I would be leery of starting any meds without a formal evaluation from someone trained to really figure this out. We took our ds8 to a psychologist for a full evaluation, which was expensive but it really helped us find out what was up with pretty good precision. At the time the diagnosis made was utterly unexpected and not good news, but treatable. And in time, it does appear the doctor was right on with most if not all of his recommendations.
It was a HUGE relief and I believe will save us $$$ in counseling and avoid huge problems with the boy down the road.
If you have insurance, and you feel there is a learning disability, some of the testing you need done may be covered. I think one catch was 'a diagnosis has to be made', in other words they have to find something wrong.
You have to call the insurance company to find out what sorts and how much, of course. Have you looked into that?
Iirc, about 1/2 our costs were reimbursed, which was very very helpful.
Good luck!!
