Reversing autism/adhd diagnosis?

amother

Tue, May 11 2021, 10:17 pm

Thank you to everyone for your input.
My concern was an inaccurate diagnosis, treating the symptoms and not the root of the issue.
He didn't end up giving him a diagnosis.
I was reading reviews on this dr right before my appt and kept reading the same reviews: that the dr presents a diagnosis of autism/adhd and or meds after a quick virtual visit. The dr did recommend antipsychotic drugs.

Regarding those questioning why I've been to multiple doctors - they can be In different fields treating and diagnosing children for example: neuropsychologist, developmental pediatrician, pediatric neurologist/neurophysiologist, clinical child psychologist. Now I didn't necessarily go to all of these, but as as miami85 said - people go to different specialists when seeking help. Some have been outright dismissive, some have heard my concerns but couldnt give me anything concrete to actually help me.

Regarding all the posts about ABA, it's completely irrelevant. ABA is not at all what I am asking about.

amother

Tue, May 11 2021, 10:18 pm

miami85 wrote:

My child has Apraxia of speech, I got him diagnosed by a speech therapist. When I lived in NY I did preschool evaluations and I had plenty of kids who came in with "ASD" diagnoses from EI and quite often I was like "I dont' think it's ASD, I think it's Apraxia" but if the SLP won't diagnose it who will? So I took my child to a pediatric neurologist--wouldn't "diagnose" him, I took him to a Developmental Pediatrician, wouldn't "diagnose him with apraxia" but after a lengthy visit he also came away with an "autism diagnosis, if I wanted it"--and there was a smidgen part of me that wanted it for a certain behavior that I was having difficulty with, but the ASD didn't seem right and from my experience as a school psychologist and having done work with ABA, I felt that he missed the boat. I took him back for a follow-up to show him how much progress he'd made, that behavior of concern was now gone, and to re-discuss the diagnosis, but the Dr. never "re-assessed" and since he saw "ASD" in his notes, not once did he interact with my son to notice the progress. Meanwhile since he started speech therapy, he's had probably close to 10 different speech therapists and not a SINGLE ONE has thought autism, and when I had him re-evaluated this year for a learning disability, 2 different psychs also agreed with me that NOT Autism--he was diagnosed recently with ADHD.

So yes, now when I see ASD on developmental evaluations from "one session" I am always skeptical and want to make my own assessment. I had a conference just today where we determined that it was more likely his ADHD rather than Autism--though the outside evaluation said autism (also ADHD). We do not have good measurements that tease apart Autism and ADHD. My method in determining the difference has to do with quality of interaction, ability to think beyond the present, ability to share information with others and have joint attention. And ultimately, I think of the child. A child who has Autism will grow up and generally either not care that s/he has autism or it will be comforting to have that "identification" so others know how to interact with him/her, but a child with "ADHD" or otherwise neurotypical functioning will be confused and may be "insulted" if it's not the right diagnosis--because they are more socially inclined.

Thanks for your post!! It helped clarify how I feel

amother

Seashell

Tue, May 11 2021, 10:31 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

What do you or any of these professionals think he has?