[quote=leahchris] She said that often times these delays are outgrown and the child simply needs more time to grow and develop. I can attest to that - the two years that have passed since my son was 6 have worked magic on him.
I think, personally, that changing diagnoses (been there, lol) are a reflection of a developing child. I never would have believed I'd be saying this a couple of years ago, but I think sometimes we tend to categorize things too quickly: Sometimes they just need a little more time to settle into who they really are.
Let me rephrase that - I think what I'm trying to say (and not doing so very clearly, lol) is that in our attempt to categorize their behaviors to get them help, it's wise to expect some changes because sometimes what looks like a disorder may actually just be developmental.
Still, I know it's not easy... hang in there
I snipped CCN's post for brevity but it absolutely bears repeating. I'll just add that most long-term psychodevelopmental diagnoses change and refine over the years. There's a tremendous amount of overlap of symptoms and signs for various things, and as a person's circumstances change, some of them are more evident than others. Throw in a developing child and you end up with multiple diagnoses, more often than not.
Example: at seven, the developmental pede basically looked at us and said "ASD vs NVLD...we could go either way, which one serves your purposes more precisely?" Now, at fourteen, we're pretty much at the point that, on even days I think my daughter's diagnosis was spot on, on odd ones I think we're somewhere else entirely.
This is why it's so desperately important, when putting together an IEP, to design it for the child and not the diagnosis. Schools are very fond of saying "well, autistic kids (or kids with ADHD, or kids with sensory issues, or crooked feet, or whatever) need this thing and this and this". What we need to be saying, though, is "Kevin does A, B and C and has difficulties with Q, so these three things, maybe not that one, and perhaps this one, changed up a bit, would be helpful for him."
