DD has an educational Dx...do we need to get medical?

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My DD is 14. She received an ed dx of Aspergers at school this past week. We have suspected this for years but supports for her ADHD were in place via a 504. Those supports were not enough once she got to 8th grade. What would the medical dx do that the ed dx doesn't?
Char

I think you are asking the right question - what benefit could your DD receive from having a medical professional confirm the school's diagnosis. The one thing that comes to mind right away is insurance coverage if you are seeking any therapy, such as occupational therapy, speech or other services outside of school. In the future, a medical diagnosis might be necessary if she needed to apply for services such as medicaid. If you think that might be in the cards, there might be some advantage to receiving a medical diagnosis sooner rather than later. Outside of those considerations, I can't think of any compelling reason to pursue a medical diagnosis but heopfully others can chime in with different perspectives.

Did she receive the DX from a psychologist or psychiatrist? Also, do you have paperwork from the person that did the testing with thd DX clearly stated and the results of each test that was done? I recived my DX from a psychologist at a private practice that had nothing to do with the school system. Then we worked out an IEP and any other supports that I might need. But that was in the 90's.

The School Psychologist evaluated her. The report clearly states her scores in teh various areas of the assessment and clearly states Aspergers. They arent denying her services, I am just wondering if she needs to have a medical dx. I do not forsee Medicaid or the need for private therapies....besides most ins co dont pay for much therapy, do they?

I'd call your insurance company or look up the benefits; you sure don't want to be surprised if they don't cover it. Also - insurance companies tend to be extremely conservative, so the places they cover are more likely to have documentation that they know what they're doing and use trusted therapies.

Here's my mantra: schools and their staff are generalists. I think kids with autism benefit from the oversight of specialists.

We found out more about our son in the 4-hour appointment for the ADOS than we had in five years of struggle at school, a school diagnosis, and from several counselors. The label of autism is only a place to start: you need to find out the specific ways in which autism affects your child; if the school is successful at that and she's doing well, fine - if you have more questions than answers, I'd get a specialist's opinion.

We got our ADOS from a multi-disciplinary team that specialized in pediatric development at one of our local hospitals: they found stuff we'd never even considered (a deficit in pragmatic speech, specifically) and helped us figure out my son's particular needs and what his behavior was telling us.

We skipped the medical once we had the school use label in hand for the following reasons:

- The immediate needs were now met
- We did not see ourselves needing private medical services related to the AS
- We were exhausted and wanted to focus on our son instead of appointments
- We were absolutely certain we had the right label
- We liked the idea that he could someday choose to disown the label, since all its capacity dies as soon as he leaves the school district
- We don't see ourselves moving or changing schools and needing a more portable label
- We do not know how the medical label might affect the ability to get insurance
- We do not know how the label might affect the ability to get a job, child custody in some far off future divorce, etc
- We fully believe our child will be able to hold a job as an adult with minimal accomodation and figure if it turns out he cannot, we can diagnose then, even though it definitely gets harder
- I want him to have a say, and he wasn't really old enough when we went through the school evaluation. Now at 14 he is, and I've let him know what the situation is so he can start thinking about what he wants for himself
- He is thriving; we just aren't seeing gaps that we feel still need filling in

So, for us, we felt like going half way was the best of both worlds. But that answer depends on so many variables, and a nudge on any of them might have changed the conclusion.

And ... I really hate running around to appointments. So I'm also good at dreaming up ways not to need them. I suppose that disclaimer should be included