Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Asperger's? Or what?

Just wanted to (fourth?--and fifth, based on my sister's experience with her DS7) previous comments about getting an independent eval. I know we tried to be seen as 'team players' by using the school-recommended psych last year, but the eval totally bit, being based as it was on questionnaires from the teachers who pretty much couldn't stand DD (in contrast to the previous two teachers who were wonderful with her while being completely honest with us about her various issues, Bless them). And we're still trying to get a 'fair' evaluation, and I'm still trying to not bug people on this forum by posting about this issue over and over again
So best of luck to you.
BTW, one view of Asperger's apparently is that it can manifest as impulsivity b/c one is not so concerned with what others think.

That is certainly an element of my DS10's makeup (he has Asperger's). You can think of it as extreme inner-directedness, which also translated when he was smaller to "not giving a darn or even noticing what the teacher wants."

DeeDee

My D (now 17) had a very similar profile of test scores and behavior at that age. After quite a bit of "mucking around" with testing, she eventually ended up with a diagnosis of a non-verbal learning disorder. But we have gotten the comment (even from a psychologist) that they thought she is Aspie... but other mental health professionals have assured us that she is not. On the borderline, I guess. She would definitely say about herself that she is "on the spectrum". Agree with those who say to get the testing done by someone outside the school.

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.

One - the school psychologist works for the SCHOOL. Not for you or your child. While they likely have good intentions, they are ultimately working for their employer.

Two - Experience. You can read countless stories on this board, but the long story short is that the vast majority of the time school psychologists are dealing with kids from bad home with behavior problems, not highly gifted children with possible learning disorders. Many of the kids on this board have IQ ranges that make them, statistically speaking, one in a thousand, one in 5,000. It's highly unlikely there's a single other child in their school like them. How likely is it a school psychologist has seen enough kids like these to understand them?

Three - In my experience, they are overworked and underpaid. They don't have the time or resources to do the sort of testing that really should be used (in our case they used the K-TEA and K-ABC as opposed to the private neuropsych who was able to use the WISC and WIAT among other surveys/observations.) The private doctors will typically work with/observe your child for 3-4hours or longer. The school psych will probably get an hour, tops, and often that's in a random school room with kids passing in the hallways, bells ringing and countless other distractions.

In addition, many school psychologists are simply not capable of doing the diagnostic work necessary to actually diagnose 2e children. They have a limited number of 'bubbles' they can fill in, and that's it. My DS's last school psychologist wanted to label him 'emotionally disturbed' which would have likely landed him in a special isolated classroom full of other 'emotionally disturbed' children - a fine place for a highly gifted kid on the autism spectrum!

This is not to say all school psychologists are terrible. I'm sure there are some amazing ones out there! But likely won't have any idea what your school psychologist is like until way too late to do anything about it. You can't read up online about them or find patient reviews. You can't sit down and interview them prior to them testing your child. You don't get a personal follow-up with recommendations next steps. You get a short ARD meeting with a couple page report with a label or not.

Exactly what EPOH said - especially the first. Their agenda and mandates are driven by their employer, not you or your child. Thus, they can never be an impartial advocate on your child's behalf.

Our psychiatrist is currently working with us to provide documentation regarding clinical reasons for depressed scores on standardized tests - something he suggested as a means to get my son his differentiated work for his Giftedness and not just his disabilities. I promise you, in all the years I've worked with school staff, none of them would go out on a limb to fight the status quo to get the appropriate accommodations because of the reprimands and consequences they feared from their employers,

Having someone outside the system who isn't motivated to put your child in a definable box that works in their system is to your benefit.

Yes x 1,000. ASD gets funding in our system (BC Canada) whereas so many other cognitive profiles (ADHD, for example) do not. While funding helps kids, I'm wary of having a school psychologist mislabel a child just to get $$$. A private psychologist won't have this kind of bias.

Sounds like what we've been through with DS. The more people I talk to, & the more forum posts I read, the more I see a pattern of school systems erring on the side of ASD.

In our case, it was a private school with an affiliated psychologist, and we ended up with a horrible evaluation suggesting ADHD, ODD, and Asperger's based mainly on evaluations from teachers who couldn't stand DD. I think the idea was to make DD look as bad as possible on paper to justify kicking her out--which was totally unnecessary, b/c all they had to do was say, look, this isn't working. Maybe they were afraid we would try to sue or something, which is ridiculous b/c it would not even work and we would not do that. But anyway now we have this awful eval that if you read it and don't know DD it sounds like she should be locked in a padded room. We've been trying to get a diagnosis we can believe in from an independent specialist, and I think we're going to end up with Asperger's (maybe Asperger's-ish, since DD doesn't have all the traits), which I can believe based on everything I've read and plus it's a diagnosis that isn't going to scare school admissions people out of their wits. I'm still so grateful that we were able to get DD into another school this year even though they did see that evaluation--but five other schools didn't after seeing it. It's just very disappointing that the whole thing happened that way, and I would never let it happen again.

Yes. It took us years to get the correct diagnosis (DS was 5.) Some kids (especially girls) figure out some coping strategies to mask how socially confused they are. Some practitioners write off obvious issues as "due to giftedness" when there is an underlying disability causing them. Our DS fell into the latter case.


A school psychologist will probably not have all the tools and knowledge a private practitioner will have. (Our school psych had never heard of the ADOS, which is the best test for distinguishing autism spectrum disorders from other things. She was also highly motivated NOT to identify DS.) In many parts of the country a school psych has only a Master's degree, and they are qualified to make educational assessments but not to diagnose or treat a disability.

The educational assessment is very important, because it gives access to services and supports; but if you really want to know the full picture, it's worth seeing a private practitioner in parallel. The two processes are not equivalent.

DeeDee