I would like to see a study where a group of suspected 2E kids are evaluated by a group of psychologists and see how things change from doctor to doctor.
This is an excellent idea! I have certainly been very deferential in the past to what I thought was the final word--i.e., an expert opinion from a psychologist--only to realize later that there was a lot of controversy about various issues relating to the diagnosis, and also much later that there are specialists who know a lot more about 2e kids than some others. My DH and I have been stymied in our sporadic efforts to learn more about how these evaluations are supposed to work because in many cases the evaluations and the questions are proprietary so it's difficult and/or expensive to get copies. Also there do not seem to be many studies of how well the evaluations actually work in practice--although this is an area that could be very confusing, because how could you really validate way of evaluating, for example, borderline ADHD-I vs. PDD-NOS, etc.? It could be very hard to avoid going around in circles. I personally would like to see some kind of objective tests (like fMRI/neurofeedback) become developed to the point where they become the standard, rather than a questionnaire that even well-meaning people could fill out differently on any given day.
But in the meantime, we have to make do with what we have--which I guess means trying to find a good specialist, trying to find the money to pay for a thorough workup, and doing what we can to get the diagnos(es) that will help our kid the most.
