Autism diagnosis

Long story short my daughter has been receiving speech for almost a year. she is now 2.5. She received special Ed for 6 weeks as well to keep her on task, but was disqualified because when it was time for her 6 month eval she scored too high cognitively. A psych was suggested to get her more services. As it turned out, she bombed the day of her eval. Wanted nothing to do with the psych and was diagnosed with autism. They offered ABA and the day both of her Aba therapists came they pretty much told me there is no way she is autistic. Her one therapist told me she has been doing this 20 years and and truly feels she is not autistic. So, her ABA program has had to be modified because she is flying through thr programs and they are. Not even doing discrete trials because they don't feel like she neds it. I felt from the first day she was misdiagnosed. Here is my question, she has a Feb birthday but I have to call the district for an appt in October. My question is, who and what determines how and when a label gets removed? She will be starting nursery next fall.

Autism diagnosis

You need to get a new psych eval to remove the diagnosis. But honestly I would not be too quick to remove it. Labels are just labels, it does not define the child. Having an autism diagnosis allows you a much broader scope of therapies in and out of school. Girls do not present autism the same way boys do. DD was diagnosis at 2.5/3 and never stimmed, had awesome eye contact and did not need ABA, ran through all the programs in record time but there is no doubt she is autistic. As she got older and started school it was obvious she had a HUGE social deficit, not that she didn't want to play but that she did not know how to interact correctly.

Long story short lol, you just need a new psych eval and the district should comply with that. They would love to get rid of an autism diagnosis as well. Good luck!

Re: Autism diagnosis

I agree with the above. More services are better than less and you can always reevaluate services when she is 3. I would also take her to a neurologist and/or a developmental pediatrician for their thoughts. Good luck!

Re: Autism diagnosis

When she has her evals to transition from EI to CPSE, a new psych will be done. Tell your district that you want an ADOS eval included in the psych to reassess the diagnosis. I am a psych who does CPSE evals, and we get requests from the district to do diagnostic evals as well.

Re: Autism diagnosis

Re: Autism diagnosis

Message edited 10/30/2015 12:55:49 PM.