Here's an article about the study talked about in your link. Small study, but 18 percent who were diagnosed at age 2 no longer met the criteria at age 4. I really don't believe that those people who met the criteria at age 2 but don't at 4 actually have autism. If they did, they would meet the criteria or show definite differences from their peers later on, even if it is only "coping". I think they did indeed "outgrow" it as their brains matured, or they were misdiagnosed, and what those kids really had was social impairment or some "red flags" for autism, maybe sensory processing problems, developmental delays, or another disorder having similar symptoms, but not real autism.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323301104578255721887372386Interesting article
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/opinion/aspergers-history-of-over-diagnosis.html?_r=0I'm sure this article made a lot of people mad when it came out and I'm not saying that I agree with everything that is says, but I think it makes some interesting points.
DeeDee I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding what I'm saying or not--I'm not telling her to go to a neuropsych vs. an autism center or what exactly an eval should entail. But I do believe there are poor centers or quacks out there who will diagnose based on superficial characteristics. In my DS's case the neuropsych didn't need to do a more intensive eval because he clearly doesn't have autism based on the inventories, their observations of him, and the "theory of mind" type testing. It wasn't just any one thing that they were looking at (like ruling it out just based on one test), There just wasn't enough evidence of it to even do an in-depth eval. On the rating scale he didn't even come close to being out of the normal range. They probably would have done more if there had been red flags on the other tests, but there weren't. He was social and chatty with everyone there and clearly did not have the social component, but there were other things like the hand flapping (which he does sometimes when excited) and voice that a "quack" might have picked up on and made too big of a deal out of it. I also wasn't taking him in just for autism testing, he had a TBI and issues with motor skills, and it was pretty obvious before he was even seen there that what we were dealing with was DCD and brain trauma possibly exacerbating it, but they looked at autism just to make sure. I think since this is a "spectrum" there is a gray area and there is no consensus among professionals about how to define that and who in the gray area should be diagnosed. A "good" center should be able to do it accurately in an older kid over age 2 or 3 but it's not a hard science. So much is subjective.
