Hi Waits -- welcome to the board. Your situation sounds similar to mine. My daughter was in K last year, and it was really rough for us. They ended up moving her to a combined first-third grade class in February, where she did much better and was much happier, but she still finds the classroom/school environment difficult.
DeeDee wrote, "I'd see a private psychologist to sort this out, preferably one who has experience with gifted girls and autism spectrum disorders, so you can get a definitive answer."
Unfortunately, it hasn't been so straight forward in my case. My DD6 was evaluated by a well-regarded developmental pediatrician with over 25 years of experience with autism/aspergers including gifted. She saw my daughter at age 4.5 and again at age 5.5, and both times said DEFINITELY 100% certain not on the spectrum. During the second visit, she attributed DD's behavior to ADHD. In the middle of those two visits I saw a private psychologist who also said definitely not Asperger's.
Despite these pretty "definitive answers", teachers and parents of kids on the spectrum keep telling me that they think my daughter has Asperger's, that it can be hard to get the correct diagnosis, that it took them years to get the right diagnosis for their kid, etc. In fact this year there is a new special ed teacher at the school, whose grown son has Asperger's. She has spent a lot of time supporting my daughter and getting to know her. She says that my daughter is so much like son that it's like "going in a time machine." Now the school will be doing a lot of assessments - IQ, achievement, speech, behavioral, including assessment by the school psychologist.
I'm curious about why some of the previous posters are wary of school psychologists. Why should I trust their diagnosis less than I should trust those of private professionals? I just want the school to be able to accommodate her needs and help her with her challenges.
