Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Fine line?

Unless I am mistaken, folks Dx w/ Autism, can't enlist either.

DeeDee, Thank you for your response. I was concerned about this psychiatrist's experience from the beginning. I asked my psychiatrist if she understood giftedness. His answer was that she had lived in VA/DC area where they have lots of smart people. Okay then. I am sure she's an expert. Unfortunately, we have little choice in mental health professionals.

I hope you know what a valuable resource on this board to those of us with 2E kids, especially in these types of grey situations where the issues are really but it is hard to know how to address and advocate. Thank you for your patience. I know that you were here for me about 3 years ago when this issue came up previously. At that point, the therapist she was seeing felt that it was more introversion and some mal-adapive behaviors. We have since moved states and haven't seen anyone in almost 2 years. We are finally getting a new therapist, which she sees next week. We'll see how it goes.

Same here. The school staff in DS's life insist he has autism and the doctors all agree (vehemently) that he does not. Turns out the school staff are focusing on behaviours and characteristics and the doctors are focusing on diagnostic criteria.

At the end of the day, he's still the same kid.

I just finished reading "Lost at School" by Ross Greene, and one of the things I liked about the book was that he put "labels" aside and referred instead to individual lagging skills.

Consider this... when a child has some but not all of the lagging skills associated with a label and they don't meet the dx criteria, the remaining skill deficits are sometimes shrugged off: "oh, well he doesn't have autism after all - I guess we don't need to pursue that."

Whereas... if our system was set up in a different way: If individual skill deficits were each assessed, recognized and funded/supported individually in lieu of the existing "A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3)" etc etc in order to qualify for support, then the OP's original question wouldn't matter.

Wouldn't that be better? (What am I missing?)

How wonderful that you got that in writing!! (Our private psychologist said she'd be happy to write me a letter as well, but wanted to meet with me first... I thought "hmmm, I wonder if she'll charge me for that meeting." ...I never did call her to ask or schedule the meeting).

And how awful that they just designated your daughter without confirmation!! It sounds like your school was more aggressive than ours. I don't think that they're allowed to label a child without a copy of a report from a qualified tester. Our school "handled me with kids gloves" and then backed down once I took DS to a provincial specialist (this after I'd spent $$$ on private testing and submitted a 17 page report, which wasn't good enough for the school... I was NOT IMPRESSED).

Fun, isn't it...