What a crazy summer!!!

[Sealy]

Last year I posted a thread about my mil thinking my oldest may have autism. He was 2 then, now he's 3.5yrs.

I was totally pissed and upset that she would incinuated such a thing...(she's a pediatric nurse) but now I'm glad she did.

After being on a waiting list for 8 months for an autism assessment, and 3 different assessments later...we've just been told that he is on the autism spectrum.

Now at least we are open to the funding from the government, to pay for an autism consultants assessment ($3000) and then eventual autism therapy which runs approx. $150/hr. It's not official, but he's definitely on the high functioning side of autism, as he's aware of his environment, and he makes eye contact ect...I'm thinking that it'll be more along the lines of asperger's syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, which Bill Gates actually has! Not sure if that's a good thing or bad! 😛

He's also in speech therapy, as he is talking now, but still not at all to what he should be.

We also found out through blood work that he has hypothyroidism, so he's on medication everyday for that too. I don't know if it was merely a coincidence, but ever since he started on that medication, he began trying to talk more with us. Who knows!!

Anyway...that's my story! Thanks for reading 🙂

 

[Aquaman]

Good to hear you've found out about it and are getting things in order 🙂

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[So]

I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

 

[Aquaman]

Originally posted by: So
I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

It happens more then you would think (autism that is). I have a cousin who is autistic and a friends child is also.

I know what you mean about the ADD stuff though.

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[Sealy]

Originally posted by: So
I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

The psychologist amitted to me that they over assess. Her logic behind it was that they'd rather diagnose in favour of autism, allowing parents to get funding to help their kids out, and then perhaps be wrong down the road.

Being that my son is only 3.5, is quite early for a definite diagnosis, usually parents don't find out until their kids' are in kindergarten, and a teacher discovers it. Early intervention is vital in giving him the tools to be able to be a functioning member of society, which is the ultimate and very reachable goal. 🙂

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: So
I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

If not autism in general, Asperberger's is definitely becoming the new ADD. The thing to remember is that these diseases are a spectrum/continuum. You don't just have bins where this kid is autistic and that kid is normal. Some kids are like rainman. Other kids you might never realize...you might just think they have poor social skills.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: So
I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

No kidding. This Asperger's thing seems to come out of nowhere. Now my daughter has two kids in her class (of 21 kids) who supposedly have it.
My cousin was definitely autistic when he was younger, but now is more or less normal. He didn't talk at all until he was at least 6, and used to get so frustrated that he couldn't communicate that he would ram into walls with his head. He had to wear a helmet.

 

[Sealy]

The thing with autism/aspergers and ADD, is that with ADD Dr.'s were using ridalin(sp.?) as the quick fix to calm down hyper kids.

With autism/aspergers, it's much more therapy intense, not so much drugs. I don't really think it's comparible.

Obviously parents can see something different about their children and that's why flags get raised.

In Canada, the process that we had to go through to get the diagnosis was quite intense! It was'nt just a quick appt. at the Dr.'s office where we spend 15 mins. with him and says yep he's autistic!

We had 3 different appointments, with 3 different specialists over 2 months. A pediatrician, who observed as well as interacted with him for 2 hours. Then a speech pathologist who observed and assessed him for 3 hours. Then the last was a psychologist who assessed him for 2.5 hours. Then we had a parent conference where they gave us all their findings and their diagnosis.

All that was simply to find out whether or not we qualified for the funding that comes with an autistic diagnosis. Now the real work starts!

We get the money into an account, which will take about 2 months. Then it's entirely up to us to look for and hire an autism consultant. What I've been told is that can be quite painful, as there are a lot of qualified therapists out there, but just as many bad ones. Once we find one, then she/he will give us a more acurate assessment of where our son is on the spectrum. Then it's up to us again to find a therapist to actually do regular therapy with him.

This will be on going for years to come. I wish it were as simple as here's a pill, now your kid is fixed!

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: Sealy
This will be on going for years to come. I wish it were as simple as here's a pill, now your kid is fixed!

It's not as simple as that for anything, unfortunately.

 

[illusion88]

Originally posted by: Sealy

Originally posted by: So
I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

The psychologist amitted to me that they over assess. Her logic behind it was that they'd rather diagnose in favour of autism, allowing parents to get funding to help their kids out, and then perhaps be wrong down the road.

Thats rough on the tax payers but I defiently agree with the docters statement. I am not going to doubt the docters diagnosis, as he has the medical degree and has seen your son, but lets assume that he is wrong. How many government dollers will go towards helping your child out? How many hours of theorpy? How many $3k assessments must he go through?

100 hours of theorpy + 5 assessments = 30k! :shocked:

Good luck with your kid. My cousin is very autistic. I have only seen him once, when he was about 6, and he acted like a three old would be expected to act. I don't know what kind of autism he has but his is pretty severe.

 

[Martin]

well, Bram Cohen (BitTorrent creator) also has Asperger's... so maybe your kid is destined for greatness 😉

 

[MisfitsFiend]

good luck to you and your family!

 

[Sealy]

Originally posted by: illusion88

Originally posted by: Sealy

Originally posted by: So
I'm suspicious of diagnoses of autism these days. Seems to me it's the leatest child disease fad...like ADD was in the 90s.

The psychologist amitted to me that they over assess. Her logic behind it was that they'd rather diagnose in favour of autism, allowing parents to get funding to help their kids out, and then perhaps be wrong down the road.

Thats rough on the tax payers but I defiently agree with the docters statement. I am not going to doubt the docters diagnosis, as he has the medical degree and has seen your son, but lets assume that he is wrong. How many government dollers will go towards helping your child out? How many hours of theorpy? How many $3k assessments must he go through?

100 hours of theorpy + 5 assessments = 30k! :shocked:

Good luck with your kid. My cousin is very autistic. I have only seen him once, when he was about 6, and he acted like a three old would be expected to act. I don't know what kind of autism he has but his is pretty severe.

Well the way I look at it, is I'm a tax payer too, so I've been contributing to this along with a billion other things I don't want to contribute to.

You're right things are very expensive! We are only getting 20K/year until he's 6 and then it goes down to 11K/year until I believe he's 12. So really it's not a lot to work with! Yes definitely better than nothing for sure, and we are also lucky to be in a financially sound situation, that we can fork out any excess there may be.

Our son, is definitely not severe, but he definitely needs direction in some areas, so even if he's not autistic down the road, he got the help he needed, to be a better functioning person.

He's 3.5 and still only at the stage of identifying objects with language, and not very clearly at all. He's starting to structure some sentences together like "peanut butter away" but at this age I should be able to have a full on simple conversation with him.

Socially he does not interact appropriately with other children, he tends to "zone out" in his own little world and does'nt seem interested in playing with another child.

He does'nt pretend play at all eg. play with cars and talk about what they're doing. All these types of things he needs to be doing by the time he gets to kindergarten to "fit in". So the therapy will help him "learn" these concepts which "normal" children automatically do themselves.

He's very intelligent in other areas, he could play twinkle little star on the piano at 2yrs. and he could print his name at 2.5, as well as mom and milk(don't ask!) Now he's writing numbers up to 25 and can count up that high.

He's got a lot of strengths for sure, but just needs that extra help in the other areas of "typical" development. So long story short...the money will NOT be going to WAIST, even if he turns out to not be "autistic". 🙂

 

[Sealy]

Martin and MisfitsFiend thank you for your kind words! 🙂