There's a cynical part of me that thinks the school wanted the ASD label for funding, because there is none for ADHD, and the psychologist gave the ADHD label because there's less stigma attached and therefor it's easier for parents to swallow. is it bad that I think that?
Not bad, but not likely true. IDEA has never been fully funded, which means that special ed is a financial loss for schools-- the federal funding never actually reimburses schools for the services they provide to disabled students.
Or maybe I am being too cynical. Like my family doctor says, with issues like these that aren't diagnosable medically, it always comes down to opinion - it doesn't necessarily have to be political.
I think that has become less and less true over time. There is still some gray area, but there are standardized tests that do help to quantify even things like social behavior. The trick now appears to be to find the provider with enough expertise to use the right tests and read them correctly: there are lots of people who are not up to date. Has your child had the ADOS, which really does try to separate out and quantify who has autism and who doesn't? Quite useful.
It is true that someone who shows obviously autistic symptoms at a young age might not later-- often because someone worked really hard teaching them to fit in better. People do change as they grow. If there was an ASD, the typical path would be that the details change over time, but the social differences and difficulties remain, and those usually do include language difficulties.
At the end of the day I don't care what the diagnosis is, as long as he gets the help he needs...
Yep.
DeeDee
