Posted by Minnie-Haha on May 15, 2005, at 15:40:01
In reply to Anyone with a child with autism??, posted by Spriggy on April 19, 2005, at 21:41:16
I'm late getting in on this, but for awhile we thought our son had Asperger's Syndrome. The pediatric neurologist we saw DXd "ADHD Primarily Inattentive", but everyone who knows J. (personally and professionally) disagrees. Surprise, surprise! The neurologist's specialty was ADHD, and she admitted she had to kind of fudge to make him fit the criteria. I told my husband I think we could go to 4 different specialists and get 4 different diagnoses, so kinda let go of that for now.
What we know for sure is that he is highly gifted, and there are bunches of atypical behaviors that come along with that. So we're trying to fill his gifted needs and take care of other needs as they arise. For instance, he's gotten Speech, OT, and PT therapy off-and-on over the past 6 years now. Some at school, because he has an IEP, and some we get through our insurace or pay for out-of-pocket.
So to answer your question: I think J. is somewhere on the spectrum, but I think he has enough strengths to compensate and live a "normal" life.
I feel for you. I look at J. sometimes and wonder if some other wire might have got crossed... We got lucky. I have the utmost respect for parents of disabled children. It's a hard row to hoe. But I've also met enough autistic kids and parents (I belong to an Asperger's parent group) to know there are these shining, brilliant moments too. They're really special kids and you wonder what is going on in those wonderful minds.
poster:Minnie-Haha
thread:486698
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/child/20050226/msgs/498126.html