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.
Interesting... there was no ADOS done. The assessment tools used are listed as follows:
Beery VMI-VI
WISC-IV
CLEF4
WJIII-NU
WRAML2
Conner's (version 5)
BASC-2
BRIEF
I'm wondering now... (I'm SO glad I stared this thread - you all are helping me so much, getting the wheels turning, thank you!!
)
...I'm wondering if the tests she used were influenced by the anxiety counselor he saw before his assessment. Both at the same firm, so in direct, daily communication with each other.
Background: Our pediatrician (who is controversial but very savvy) originally said "he has no issues other than anxiety - I can't help you any further until he has anxiety counselling." Ohhhkay. So we started with the counselor (who specializes in child anxiety) at the psychologist's firm. She was wonderful (loved her!!) but human, and prone to her own experience colouring her objectivity. She said she saw very little anxiety in DS but that he reminder her very much of her own son, who has ADHD (worth noting is that she spent 4 hours, one on one, with DS). She was involved in setting up the assessment with the psychologist and no doubt shared her opinions, which may have influenced the tests the doc chose for the assessment.
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.
I've often wondered about that - is life therapy? He's never had any ASD-specific treatment, just parenting (positive reinforcement, consequences, structure, etc etc).
He's been difficult to discipline: from a very early age (like, 3) he'd misbehave, laugh and then run to time out on his own, for example (it was a joke to him! He'd finish his time out, come out when it was over and repeat the offense that got him in trouble, laugh again and run back to time out) ...it was always like he was mocking and testing me, rather than not being reachable. (sigh) I tried taking his toys away and got a similar response (he'd bring me stuff).
A friend of mine, a TA, had interesting insight: she told me that he was possibly feeling over stimulated and was clever enough to create a situation where he could be sent to a quiet space to recover. I think this theory makes sense, but if you saw the gleam in his eye... I think it was more that he was making the connection between his behaviour and adult response / manipulation.
Later I had DS's sister's grade 2 teacher tell me that DD had the best adult manipulation skills she's ever seen (brought out in an attempt to control anxiety). I didn't make the connection with DS until he was in the pediatrician's office, where it was clear that he was using manipulative behaviour (which the ped. called right away... light bulb for me - his was so different than his sister's that I missed it).
Anyway, I've often wondered if ASD and ADHD (to name two of many) can actually be outgrown. DS has changed dramatically - even the teachers at school are commenting on this - gushing about how he's come so far - and yet the "language holes" in his brain persist. So now I'm left with the question: is this developmental as well, or an actual cognitive deficit that won't change or improve without targeted intervention?
