Implications of Autism diagnosis

amother

Sun, May 08 2022, 12:49 pm

My son is in 1st grade. He was born very prematurely and has global developmental delays. He presents with ADHD type symptoms along with sensory issues, learning delays, including dyslexia, and is struggling significantly in school. We’ve had extensive psych evals done and no one gave him an autism diagnosis. I do not believe he has autism, however, there are many services he really needs, like ABA, which required an autism diagnosis. I work in public school and know that it is easy to get him this diagnosis due to his attention and executive fundioning delays as well as sensory issues, however, I am extremely conflicted as I do not know what the repercussions are of this and don’t want this title on him for the rest of his life. You can Argue with me that he either has it or he does not but I know from going to psychologists that they basically give parents a checklist and it’s easy for kids like my son to go either way, because he’s inconsistent with a lot of his symptoms. He comes across Neuro-typical with developmental delays. But I think high functioning autism is a huge spectrum that many kids like my son can fall into. Please help me. I want to do what’s best for my son. He needs more services but I really don’t want a HFA title on him because I do feel he will eventually outgrow these things😢

amother

Obsidian

Sun, May 08 2022, 1:12 pm

my son though younger than yours has that diagnose my understanding is we can remove the diagnose in the future if we feel its not necessary. In our frum community its the only way for the schools to get services for these kids that would otherwise fall though the cracks. Your son sounds more severe than ours.you even know where your sons problems are coming from (premature birth) and that excuses all his problems we might need to switch my sons yeshivah and worry he will have a hard time with a diagnose. On the other hand he so greatly improved from the start of his services that we would otherwise never be able to afford. we hope the yeshivah will see our son as a boy doing his best, and parents that got their son the help he needed. Not letting their pride get in the way. We dont overshare because yes it carrys a stigma . but I think its possible to remove the diagnose