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.
