Anyone choose to have no diagnosis?

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Another: Start the whole thing with "Can you give me a minute to write some of this down? This is a lot of information and I want to be sure I don't miss anything" (then start writing whenever you start to get overwhelmed - people will automatically give you time and repeat things if you need them to. Bullet points. Much easier for the Aspie mind to manage.)

Ran into a new consideration, at least for some of the issues: SAT accommodations. My son NEEDS to be able to type the written portion and they will not take the school's word for it, we have to submit something from a list of accepted medical tests specific to dysgraphia. Which I am now starting the process of. Do wish I had known that 6 months ago instead of on the due date for registration (obviously having to defer the testing).

Have heard from a number of parents in my community that it is considerably more difficult to get any kind of accommodations for the ACT and SAT than it is for anything else related to education. There is apparently a belief in test administrators that parents are trying to game the system for their kids in order to get them into better colleges.

The issue I have with that kind of thinking: most of the testing accommodations won't do you any good unless you need them. DS gets one of the standard accommodations - extra time - for standardized tests - he needs it in Math, but for the rest of the tests it is actually a disadvantage, as he finds it incredibly difficult to sit still and do nothing for the time between when he's done and when the test is over (we're getting this changed to reflect where he is next year.) I can't see how extra time would offer an unfair advantage to anyone - nor can I see how typing the test response would make a difference to anyone. Either you can answer the questions correctly, or you can't - how you get there shouldn't be an issue.

So, parents-who-aren't-here-because-we-all-have-kids-with-actual-disabilities (who may well be an invention of test administrators,) if you're considering faking a diagnosis to get accommodations for your kid that they don't need, please consider those of us whose kids DO have actual disabilities when you do so - you're getting no benefit and you're making life harder for those of us who don't have it easy on a good day.

I agree, there is no benefit to my son for an accommodation he does not need. ALL we are asking for is the typing, and my son is perplexed why that is so difficult to get. I don't think the average person really benefits (spell check and grammar check MUST be turned off) because for most people writing v. typing is not a huge deal (other than the fact that in typing you can rearrange faster). For my son, though, having to handwrite would put ALL his focus on trying to write, with nothing left for the content. He doesn't understand why they don't just let all kids type, but I would assume it is financial. Now that the IEP is gone, because that is the only accommodation he still needs at school, we have no paperwork this year; the school figured it wasn't necessary because they allow any student who requests to type to do so (very few do). I brought up the whole SAT thing but they didn't seem concerned back at that sign out meeting - But now I'm hitting myself for not pushing harder. And, yes, really awful that they ended up having to make it so hard because too many people were abusing the system.

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't know why it never occurred to me to take a list of things to say! I have done this before with varied success, and I have to do it if I attempt phone calls as well. I think my stock phrase for therapy suggestions will be "I have to discuss this with my husband, I will get back to you."

I understand your concern. I chose not to have my son diagnosed because ASD covers such a wide range of behaviors that I didn't want my son to have an easy excuse or be treated differently. My thought was that I couldn't get the world to change for him, so he would need to learn to coexist with everyone else.
I home schooled until high school, so IEPs were not an issue then. By high school he had most of the coping skills he needed to get by. I am positive that his peers and teachers noticed that he was different, but he didn't notice/care. He got his drivers license at 17 just like his siblings and enrolled in college after graduation.
As more adult milestones were not met, college became too challenging and he needed a diagnosis to get him the academic help he needed. He was unable to transition out of the child phase in which his parents control everything and he succeeds by doing as he is told. He became much more social phobic. Life is much harder for him as a young adult and I am not sure he will be able to live independantly..
Looking back, I regret not having him formally diagnosed before he was 18. He has been denied services because his late diagnosis does not set well with programs for the developmentally disabled. He keeps getting denied SSI because he has such a short documented history of his disability.
It might be a wise choice to get documentation, even if you don't do anything with it yet.