PLEASE HELP CALM NERVES AFTER INITIAL EVALUATION

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Hello,

My 5 year old just completed his evaluation testing this past Friday. I truely believe that he has Asperger syndrome's but I am very nervous about the outcome. Please keep in mind that I'm not looking for something to be "wrong" with my kid, but when you love your child so much and you know something is different, you just want that diagnosis to get him the help he needs, know what I mean?

Anyways, the psychologist who evaluated him at Children's Hospital stated that they all fell in love with him because he has such a magnetic personality with adults. She is on the fence though and we will not know until she scores all of the sheets we filled out. She says she's not sure if he is on the autismAutism
Autism - resourcesspectrum mildly and has another underlying condition such as ADD/ADHD or if he has a mild case of ADD/ADHD and is "quirky".

Now, this is making me nervous because I thought that the very definition of AspergersAsperger syndromeis that they are very high functioning on the autismAutism
Autism - resourcesspectrum. Therefore in a "safe" one-on-one evaluation with adults the symptoms may not show.

Am I overthinking this? Did this happen to any of you (not showing in one-on-one but MUCH more obvious in a group setting with peers? or on the parent scoring sheets)

I am so scared we are going to get an answer that nothing is wrong and we'll back to square one!

Allow me to begin by saying that the debate over high functioning Autism spectrum disorders and low functioning Autism spectrum disorders really is rather pointless. A person can be severely disabled and have Aspeger's Syndrome or can be perfectly normal and have Classic Autism. If you're child really is "on the fence", odds are good he won't even get a diagnosis of Asperger's. PDD-NOS usually comes into play in a situation where the child is really barely Autistic. It's going to be hard to diagnose a five year old with Asperger's. Social interaction at that age is usually very simple and of a parallel nature rather than a reciprocal nature. Asperger's is rarely diagnosed until the child is 11 or so. I really understand how you're feeling. I just finished getting tested for Autism Spectrum disorders and I'm waiting anxiously for the results. If he isn't Autistic that does not mean that you're back to square one. If the experts diagnose him with ADD or ADHD they'll simply tailor their therapies to fit that diagnosis. He'll still receive the help he needs. It sounds to me like you want your child to be diagnosed with an ASD. Is that true? I'm going to wrap this up by saying, if they agreed to test him in the first place there is something wrong. They're not going to accept what you say at face value and test him if they don't see some sort of issue. Right now, you just need to lean back and relax. Things are going to be okay.

I wouldn't read too much into the "magnetic personality" comment. At this point, all you can do is wait for the results. Did they do the ADOS?

I think that the social difficulties of AS would be quite apparent in a five-year-old child. Interacting with an unfamiliar adult in an unfamiliar setting is not really a safe situation. But I have also read that some children with AS gravitate towards adults and are able to interact with adults, but not peers.

Thank you so much for your replies..

Let me clarify - his preschool had a psychologist and IEP and they were the ones who were thinking Asperger's but could not "medically diagnose him"

when I said safe environment what I meant was that there was not any sensory overload in the room, and my son felt non-threatened and comfortable. He is very overly social with adults, but has a very hard time relating to children his own age. if there are loud noises or the wrong texture or smell he either has a meltdown or has a flight or fight reaction. He is very smart and has an extensive vocabulary but it is very scripted based on movies he sees and his conversations are very one sided only about things that interest him. So, he'll see a stranger in the grocery store and he would talk to them an hour if they'd let him telling them all about Thomas and his friends and what color they are and what fuel they take, etc. etc. but doesn't notice when people lose interest or kids looking at him like he is weird. He has a very very hard time redirecting his attention especially if he is overly focused/obsessed with something.

He did very well in a structured environment but regressed in his adaptive skills once school was out for the summer. I think that the "autistic" symptoms are mild but if he gets in the wrong environment he reacts dramatically to the situation that might irritate autistic symptoms.

I'm sorry I don't know the ADOS term all I know is that I filled out about a dozen of the standardized questionnaires and they did about 3-4 hours of observational testing and IQ testing.

I personally am leaning more towards Asperger's than ADHD. I am probably overly concerned but I am just worried that Kindergarten will be a disaster if his teacher doesn't have that "diagnosis" in her hand. I really really value your feedback. We have had a preschool type setting before where the teacher was not equipped to handle his "specialness" and it escalated out of control to the point of him being punished every day for behavior that is a symptom something is wrong. So, I am a little extra sensitive and I worry they will say nothing is wrong and we'll keep going through this over and over in the public schools.

It sounds like your son is a bubbly kid with an active but odd social approach, so his personality is probably adorable to adults, preschool teacher excepted. The other traits you have described are consistent with ASD.

When he starts school, don't let the teachers brainwash you into believing that he could suddenly develop awesomest social skills just by trying harder, or that he is doing something nasty on purpose when he is most likely not.

You can get the same accomodations for your child if he is ADHD or AS in school. You are overthinking it. He is only 5.

Learning what is best for your kid is a great thing to do. Much harm is often done by well meaning people with limited information. Things like protecting your child from harmful bullying, and ignoring poor medical advice

The purpose of diagnosis is to get the best interventions for the asd individual, as one psychiatrist famously said 'I would call the kid a zebra if it got him th right treatment!'
For psychiatrist the spectrum is organised with Autism and PDD-NOS. A diagnosis of Autism usually means classic Autism ie Kanners disorder. This leaves PDD-NOS, aspergers is basically a subcatagory of PDD.

Usually high functioning Autism, that is PDD is called Aspergers Syndrome, your child as you describe him is high functioning, but he may not have all the symptoms as the DSM requires for a diagnosis of AS, but the psychiatrist may decide he would get the best interventions if aspergers is diagnosed. The diagnosis of PDD-Nos can include low functioning ASD, such as down syndrome individuals with AS.

One thing is for sure the diagnosis will be the best one for your child and the right interventions.

I hope they come up with something that can help you. Autism is all too often misdiagnosed because a child seems more "social" than the evaluator thinks they should be. Let us know how it goes.

We received Aiden's diagnosis of PDD-NOS. I was very surprised it was not Asperger's because the symptoms were so clear to me but Children's Hospital explained that it is because he has some other defficiencies on the spectrum that would not be present if he just had Asperger's.

So, anyhow, now the real work begins. Thank you to everyone for your support!