Is immediate diagnosis always neccessary?

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My oldest grandaughter will sit at times and jerk her head from side to side, muttering a sound over and over. She never does it long. I used to stim like that when I was little. She's six, and so far doing well in first grade. In kindergarten there were a few issues about her having trouble sitting still and listening, but she was mainly well behaved. She's shy but will play with other children.
She's a little accident prone but hasn't hurt herself too badly, it comes mostly from her being impulsive.
My question is, is it neccessary to rush out now and try to get her assessed for anything? She's doing worlds better than I was at her age.
Her mother was shortchanged by the public school system, and I don't trust them to be much help.
They used to tell me, "She's way too smart to have LDs" and "She's just shy."
I dread another runaround from people like that.

Well, it seems you already know the answer: why bother?

i think if she shows signs of needing help then the assesment is good for the services she will need to get by in school.. but i would not let them make the ruling of what she has/or needs.. this is what the rules are for schools as a parent you are able to obtain an outside diagnosis at their expense and they must follow the critera.. i know i also feel that the public school has done my son a great harm but not giving services in the early years when he needed it the most. it was always a run around and teachers who thought they were GOD making choices for my sons education,.. me niave and maybe ignorant to it all also let him down.. if i knew then what i know now i can assure you that I would not be so nice..

It really depends on the state you live in. California school districts had their own assessments and you could get services (special ed) according to the child's need. This system helped in the region I lived in because it could take years to get a diagnosis and many kids can't wait that long to qualify for early intervention.
Here in Arizona, you can get services up til the child is 6 and then they MUST have a medical diagnosis. The medical dx is the rubber stamp to get services, it overrides whatever the teachers say.

Personally, I would have the child assessed and diagnosed by a private doctor and decide if she would benefit from special ed services, rather than letting the school decide. If she needs any adaptive help/therapy then you have the documentation in hand to get it.

But yes, the schools have their own agenda and we're knee-deep in the stuff right now.

i'd have her assessed by someone....careful, though~or you could run into the problem we've run into. the district would've paid for an outside eval if we had approached them first and asked them to evaluate ( and their findings were inconclusive).........daughter's school had done very little to support her ( isn't writing " you must write neater" on her paper an efficient way of helping ??? )
we went ahead and got an outside eval and are still waiting for the results....6 weeks is such a long time to wait.

At the only place outside of school that I know of to get her diagnosed, the waiting list is about a year.
Her mama is on the waiting list already. I think I will ask her mama if she thinks it's time to get her on the list, too.
It's still early in the school year, so meanwhile we can see how she does in her new class.
Thank you all for the advice.
I don't want to totally ignore the signs, because my parents did this and I got no help at all, but she does not seem unhappy with herself the way I was.
Her little differences don't disturb me as much as they do her mom. I just don't want people to start teasing her if we wait too long.

did her mom go to school in the same district as your granddaughter ? if not, it might be worth asking the district to evaluate her.

No. Her mom went to public school in Columbus, Ohio. They seemed to have no clue what a learning disability was, and it was frustrating to deal with them. She was considered gifted but she was terribly unhappy in the system because she could barely do math and had other issues.
I think the best help I'll be able to get is at the university here where they counsel her mother and me. At any rate, I'm going to try that first. They can probably suggest where to begin.
We might have somewhat better luck with the school system here, too.

good luck !

Thank you , going to give it a try.

I will mention our experience just so you can factor this into the decision making process. I have a kiddo with AS traits who did beautifully in kindergarten and then at the start of first grade had severe school anxiety--I mean the serious debilitaing kind. It was unexpected and sudden and I was extremely glad that we had a diagnosis in place and had already been through the evaluation process because that can take several months. Even with having everything in place it was very difficult to get through but at least we were able to kick up the level of services needed right away as opposed to having to wait.

Just thought I would add that in because these kids can be so sensitive to what's going on in their environment that a child who is doing well can make sudden and significant changes.