Hi, I am new here. I am not sure where to post this. So, I hope this is ok.
I will try to make this as short as possible..
My ds (6.5) has always been bright (i.e. knew alphabet,all sounds, read three letter words, able to count, numbers, shapes, pretty much all K skills at age 18-24 months). He has always had no trouble making friends. In fact, he has requested to "play with a friend" every day since he could talk. We had a close social network where we lived so we had lots of friends with children the same age. We moved when he was 4 (and had a baby 9 days before move). A few months after the move, he began to become very agitated and upset when we would go to church and drop him off at nursery. At the same time he hated his tags in his clothes, hated the smell of popcorn ( he seems to have the nose of a hound dog). Anyway, I am a speech pathologist. I did not want to be the parent who misses the big picture so we took him to a developmental pediatrician who, after seeing him for 20-30 minutes, declared he was most likely gifted and diagnosed him with aspergers. I was totally caught off guard because as a speech pathologist, I had always seen kids who were not social, did not exhibit social reciprocity, had trouble with nonverbal communication. My ds cries if someone else should be sad because he is so empathetic. He is always worried about how other people feel. He wants a playdate every day of the week. He does not have difficulty with conversation with anyone of any age group. He loves lego and star wars lego in particular. When an activity at church or elsewhere is a little on the Kindergarten level he tends to be "bored" and not want to do it. I'll never forget when he came home from pre-k (3yr.old) and was in trouble for not sitting and coloring. I asked him why he wouldn't color and his answer was , "the a says aaa, the a says aaa, how many times do I have to learn the a says aaa". In summary, I have been perplexed by the possibility that he may be asperger's since he is so social. But, I had no other explanation for his intensity across every aspect of life. Then, earlier today on a homeschool forum I saw others describing their gifted child as intense intellectually and emotionally. Does anyone have experience with your child being misdiagnosed as aspergers? No matter how many times I read the DSM-IV criteria, I cannot make him fit it. He is too social. In my former life as a SLP, I administered testing and am pretty trained in DSM criteria. But, I don't want my mommy eyes to trick me. Also, I do not want him to have the aspergers label if it is not accurate. I have a friend who is an occupational therapist who knows my child pretty well. She does not think he falls into the aspie criteria at all. Thanks for reading all of this. Any advice or experiences would be appreciated. I am debating a full psych. eval. Not sure if dh will go for this!! Thanks, Kim
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