You will probably never ever know whether you child is truly on the spectrum or not. When it's somewhat vague (I am not hearing about dramatic flapping and rocking and being tuned out) then there is just not going to be a definitive diagnosis one way or the other, that you don't have doubts about.
You can go to ten experts and ask ten teachers for comments and do more testing. But at the end of that you may go to the 11th and they'll disagree. What percent of experts need to agree for it to be valid?
Austism spectrum is not a mystery that some particular expert has magic insight into if only one could find them. It's a catch all of ever-shifting boundaries that includes a myriad of environmentally and genetically caused disabilities, that happen to have a common feature of social difficulty. It's like depression in it's variety, except medication helps an even smaller percent.
At a recent family gathering there was talk over where the kids in the family wanted to go to college. One kid named a college that it's unlikely he could get into. My dad says, "Hah! You'll never get in to X". Everyone cringed. This however does not make him on the spectrum. It makes him a person who has said something insensitive.
At the same time if social skills training or sensitivity training at an early age would have made my dad's life a little easier then a austism spectrum diagnosis would have been good for him. If teachers would have been nicer to him after he said something thoughtless about their curriculum, or if my mom would have had more understanding when he neglected to compliment a dress when she asked how she looked, then it would have been a good diagnosis.
On the other hand knowing his diagnosis he might have decided against teaching, and he was by all accounts an excellent teacher. My mom might have thought that someone on the spectrum wasn't marriage material.
With iffy symptoms it's not the school's job or one psychologist's job to make a diagnosis, it is more in the realm of best-choice decisions parents make for their children. Only a parent truly sees the lifetime ahead and all the pros and cons. If you are worried that a diagnosis will be hard in the future or too defining or that it represents only a short time period, then don't accept it. When symptoms are iffy then there may be better ways to spend effort than in psychologists' offices.
Polly
