Well...my stepmom's son was not dx'd until he was 12. Now he is my age (25) so it was awhile ago and things were diff I guess. Less people and dr's new or understood the disorder than today and what not. He was dx'd adhd, tourettes, slightly mentally retarded, you name it they tried to pin it on him. She (my stepmom) kept having to fight dr's and specialists saying that wasn't it. They kept misdiagnosing him and medicating him w/ all sorts of diff stuff (which she said usually made things worse not better and refused to medicate him further after awhile) until finally at 12 they said autism. She had a very long hard fight over finding out things w/ her son. But luckily things are starting to change I think. Many people know something about it now and dx'ing seems to be happening earlier. Don't get me wrong there are still so many who don't understand and dr's who have no idea what's going on and misdiagnosing and all. But it has improved a lot because of all the stuff on tv and inet. Some people I've talked to know about it that I never thought would like some friends and coworkers because of all the hype out there now w/ it being such an epidemic. Hopefully it will only get better...knowledge and understanding of the disorder I mean.
Amber
o.k a quick ?. Are there any of you whose children were dx at a later age instead of earlier in life?If so did the docs say why it took so long to dx them? and did you know sooner than the docs did? oh that was more than a quick? sorry, my brain is working overtime right know. just trying to get more info for my own personal reasons. thanks again.mom2carlowell, keith was dx at 4.5. that is late to me. now seeing and reading more on it, i am wondering about my 7 year old, and his possibly having something on the spectrum. i am so pissed that my ped never mentioned anything about ahything. it was not until keith was 4, i went to him and said ok, he's 4, i KNOW he is adhd, and i need him to try some meds...then the ped decided to send me to a specialist b/c he does not like to med 4 y.o.'s duh thanks!
PRACTICING MEDICINE!
kate
Riley will be 9 in October...we're working on a dx now. I trusted the school too much for too long. He's had some severe health issues that took us "away" from looking closer, I had to go through 12 pediatricians in order to get him help, so no one really "knew" him well enough (he has a rare syndrome, only 3000+ cases worldwide called "CVS") Although - I tried for a year to get the school to re-evaluate, (so did his teachers, who all seemed to know) they finally did this year, and I'm still taking him to a Neuro and Child Psych to be sure.
He is/was originally dx'd with Verbal Apraxia, Speech Delay and Sensory Integration Dysfunction, so he's been receiving therapies (ST/OT) since age 3, made HUGE progress...so I'm not sure how he'll ultimately be dx'd.
~Lesley - mom to Smiley Riley
well then maybe 4 1/2 is not too old if they are hf. hf at early age JUST looks like adhd (IMO)
kate
My GS was not diagnosed until 4 1/2.
some of you guys have mentioned you dh being hfa....i wonder how i could get my dh diagnosed, or at least evaluated....
he does things, and after having read so much on the subject, i will comment to him that "that is a very autistic characteristic" and now he says i am over analizing him.
kate
Thanks to all of you, Carlo has a dx of pdd-nos,adhd,seizure disorder and cp with diplegia. so maybe they look it over because of the adhd? whoknows. he got the adhd dx right before he turned 3. i don't know i still think they should of caught it sooner, cause i feel what if we had known sooner, we could of got him therapy sooner and maybe know it wouldn't be so hard. his physc doc is also warning us of bipolar, but he says he won't know for sure until he gets a bit older. thanks again.mom2carloConnor was diagnosed when he was seven. At 4 1/2 he was evaluated by
My son Takoda was Dx in April and he was nearly 4 1/2. I used the schools resources to get him diagnosed (Headstart). Ironically the same school in the preschool doesn't like the label HFA they are much happier with speech delays or being even more vague and saying delayed child.
I have had to fight them a little already but they are supposed to have added HFA to his IEP. I'm not 100% sure because I filled out the paperwork for respite care and the woman from the school said, "Oh just put delays or speech delays the autism isn't really nessisary." I know that the school has made great progress with him I just can't understand why they think labeling him autistic is THE KISS OF DEATH!!!
I also have another son who is 10 and has some simular problems (not as extreme) and his school feels he is just a behavoral problem (ODD) and their answer has always been dope him up something in a pill that will fix him. Nothing in a pill has worked to this point. I am thankful he has a child phys. who is trying to get to the heart of his problems now. I'm not against meds. for him but they have to help and knowing what the problem is first might help. I would say from my experience with my 2 boys if the symptoms don't scream autism they may not be reconized til much later in life. From the tests I've done online for Jared it does appear as if he is mildly on the spectrum and working in these areas might actually do some good. Nelle Ha! I beat you all! Adam was 16 years 9 months. Why so late? 'Cause my dh acts the same way, and I figured it was just a genetic trait. At least I was right about that one! Heck, it's just Aspergers... being facetious here. Well I think for one thing it is delay vs. disorder ... some kids catch up, while others do not catch up as quickly! Then the other thing is, I think some kids seem typical, up until a certain milestone/s is are not met. With T she had to develop enough to demonstrate prag/sem speech woes ... as well as social woes ... before anyone really "got" that something was going on. And of course, there was the prevailing attitude, "she's just adopted, has post-institutional delays, language interruption -- she will catch up." And we all wanted to think so. I work, professionally as a special education advocate. I see many TEENS just now getting diagnosed. In many cases, young children are able to "pass" if they are high functioning enough because the things that are expected to do at such a young age are within their capabilities. Oftentimes, they are getting some sort of help because they are seen as having a learning disability or having ADHD (the symptoms of which are present in most ASD cases). So they ARE getting support, which helps them pass. But that support helps only for so long. Also, the world STILL sees autism as something pretty exotic. A disability for head-bangers and weirdos (sorry to say this, but it remains true in some quarters). So, when a child who seems to just have behavioral issues shows up without the classic signs of autism, evaluators don't recognize the underlying autism. I'm happy to say that that's changing nowadays, but some vestiges are still around. The key is not what has happened so far in this child's life. It's what happens FROM NOW ON that counts. Good luck. My son was 7. The first reason was that he wasn't that different from his male peers -- at least to the untrained eye -- until the demands on them increased at about age 5. The second reason was that we had to deal with long waiting lists (we have socialized medicine here). The third reason is that we're a bilingual family. This makes it harder to sort out the symptoms. Your son has CP, etc. and I'm sure that made it harder to sort out the symptoms, too. I belong to a support group here in Australia and we have quite a few members whose children have only recently been diagnosed. Their ages range from 9 - 15. In most cases the parents were simply ignored when they went to doctors, some were given ADHD meds. Mysh My son was 8 when he was diagnosed. He's pretty social, so I think that contributed to being diagnosed so late. He had been getting services since 13 months old for a variety of other diagnosises (sp?), so clearly there were issues from the get go. Tiffany Ha! I beat you all! Adam was 16 years 9 months. Why so late? 'Cause my dh acts the same way, and I figured it was just a genetic trait. At least I was right about that one! Heck, it's just Aspergers... being facetious here.
This is the same reason it took awile for us also.. Everyone talked about how he was so much like me and I turned out fine! (I did?) LOL
My dd was dx PDD-NOS at 5 1/2. I can see why it was missed because she it atypical in that she doesn't have stims (I guess I should say that she doesn't have stims that stand out since we all stim IMO). She also does well academically and doesn't have an aide. I can see why she was easy to miss. Plus, her social issues didn't really come to light until she got older. She has been in speech since 2 though so there has always been "something" there. I don't think I would have had my boys dx this early either if it hadn't been for my dd's dx.
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