other possible explanations.

I also feel much more comfortable getting outside testing rather than from the school system. That way, I have control over who I use and don’t wonder if they have an employment bias that scews their conclusions and recommendations.. (ok, call me sceptical)

Good Luck!
Kim

I posted on the ADHD forum on this but somehow let this slide. Don’t know what I was thinking. :-) True it is more dxed now. But there actually may be more of it. There have been several studies indicating that the rate of increase may be more than simple more/better dx would explain. Perhaps all those engineers are having kids now instead of living alone. Just cause it is popular or more desirable somehow doesn’t mean it couldn’t be. It also may be that parents who are more high IQ themselves look at their kid and think “no this just doesn’t all add up”, so that may be why many people are “going after the dx”.

While the pattern of AS may be quite specific, this doesn’t hold true with the rest of the autism spectrum. There are other dxes beside AS, such as PDD-NOS for example where not all the characteristics of autism are present. There are kids with a few traits that have the possibility of causing more serious problems getting along getting dxed. Girls almost never fit the pattern exactly for example. I wish they’d forget all the various terms and just use “autism spectrum”. There can be people on it at the very ends of the spectrum that would never get a dx— and shouldn’t.

There are also still shy kids. Shy kids really want the socialization— just don’t quite know how to go about it. AS kids may not need or want socialization (sometimes this changes in adolescence). My nephew went from not knowing or caring to having a wild party in his mother’s absense (oh progress :-)).

BTW, I know that people with severely autistic kids DO sometimes find this difficult. But it is really the way the disorder came around that caused this. Started out there were ONLY severe kids. This makes no sense if you think about it because it is different than any other disability out there. There is blindness and then kids with some vision to kids who need glasses. Kids in wheelchairs who can hardly move, kids who use braces or crutches, kids who walk with a limp. Any disability you can think of us is like this. Why wouldn’t this be true with autism?? However, I think the problems of AS kids are more similar to those with LD than those with very severe disorders.

Yes, AS gets misdxed ADD (and the other way perhaps). I think you have to think there might be something a bit different about the kid who choses to play by himself and “collect” things.

BTW, an AS dx isn’t the end of the world— just maybe a different way of looking at your kids problems than if he were straight LD (and yes, I think it really is a learning disability). The school seems to have illustrated a few problems, but I wouldn’t leave a dx to the school which as someone pointed out it really isn’t equipped to do. OTOH wouldn’t leave this to the kindly pediatrician who doesn’t sound like he knows much on this.

—des

Your post about the whether your son might have Asperger’s Disorder hit a nerve for me since my little boy was diagnosed this past summer. My son was always a different kid. As soon as he learned to walk he would toddle away from other kids. In preschool he regressed alot. Though the teacher thought his behavior there was normal, as soon as we left school he would absolutely panick at the thought of being around other kids -to the point of fleeing or getting aggressive. I was aware he had sensory issues and thought he had a “spirited” temperament but it became evident that it was much more than that. He has yet to talk to or play with an child in his K class at school and is very withdrawn. This leads to the impression that he’s shy but my son is so totally not shy. He’s a very active, bold little risk taking guy but he can completely not function in groups or unfamilar settings.

Many of the things you describe are consistent with Asperger’s -enough to warrant a closer look by someone very familar with the autism spectrum. You might want to read abit more AS. The OASIS guide to AS is very good and there is an excellent website with bb.

There is a saying that when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
I think people tend to see problems through the lense of their training, biases whatever. Undoubtedly you can take the same child to different specialists and get a variety of diagnoses. A OT might see Sensory Integration Disorder, a SLP a receptive language disorder, an audiologist
Auditory Processing Disorder, a psychiatrist ADHD. I don’t think autism spectrum specialist are any more or less guilty of this than any other specialty. It’s up to us as parents to make the best possible choices about which specialist to consult. Any parent would be wise to be cautious about any specialist too eager to attach any diagnose -especially if that diagnosis doesn’t fit what you know about your child.

As far as AS being a trendy diagnosis, I think that’s also been said about lds, ADHD, bipolar disorder, CAPD, DSI and probably lots of others!Monica

<<a SLP a receptive language disorder, an audiologist
Auditory Processing Disorder,>>

Hi,

I am an adult with NLD who suspects I have auditory processing problems which of course need to be confirmed by an audiologist. They are not the usual ones associated with NLD such as confusing sounds in words and auditory sequency difficulties. When I was diagnosed with NLD, the neuropsych did briefly mention my auditory processing difficulties.

But the reason why your post caught my interest was years before my NLD diagnosis, through voc rehab, I was diagnosed with a receptive language disorder by an SLP. I only noticed this recently by the way.

So in doing research on the net, in many ways, it seemed similar to CAPD and I was curious as to what the differences are? Also, I deviate from the NLD diagnosis in some ways, particularly in not having a good rote auditory memory and because of the CAPD symptoms I mentioned. I thought for sure the CAPD would explain this but then I thought back to a test the SLP provided.

When she asked me questions on what I had just read, I attributed my horrible score to simply not remembering what I had just read. But in reading about a receptive language disorder, the implication seemed to be that when that happens, it is a problem with language.

Now some professionals think I also have ADHD and I was not yet on any medication when I took the test. On neuropsych testing, I did well in getting the gist of a story that was relayed orally.

Obviously, I don’t expect a diagnosis but wanted to let you know the reasoning behind my question.

PT

sorry it has taken me to get back to all of you and thank you so much for the replies. I meet with my sons school on January 29? for the follow for his IEP and where they think I should go from here. They def. want me to get other doctors involved but since my sons pedi doesn’t really agree I am asking his school for a referral if they have any. As for what I think? I am not sure. I know he is having a hard time and think there could be a learning disability. But as for the Aspergers? I have read a ton of websites and though he has a lot of the symptoms, I am having a hard time believing that it is this. I just don’t think he is. I can’t tell you exactly what or why it just doesn’t feel right.

I’ll keep you updated on how the IEP goes as well as the rest of the testing we have done privately.

Thanks again

I’ve been struggling with the Aspergers question for a while myself. My son has some of the traits, but yet, he doesn’t exactly fit the category. Many of the characteristics he has could also fit into Sensory Integration Dsyfuntion (which I know he has), or even ADD.

I don’t like the idea of getting this diagnosis because I consider it mild and worry what a documented diagnosis might mean for him in the future, but on the other hand. My son currently doesn’t qualify for any type of services and if we got this type of diagnosis he would finally receive help.

That’s the other thing to consider. What services does he need and what diagnosis will entitle him to receive those services.

Laura, Asperger’s definitely fits under the Autism heading in IDEA and while it is considered a milder form of Autism, it’s by no means mild.

Some educators say that individual(s) with AS are too high functionning to receive eligibility under autism since the resources that follow an autism label are for lower functionning individuals. So, if AS doesn’t fit under autism, would it be in OHI and/or ED? What is common practice for AS with or without any LD’s?