Autism: who issued your child's official diagnosis?

[perla75]

For those of you who have children with autism, I was just wondering who issued your child's official diagnosis? Was it a pediatrician, neurologist, other?

Also, what was it based on? A diagnostic test or just observation? If it was an exam, could you tell me the name of it?

I'm trying to help some families qualify for school-based services.

Thanks!

 

[robin09]

For those of you who have children with autism, I was just wondering who issued your child's official diagnosis? Was it a pediatrician, neurologist, other?


Also, what was it based on? A diagnostic test or just observation? If it was an exam, could you tell me the name of it?

I'm trying to help some families qualify for school-based services.

Thanks!

My daughter was diagnosed about 5 years ago now. Her pediatrician referred us to a child neurologist. He was the one who gave the official diagnosis. I remember alot of paperwork, for teachers to fill out and for us.. alot of questions about her. He also spent alot of time talking to her and just watching her. I don't believe there was any "test". But I could be wrong. Between dr's, psychiatrists, ot, pt, vision therapy and neurologists, I'm sure I have forgotten something! Hope that helps

 

[KirstenB]

Our dd was dx'd at 21 mths. At her 18 mth checkup at the regular ped, there were several red flags, in hindsight. Our dd was already receiving PT and ST through Early Intervention. The ped referred us to UVA Childrens' Hospital. We met with a team of developmental peds, and an educator, over many hours. She has never seen a ped neurologist, but I would love to hear anyone's experience with one. I'd definitely consider it, but need more firsthand info. Our dd has no seizures, etc, so I've held off on it, but wonder if I'm missing an important resource.

Not so much an exam, but several hours of watching dd play with toys, interact with others, etc. They did fill out a CARS form on her. If I could give one piece of advice to the families you're working with, it would be to decide what doctor they want to do the assessment, and make an appointment yesterday! It took us 3 mths to get into UVA, and I consider us very fortunate to have had a relatively short wait time.

 

[jamesmommy]

My daughter was diagnosed about 5 years ago now. Her pediatrician referred us to a child neurologist. He was the one who gave the official diagnosis. I remember alot of paperwork, for teachers to fill out and for us.. alot of questions about her. He also spent alot of time talking to her and just watching her. I don't believe there was any "test". But I could be wrong. Between dr's, psychiatrists, ot, pt, vision therapy and neurologists, I'm sure I have forgotten something! Hope that helps

We went to a neurologist, but she didn't give us a diagnosis (but did notice some slowing in his temporal lobe), she referred us to another professional. My son was diagnosed by a Pediatric Neurological Psychiatrist last year, after they did testing on my son, and had those close to him fill out questionaires. The testing was much more thorough and detailed than the one we had a few years ago by a Developmental Pediatrician, who tentatively diagnosed him as PDD-NOS.

I am not sure all of the tests they used, there were several, I know one was ADOS.

eta: the wait time on the PNP was long too, it took us 6 months for our initial appt.

 

[lucigo]

My son had just turned 2 when we saw a panel of doctors at Keesler AFB, although they aren't there anymore after Katrina. I believe there was a Neurologist, Geneticist, Physical therapist, Speech Therapist, occupational therapist, and Developmental Pediatrician. It was the developmental pediatrician who really caught on that there was a problem with joint attention. His report doesn't mention if any screening tests were used.

 

[debbi801]

For us, it was a combo of evaluations completed by us, his teacher; along with testing and evaluations done by a pediatric psychiatrist, pediatric neuro-psychologist, pediatrician, and occupational therapist.

The "official" dx was given to us by the pediatric neuro-psychologist once all the testing nd evaluations were completed.

The whole process took about 6-7 months.

 

[ireland_nicole]

We are pretty "typical" in this, looks like; dx'd or confirmed by: Dev. Ped, Ped. Neuro, Ped. Neuropsychologist, Ped Psychiatrist; she's got mult. dx's, so we're always seeing someone for something lol.

OT: funnily enough, the school still insists she's not "autistic enough"...

 

[bookwormde]

Neurologist, we went in knowing that he met the diagnostic criteria. After the evaluation we had a consult where she went through all the indications and stated with the alphabet soup of manifestations, I actually brought up that he was Aspergers. She said yes but that a lot of parents “did not want to hear” that diagnosis so sometimes she just listed the secondary indications.

There is a new draft standard for evaluation being developed by a group from NIH, which is much better than what comes from just trying to “meet” the DSM-iv standards alone.

Here is a link to another paper, which is helpful although not completely up to date.

http://www.autism-help.org/asperger-syndrome-diagnosis.htm


I guess my point is that you have to be educated in Autism and be able to “talk the language” if you want an accurate diagnosis including a the flagged characteristics and to be able to use that information effectively to help your child, do not leave it up to the clinicians alone.

bookwormde

 

[BeckyScott]

The original diagnosis was done at a children's hospital with: child psych, dev ped, OT, PT, SLP. And a whole bunch of intern/residents were there watching. The actual diagnosis was from the psych, with input from the rest of the team.

They ran a bunch of tests. I grabbed The Notebook here so I could list 'em for you.

first eval at 2 1/2:
Vineland (given to Mom)
medical history (from Mom)
CAT/CLAMS
speech: Rosetti, Receptive-Expressive Emergent Language Scale
audiological assessment

That might not sound like so much, except that they also spent a ton of time "playing" with him too.

Second eval at 4 1/2:
Vineland
Weschler (preschool)
Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule Criteria
CARS
PLS-4, Goldman-Fristoe Articulation, Checklist of Pragmatic Behaviors
Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration
ADHD rating scale (he also has an ADHD diagnosis)

The last two re-evals we've done they've ran the WISC/Weschler on him. First time he was too young. I don't know that the WISC is any indicator of autism, other than showing his verbal vs non-verbal, but it was interesting to see the results.

The last re-eval we went to, just about a month ago, they only did the WISC and a speech test, and the psych did observation and got history from me. We didn't get the Head Dev Ped and the Head Child Psych this time (we've been downgraded? LOL) and we also got a different diagnosis. Slightly different.

One of the more frustrating aspects of testing for autism is that there isn't a good test, really. That's why they did so many, combined with observation. Last re-eval the dr was explaining that to me, which I already knew, and we were joking that one of us needed to invent that *perfect* test for autism. So then we'd be really really rich.

 

[MomOf2DisneyKids]

my ds was diagnosed by a psychologist specializing in ASDs. There were several tests, observations, checklists, evaluations by daycare providers, things filled out by us, etc.

 

[disneydeb]

my grandson 3 was diagnosed last year in preschool , when the teachers there were concerned about the echolia, no eye contact, obsession with wheels, not being able to interact with his peers, then a whole team, ot, st, psychologists,social worker, and others began shadowing him . he had a planning placement team, that we meet with a couple of times a year, the school said that they dont diagnose and to tell the pediatriciam but i remember the social worker has in writing that he was high functioning on the spectrum.ppd-nos and she sent my daughter a whole bunch of information on it from yale.