Agonizing Over Diagnosis--Any Thoughts?

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Oh, no, that is too funny. I felt that way when my second son was diagnosed.

I took my eldest in because there were obviously some learning disabilities happening and I wanted to find out so we could get the right kind of help at school. I didn't really know a lot about Asperger's. I knew it was some kind of an autism thing but that people with it were OK. The Psych. said it was one of the clearest cases of AS she'd ever seen. He has AS and ADHD (she doesn't believe in ADD, says it's always ADHD but the H comes out in different ways).

Soooo, years later I take the next two kids in for similar workups. They are super smart and really I just wanted to get their IQs and stuff because the school hasn't been challenging them enough. I figured if I could get their aptitudes etc documented I could use that to get them harder school work. Little Guy had been diagnosed as PDD-NOS (also an autismy thing) because he hadn't spoken till he was five, and had a bunch of other odd behavioral things going on. Her workup turned up that Little Guy is very uniqe, but NOT in the autism spectrum, but that Middle Son is most definitely an Aspie.

Well, once she said it I felt absolutely ridiculous. Of COURSE he's an Aspie, it's so blazingly obvious, but me, I didn't see it at all. How could I not have noticed? He and I are very connected, so I wouldn't have noticed the lack of eye contact...he looks in MY eyes just fine. He does have a funny walk, and a little funny quirk in his voice...and he's obsessed with sharks and knows every fact there is about them.

I asked the Psychiatrist who'd been treating his ADHD for several years at that point if he thought he had AS, and he just laughed at me. OF COURSE he does, he says. I guess everybody knew but me.