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    petunia Offline OP
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    We have been the Autism route (mainly looking at Asperger) through both a therapist who specializes in ASD (and her consulting pyschologist) and through the school. The therapist said no to ASD but yes to ADHD and ODD (but we didn't believe it then). The school said:

    "Overall, while Son does exhibiit difficulty with social interaction with his peers, it does not appear to be at the level that would typically be indicative of an ASD. Also, Son does not display significant differences in the areas of communication (aside from his pragmatic difficulties), and restricted repetetive and sterotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. Son does not meet the the criteria as a student with an ASD."

    He got a watch for his birthday which he has tried using as a reminder to stop a particular activity but he just ignores it.

    I do believe the ODD diagnosis - he was out of control. Screaming, kicking, throwing things, crying, refusing absolutely to do things, it was awful. Consequences have no effect on him. He has lost all sorts of priveleges and it makes no difference. He's missed baseball games, birthday parties, lost computer time, lost his DS, lost all of his reading time, been put in timeout. None of it matters. Rewards didn't work either. He once went 3 weeks without any kind of junk food (pizza, chiken nuggets, ice cream, cookies, sugar, sodas, anything) because he was fighting with us about brushing his teeth. The rule was that he lost all "goodies" until he had brushed his teeth twice a day for seven days in a row. If the prozac has done nothing else, at least he gets his teeth brushed now!

    One psychologist had us put him on an extreme time-out system. If he didn't do what was asked, we were to put him on time-out. If he didn't go to time-out, we were to physically take him to time-out and hold him down until he calmed down. He's too big for me to do that so if he acted up when my husband wasn't home, I had to ignore him until husband got home and he immediately had to take him to time-out and hold him down. Sometimes it would last for an hour. It made all three of us crazy and exhausted and didn't do a thing.

    We've also seen an audiologist for CAPD. That was a "no", too. We haven't looked at sensory except that the school had us fill out a rating scale about it to see if he qualified for OT as well as speech. He didn't but they did note that he has "difficulty with sensory processing in the home environment". He shows none of these at school.

    We haven't seen a neuropsych or a dev. pediatrician. My husband is so opposed to any more assessments that we are fighting about it. He just wants son to be "normal". Well, he's NOT NORMAL so accept it and figure it out.

    This is so confusing. I'm ready to just accept the ADHD diagnosis and put him on the medication to see what happens. If it helps, it helps. If it doesn't, we do something else. The doc is recommending Strattera instead of a stimulant because needs it more at home than at school.

    Who would we have look at the sensory issues report from the school? An OT? A neuropsych? The psychiatrist we are seeing is not interested in any of the reports from anyone else so mabye we need a different psychiatrist. I don't know. I just want things to get better so that he's happier and I'm less exhausted. When he messes up, like playing a computer game instead of doing his homework, he starts saying things like "I'm so stupid" or "I hate myself" and that worries me. I wish the school didn't assign so much homework on the computer so that I could just not let him use it. But, he has to have access to one for homework. I've blocked a lot of things but I can't block everything. I guess I'll have to sit next to him while he's using the computer (it's in the kitchen).

    Okay, rambling again, sorry. Thanks for the ideas and recommendations.

    ETA: Oh, forgot to mention that both his piano and martial arts teachers have asked if he is ADHD. One has known him six years and the other three years. Does that count toward "two environments"?

    Last edited by petunia; 09/14/12 09:46 AM.
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    A neuropsych or developmental ped should be able to diagnose any sensory integration problems, and more importantly, direct you on where to go for help! The neuropsych who saw my DS gave us a report for the school that included specific recommended 504 accommodations for him.


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    So many things to consider, but looking at the scores and the age... I wonder if some of it isn't a teen (mental age) mind looking for personal control and self-definition and encountering controls more common to a young grade schooler.

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    Originally Posted by petunia
    The school said:

    "Overall, while Son does exhibiit difficulty with social interaction with his peers, it does not appear to be at the level that would typically be indicative of an ASD. Also, Son does not display significant differences in the areas of communication (aside from his pragmatic difficulties), and restricted repetetive and sterotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. Son does not meet the the criteria as a student with an ASD."

    Petunia, we've been through school evals for different challenges, and I have one caution about school input based on our experience (as well as what I've heard from other parents in other districts): the school can have a bias and motivation to not find a child eligible for services. Some schools will give you a thorough and great evaluation, but had we gone through our ds' school eval without also having private evals, and had we not known what to question re the school's eval and had we not been familiar with our ds' rights and how to advocate for them, we would have been led to believe that everything was hunky-dory, our ds had no LD diagnosis, and life was grand (at school, while it was falling apart for ds at home!). So I would be skeptical that if the school says your child "shows some signs" but not enough for a diagnosis - there might very well be enough for a diagnosis from a professional who doesn't have an interest in downplaying symptoms in order to avoid having to qualify a student for services and accommodations. It's also much easier to ask follow-up questions from a private professional than it is from school psychologists so taking the whole school issue out of the loop and just looking at helping your child, you'll usually get "better" or more complete information and action plans by having a private evaluation.

    If your ds hasn't had a neuropsych eval, that's what I'd pursue next.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

    ps - totally unrelated challenge, but fwiw, our ds has a diagnosis of expressive language disorder from a school speech therapist, but the eval was done through her private business. Our ds does not qualify as a child with expressive language disorder according to our school and state guidelines for that specific disorder - but working with a private SLP who diagnosed him with it has been *the* most beneficial therapy he's ever had. If we'd trusted what the school officially said about our ds re expressive language, we would have missed the most important thing we've probably been able to do for him in helping him become a happy functioning person.


    Last edited by polarbear; 09/14/12 10:55 AM.
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    Originally Posted by petunia
    We haven't seen a neuropsych or a dev. pediatrician. My husband is so opposed to any more assessments that we are fighting about it. He just wants son to be "normal". Well, he's NOT NORMAL so accept it and figure it out.

    This is my husband too. In his defense he's not with us when we do this stuff (he's at work), so he doesn't see how DS is fine with it... our trips to the hospital for his CAPD assessment, for example, were adventures and went over very well.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    This is so confusing. I'm ready to just accept the ADHD diagnosis and put him on the medication to see what happens. If it helps, it helps. If it doesn't, we do something else.

    Our school district psychologist suggested that we medicate diagnostically as well. We've opted not to, mostly because DS is pretty well adjust and is making progress without meds. For what it's worth, though, I have a friend whose daughter has done extremely well on a slow release stimulant.

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    I feel for you and your DS, petunia. It doesn't sound like your current arrangement is working for anyone. I feel compelled to point out how asinine it is that the school deems your DS too "immature to grasp the complexities of LA reading/writing" when he is profoundly verbally gifted according to his VCI. That to me is a red flag that they completely don't understand him and he is not getting what he needs there. This certainly merits some sort of further investigation.

    I am wondering if his VCI is even higher than reported due to his two 19s. Did your tester look at extended norms?

    CCN #138129 09/14/12 01:10 PM
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    Originally Posted by CCN
    Our school district psychologist suggested that we medicate diagnostically as well. We've opted not to, mostly because DS is pretty well adjust and is making progress without meds. For what it's worth, though, I have a friend whose daughter has done extremely well on a slow release stimulant.

    I think I'm personally about to tell my doctor that I'm going to diagnostically medicate myself with a slow release stimulant.

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    Originally Posted by petunia
    We have been the Autism route (mainly looking at Asperger) through both a therapist who specializes in ASD (and her consulting pyschologist) and through the school. The therapist said no to ASD but yes to ADHD and ODD (but we didn't believe it then).

    What testing instruments did the therapist use? Did s/he do the ADOS or other autism-specific standardized tests? or was it a gut-level assessment?

    Originally Posted by petunia
    The school said:

    "Overall, while Son does exhibiit difficulty with social interaction with his peers, it does not appear to be at the level that would typically be indicative of an ASD. Also, Son does not display significant differences in the areas of communication (aside from his pragmatic difficulties), and restricted repetetive and sterotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. Son does not meet the the criteria as a student with an ASD."

    Forgive me, but the "aside from his pragmatic difficulties" IS a significant difference in communication. As Polar said, the school has a vested interest in not qualifying him for services. Whether he has ASD or not-- only your outside professionals are qualified to diagnose, I certainly will not from this distance. But schools are not allowed to diagnose medical or psychological conditions, either, and their educational assessments (which they are allowed to do) often seriously underrate what's there.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    I do believe the ODD diagnosis - he was out of control. Screaming, kicking, throwing things, crying, refusing absolutely to do things, it was awful. Consequences have no effect on him. He has lost all sorts of priveleges and it makes no difference. He's missed baseball games, birthday parties, lost computer time, lost his DS, lost all of his reading time, been put in timeout. None of it matters. Rewards didn't work either. He once went 3 weeks without any kind of junk food (pizza, chiken nuggets, ice cream, cookies, sugar, sodas, anything) because he was fighting with us about brushing his teeth. The rule was that he lost all "goodies" until he had brushed his teeth twice a day for seven days in a row. If the prozac has done nothing else, at least he gets his teeth brushed now!

    ASD can also look like that. I would really encourage getting in touch with a behavior therapist (google Board Certified Behavior Analyst, BCBA) to work on this stuff; they have good tools for this kind of behavior change.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    One psychologist had us put him on an extreme time-out system. If he didn't do what was asked, we were to put him on time-out. If he didn't go to time-out, we were to physically take him to time-out and hold him down until he calmed down. He's too big for me to do that so if he acted up when my husband wasn't home, I had to ignore him until husband got home and he immediately had to take him to time-out and hold him down. Sometimes it would last for an hour. It made all three of us crazy and exhausted and didn't do a thing.

    I would not expect such a system to work; and it sounds utterly exhausting.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    We haven't seen a neuropsych or a dev. pediatrician. My husband is so opposed to any more assessments that we are fighting about it. He just wants son to be "normal". Well, he's NOT NORMAL so accept it and figure it out.

    Indeed. I hope you can get DH to spend more time dealing with DS one on one so that he will agree to further assessment, because I think a really high-quality neuropsych workup-- preferably with someone who has seen lots of autistic kids as well as gifted and ADHD-- would help you sort this out.

    You need better help, for your sake as well as your DS's.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    This is so confusing. I'm ready to just accept the ADHD diagnosis and put him on the medication to see what happens. If it helps, it helps. If it doesn't, we do something else. The doc is recommending Strattera instead of a stimulant because needs it more at home than at school.

    The very good thing about Strattera for a first try with this kid is that it is less likely than a stimulant to increase anxiety and make the oppositional behaviors worse. I would worry about the stimulant drugs in that regard. But there is something to be said for finding out what you are dealing with before starting the med experiments, too. I am not sure which way I would lean on this.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    When he messes up, like playing a computer game instead of doing his homework, he starts saying things like "I'm so stupid" or "I hate myself" and that worries me.

    That kind of thing, and the angry/oppositional behavior, in a boy can be depression or anxiety. I really think a neuropsych is the person you want to see. The full workup.

    Originally Posted by petunia
    I guess I'll have to sit next to him while he's using the computer (it's in the kitchen).

    If you can, for the short term, I would.

    Hang in there,
    DeeDee

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    petunia Offline OP
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    Thanks, everyone. That's a lot to consider. I don't know how to convince my husband to do anything else. Every time I bring something up he says "when are you going to be satisfied?", and I respond "when I have an answer". Granted, he's absorbed and very busy in his job, but this is my job and something is just not right.

    The reason I'm not fighting to put him in the gifted language arts is selfish: it's more homework and I just can't deal with that right now. It's hard enough to get him through what he's got. He was in it in 4th and 5th grades and we furloughed him on the school's advice for 6th. They were concerned that his immaturity would make him a target for the other kids to pick on him. Personally, I thought that would be THEIR problem to make sure it didn't happen but we went along with it. He learned nothing in LA last year and really should be in the gifted class. I just can't deal with it right now. However, the shcool has not yet seen these most recent scores. They are working off testing we had done at age 6.

    VCI: I don't know if the tester looked at the extended norms, I'll have to check the report and see. She did say "may wish to consider having the Stanford-Binet LM administered since he did notobtain ceiling scores on many subtests on the WISC-IV".

    I noticed a couple of people from North Texas, which is where I am. Do you have recommendations for a neuropsych who has experience with Autism, ADHD,and Gifted?

    Again, thanks all. I'll have to ruminate on this and see what I can come up with. We have applied to the Davidson Young Scholars but I don't know that they can help with this.


    What I am is good enough, if I would only be it openly. ~Carl Rogers
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    petunia Offline OP
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    I've been looking and there just aren't very many neuropsychologists in my area. What's the differnce between a neuropsych and a regular psychologist? I mean, obviously, the former deals with the nervous system, but what would he/she look at or do that a psych wouldn't? What's the difference in approaches? Please help me understand.

    With the WISC, WIAT, CAPD, and school assessments, do you think there would be lot more involved as far as an assessment goes? My insurance pays for none of this so I'm trying to figure out how much of what we've already done would suffice.


    What I am is good enough, if I would only be it openly. ~Carl Rogers
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