Here it's for funding purposes. At the moment my DS gets limited shared TA time because he doesn't have the right tag/label to get designated TA hours. The school is pushing for a spectrum diagnosis (and he does seem spectrumy sometimes) because the funding is much better.
This really surprises me. I know in my area it's often difficult to get the schools to acknowledge
any diagnoses or areas that the student needs help because any additional diagnoses or accomodations granted to the student cost them money. The accomodations cost more money than the label would provide.
I'm not sure what the accommodations would cost them - I just know that it's been mentioned several times that a spectrum diagnosis can result in better support. At the end of the day it comes down to how many dollars they can get from the government Vs. kids in need. My DS is pretty high functioning so even if he got an ASD tag he likely would not get the full support that the same tag would bring to another child. Education is sorely underfunded. They're working towards a more inclusive model where as many kids as possible can be mainstreamed, which means more TA's. It'll be interesting to see what that will look like.
It also depends on the child, too, I think. Your DS likely does better at academics than mine. Who cares how many grade levels ahead my DS's math is/was... What they see in class are his sensory needs, his attention problems, his impulsivity, his social awkwardness and his French language deficits. Meanwhile the math they do is below his level so he gets bored and sloppy with it. Also his language disorder interferes with his ability to do math word problems. It's a blessing really, because he gets support. (Strange way of looking at it, I know).
