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Hello everyone. I'm the mother of three children (19, 6, 5). My youngest, a boy, may or may not have Aspergers. Even if he does, he is very mild, but my reason for joining this forum is that I have a very important decision to make.

Justin will be starting K in September, and I am trying to decide whether I should have him diagnosed or not. I am hoping that by reading posts from other parents whose children are Aspergers will give me some insight, and I will probably be asking many questions to help me decide what to do.

As some background, I have had him evaluated several times. When he was a baby and in Early Intervention I pushed for a PDD dx and received one. I have had him evaluated several times since then by several different doctors, all of whom say he is not on the spectrum. Last year in a special preschool, however, the school psychologist became convinced that he has Aspergers. (She knew about his previous dx, so I am not sure how much this influenced her opinion.)

Myself, there are times I feel he does have Aspergers, but most of the time I don't. Either way it doesn't matter to me whether he is Aspie or not...he is a GREAT kid!! ! We love him to death just the way he is!!

What I worry about more is how others react to him. Up until just this past school year, Justin has received speech and play therapy and PT. He is now age appropriate language wise and cognitvely, and in gross motor (he was delayed in those areas). I have found that those who worked with him that either did not know about his prior dx, or who gave the dx little credit, treated him SOOOOO much better; treated him normally, I guess you could say. Justin flourished with these people.

Those that felt he was Aspie (the preschool he attended last year, for ex.), treated him DIFFERENTLY, and he reacted terribly to that. So many incorrect assumptions were made for every little behavior he had, no matter how normal. The school psych started grouping him with autistic children, even though he could relate to his classmates, all because she had a certain agenda of how she felt children on the spectrum should be dealth with.

I found it to be a horrible experience. This year I have him in a regular preschool, and he is not receiving, any services. He is actually doing quite well, though he does get into some trouble. I believe this is mostly because he is bored....academically he is ahead of his class. Socially, he is where he belongs, but he is definitely getting bored.

Anyway, my biggest concern is how he will be treated in grammar school if he DOES have a dx. Justin could have started K this year....I opted to hold him back a year since he is socially immature. However, the school district, believing him to be Aspergers, wanted to place him in a self-contained class. I BALKED at this!! !! He is soooo smart, and while he may need a little extra attention than a typical child, he is not a behavior problem. So, I do not trust the school district to do the right thing. But I worry about him entering K without ANY support whatsoever. And homeschooling is not possible for me financially.

Anyway, I am hoping by lurking and asking questions here that I will be able to come to a decision before the next school year.

Welcome! Getting diagnosed helped me a lot. I wouldn't have started this website if I hadn't been diagnosed.

I think I would skip the official Aspergers Dx. The only reason we had our daughter dx'd was to improve family relations. Our parents thought that the meltdowns and unusual behavior were a result of bad parenting, you know the "give me 10mins with her and I'LL straighten her out" comments. We got some OT for the sensory issues (as much to identify them as anything) and otherwise we just love her and give her what she needs. If she wants to socialize, we try to tell her how but we don't force it. Actually when we took her for the dx, the doctor initially said "no way, she's perfectly normal" but went ahead with some testing anyway and was like "holy cow! she is DEFINITELY Aspergers", so I guess we've been doing a pretty good job.
She will be 5 this summer and we are debating homeschool vs public vs private. She is also very advanced and we could definitly forsee her getting bored and getting into trouble. Also, like you we love her just the way she is and don't wish to change her. It seems like the schools want to make her NT so we kind of disagree on a lot of points.
To answer your question, if it weren't for our extended family we would not have gotten the dx.
One thing about the dx though is that if you have one, you have to do an IEP in which you could specify that he be put in a regular classroom or whatever situation you think he would do best in.
Hope all this helps. Like I said, it looks like we are both struggling with similar decisions. No pressure, its only the future of our kids we hold in our hands. Just call me Butterfingers
Feel free to PM me or my wife (nickname: mommyofone) if you need to.

Hi Alex,

Thank you. I think the problem I am having is figuring out whether my son really is Aspergers. I'm certainly not convinced that he is. That's what makes this so tough. I do not want to have an inaccurate dx placed on my son.

Back before I knew anything about the spectrum, and my son was not speaking at the time, I did research on the internet and became worried that he was PDD or mildly autistic. Because everything I read said the sooner you catch it the better, I pushed for a dx. I figured well, if he is autistic he will be in a position to receive whatever services he may need, and if he isn't, no harm done.

Well, it actually became apparent quite quickly that my son was not autistic, though it took me a LONG time to convince myself of this for sure. I have spent countless hours on autism boards and spoken with countless parents, and seen many doctors, and discussed things with his therapists. I read, and read and read.

And no, he is definitely not autistic, nor would he be considered high-functioning autistic.

However, he does have some behaviors that do not at this time allow me to convince myself 100% that he is not Aspergers. That is why I searched out this forum. I want to learn as much as possible about Aspergers and hear about other children with Aspergers before I decide whether my son is truly Aspie or not. While he does seem to have some Asperger traits, there are also behaviors that seem to be common with Aspies that he does not possess. I also can not get over the fact that at one time I believed my son was autistic, and this turned out not be true. Unfortunately, those records remain in my son's preschool files, and have been a detriment to his development. I don't want to make the same mistake twice.

If not for the judgement of others, I wouldn't agonize over this so much. It just kills me when teachers/therapists jump to conclusions based on a dx rather than seeing my son for the individual he is.

Anyway, I hope to learn a lot here. Thank you for welcoming me.

Unfortunately, my school district requires a medical dx of Aspergers in order to classify a child under the autism label. Without it, my son does not qualify for any services. The biggest difficulty I envision Justin having is being in a large classroom. Class size could be as large as 21 in K, and my daughter's 1st grade class has 27 kids! My son lacks confidence in himself around other kids, and a large group won't help any.