What would you do, regarding doctor?

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I am not sure what to do and I am looking for some advice.

My 3 yo showed signs of ASD begining at about 2 yo. At the time, we didn't realize it, we just figured he was being himself. My BIL's sister is a teacher and she picked up on his behavior and eventually we found out. After looking through the net we realize that the pedi was supposed to do an autism screening when the child is 2 and again at 3. Our pedi has never really spoken or questioned the children (we have a 6, 3, and 1 yos). The questions are usually directed at us, and nothing in the questions raised a red flag to us, or him. I have no confidence in his abilities anymore.

When we contacted him about our concern about our son having ASD, he was really defensive, asking us why didn't we tell him at the wellness visit he had a few weeks ago. Since then, he has pretty much ignored us as much as possible (even though he has had all 3 of my children since birth). I ignored that behavior because I wanted to fast track the services and I needed the referrals and the prescriptions to get the services.

Now that everything is completed (as in the paper work) I no longer need to stay with his practice and I am ready to move on. I want to know, should I look into getting a regular pedi for all 3 children or should I get a developmental pedi just for my 3 yo? Does the developmental pedi do well visits also (i.e. do you take your child to them if the child has a cold). It would be nice to keep them all with one pedi.

Also, all 3 kids have some asthma traits (the oldest has almost outgrown it). The pedi was also allergist so he treated the kids. If your child has asthma, does a regular pedi treat them or would I have to take them to the allergist?

TIA for your help!

If the services you are getting/going to get involve a speech therapist and or occupational therapist (or any other practitioner), I would ask any of them for a recommendation of a regular p doc. Professionals who work with autism seem to get to know each other pretty well. Where I live we don't have any developmental ped's. DS sees the regular p doc, an OT and a neuropsychologist. IMHO having a p doc you can trust and who really listens to you is very valuable. Other professionals can be very important but nothing is like having that one doc you know you can trust. We had what I consider a lucky circumstance where the p doc we started with moved away and the new one he recommended to us has been WONDERFUL about our concerns about DS's autism. I'm not so sure our original one would have been as understanding. For example, he was completely unfazed when DS literally screamed at the top of his lungs through his entire 3 yo well child visit.

I don't know what is common, but our dev ped doesn't do well visits. She's a specialist, and her time is focused on keeping up on all the latest with treatments for autism, ADHD, etc, and seeing only kids who need that help.

Thanks for the info. So I will have to get both a regular pedi for my son, as well as a developmental pedi. Now I need to find a good pedi. I don't even know how to go about interviewing them. Any advice?

I think that your doctor's reaction is fairly common. Doctors are really gun-shy when it comes to missing autism diagnoses. If they mention that they think that a child may be on the spectrum, and they AREN'T, the parents will be offended. If they don't notice, and the child IS on the spectrum, they are in trouble for not catching the signs. They're in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position.

We had our pediatrician for five years before my son was born. It was five years before his diagnosis, which was caught be preschool teachers -- NOT our pediatrician. Preschool teachers are with a child for many hours per day, and may have even had children with similar problems, whereas a doctor visits with you for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Our pediatrician was really quietly on the defensive when we first started to talk about the fact that our son was on the spectrum -- then, when he realized that I wasn't on HIS case about the diagnosis, he relaxed. Funny thing is . . . after a while, I realized that our pediatrician could very well have been on the spectrum...

One of the reasons that doctors are so "weird" about their patients being diagnosed as on the spectrum is because there has been the feeling that vaccinations may have been the cause for autism. Once the pediatrician knew that I didn't blame vaccinations for my son's autism (it just wasn't the case with my son -- I had delayed getting the vaccinations until AFTER he was diagnosed, purely because we moved right at the time he would have received them and I had forgotten to get him to the doctor at that stage), he was back to being his same old jolly self...

Thanks for the info. My BIL's sister only sees my son at a few family gatherings. She hasn't had that much contact with him, and she picked it up. My son has asthma (it's genetic from his father) and though he is much better now, when he was younger, it was much worse. There were weeks when we say the pedi several times a week. He has always focused on the astma, but never on his development. I didn't know until a couple months ago that pediatricians should also focus a lot on development and that the AAP recommends that pedi screen children at cetain intervals.

There were a lot of things I disagreed with him about when it came to feeding our children but I just ignored his opinion and did what I knew was best. Now I feel like there is really no reason to stay with his practice.

When I spoke to him on the phone about my concerns, he was defensive. However, I never came across as blaming him. In fact, I never really focused on "who or what to blame". All I did was ask him for information about what is the next steps. He told me what to do, but the doctors he sent me to, I couldn't get an appt for months in advance. I instead spoke to my OB/GYN (who's son is diagnosed with PDD NOS) and she told me which specialist to visit.

My OB/GYN has given more info on what to do (even offering for us to meet for coffee to discuss this more) than my pedi. I have had to see him a few times since this all began, but I am ready to move on to a more proactive pedi.