Do you ever have days when...

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	You think your child is typical and question are they on the spectrum or not? My one child is diagnosed PDD and when he is around typical children you can tell he is different but at home i ask myself is it really ASD or something else. I have more then one child on the spectrum too so maybe that is why i feel this way, and since they are so different.  His strength may be my other childs weakness and vice-versa. I do with my son. My son is PDD as well and my daughter is a whole another ball of wax, Classic Autism. Half the time I feel as though PDD with him is just another term for learning disability, because he is sooo mild they say we have un even skills i have learing disibilty an autism .ld alone is complty diff then autism .we havce some thing same but the school i went to has a whole thing on ld /dyslixa with runs in my familyI used to have days like that when she was younger.  Now she is going on 9, I never doubt it.  Unfortunately, their social deficits become more apparent and harder to ignore as they get older. I think about this all the time! I have heard of learning disorders and autism being compared, why are they compared? My son has SLD in math and reading but i dont see any comparsion with autism and LD but maybe its just me? I still think maybe my son doesnt have autism, he def has alot of the same issues or autistic features but autism? Im still having trouble with this esp when the school district is telling me this and that how he doesnt have it but multiple doctors hes seen all have said the same thing asd. But he was SO much worse even a year ago i wonder if he was just developmentally delayed or need to catch up in areas and just has some ocd, sensory issues etc. going on. Its confusing!Sometimes i wish it wasnt so wishy washy or hed just get better all the way around and stay that way, hes very inconsistent. I feel like that a lot, and we even have a speech therapist and PT questioning the original PDD-NOS diagnosis (which was just changed to Asperger's anyway).  DS is very, very mild, and his symptoms are only apparent to those who know what to look for.  He has his blatantly autistic moments, but that's usually when he's tired or stressed.  It's funny, thought, that unless it's an organized activity, he tends to look less autistic around a group of kids.  He just jumps into the pile at the playground and at school - one on one interaction is limited, but that's it. I honestly think that all these different labels we currently have will eventually lead to truly separate diagnoses.  It's a pet peeve of mine that no one is looking into it more closely, but for now, I guess we're stuck with the almighty DSM. I have an 8 year old who has pdd...  And there are many times where I see him as just another normal different child, but when I see him around other children, I see the difference...  I also have an 8 month old daughter and so far shows no signs of pdd, but at the same time I just see it as every child is different in their own way, with or without pdd...  at 2 when it was new, yes, I wondered. At 5 1/2, I never wonder.  Only every other minute! He can do some things so well, but as soon as I start thinkin mabey we were wrong he does somethin that brings me right back to reallity.  I questioned continually when he was younger, even though I could see the differences when he was with other kids. As he got older it became increasingly apparent. But even then there were so many days he was inconsistent, and he had strengths that just didn't seem terribly compatible with the dx, that I still wondered if it was the correct dx. Then I found this fourm, and began to read every post (I'm serious, I stayed up all night reading one after the other). Over and over again while reading, I thought "Wow, Paul does that! Or Wow, so that's why he does this!" Just little, seemingly unsignificant things, but reading so many in common. It settled my mind once and for all that yes, this is what we're dealing with. There may be more, but it is at least this much. Every day.  Both of my kids have some pretty severe issues (sleeping, eating, sensory, etc), that are all common with ASD kids, but I often wonder like Janie said, if there's something else out there that the medical community is missing, just labeling it as ASD.  My kids both fit the DSM criteria, but every single days I watch them like a hawk and question their every move.   Some days I almost feel obsessive over it.  I just wish there was a blood test or something that would just tell me 100% one way or the other.  When he was really little, I used to wonder. Now, as he is older, there is no doubt in my mind that he is firmly on the spectrum. Harriet For me, its the other way around... from day one, there was something "not right" about her, but it was so complicated with other issues like tone issues, severe gross motor delay, severe feeding issues (even a G-tube), and sensory issues. She missed every milestone, didnt have any words or sounds, didnt explore her environment AT ALL, wasnt interested in people. I searched and searched for what could be wrong- it was an agonizing journey. Today, she would almost be considered hyperlexic, is very controlling and demands your attention.  She CAN look very NT if you dont know her or spend much time with her, but there are denfinately things that are still not typical.  I look at it as the fact that "autism" is the best word we have to describe her. Its crazy-making, though. The one thing that is a little validating to me (I spend nights awake thinking about the is she isnt she question) is the fact that she had an EEG that showed "mild to moderate cerebral dysfunction".  When I asked my very prominent neuro who is the director of autism research here he said that "cerebral dysfunction" is the term that they had to use as diagnosis before insurance companies accepted autism as a credible medical diagnosis.  We wonder from time to time.  But we know his still limited with his language development (being 5 years old), receptive, and social interaction peer to peer.  But he has progress so much with in two-year of IBT that his maldaptive behavior have almost dissapeared to the point we often forget he has PDD.  His so well-behave sometimes in comparing him to our 3 year typical daughter we hardly wonder.  I would say, our daughter has done a lot more (to her credit) to him, helping him interact more socially.  She's always pursuing him in wanting to play.  She's so hard to ignore especially at 3.  But it also help us understand them equally.         I have a guilty confession.  As I mentioned above, my son was dx mod-severe ASD by both a devi pedi and a pscho on separate occasions.  But he has improved so much with diet change and therapies that I wont take him back to the devi pedi in fear they're take his diagnosis away.  I don't want to lose the dx and then lose services that he still needs.  In Ohio, we have an Autism Scholarship that we can use when they turn 3 which requires a dxs.  I believe if the dx was dropped to pdd-nos we are no longer eligible for the scholarship.   [QUOTE=Shandalyn1]I have a guilty confession.  As I mentioned above, my son was dx mod-severe ASD by both a devi pedi and a pscho on separate occasions.  But he has improved so much with diet change and therapies that I wont take him back to the devi pedi in fear they're take his diagnosis away.  I don't want to lose the dx and then lose services that he still needs.  In Ohio, we have an Autism Scholarship that we can use when they turn 3 which requires a dxs.  I believe if the dx was dropped to pdd-nos we are no longer eligible for the scholarship.[/QUOTE] Don't feel guilty!  We may be in a similar situation in the near future.  DS is still decidedly on the spectrum, but in 8 months he's progressed from moderate autism to mild asperger's.  We're not saying anything to the school though.  State law here actually says that any ASD is supposed to be covered for services, but local schools have been known to object to anything other than classic autism.  It's stupid to have to lie, but hey, you've gotta do what you've gotta do! no, no doubts here   couldn't even imagine what that would feel like, can't even imagine what a conversation with my 9 year old would feel like The only times my son looks NT to me is when he's using AIM or yahoo messenger to talk with me. He does really well with text based communication that doesn't require face to face contact.
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