They are going to diagnose my chilld as autistic in a month...?

Question

My child has been attending a school for 5 months. He is 2 and a half and has some development issues. His speech is behind and his social skills are behind. Our teacher called and said that they are going to diagnose him as autistic. My wife and parents believe that this is a little over board and feels that he will catch up with time and be well prepared for preschool when he gets older, my questions is: Will the school or state labeling him as autistic make things harder for us and him in the future? someone told me that once a child is labeled as autistic than things like school and work become much harder in the future.

Thanks for any info on this!

Answer 1

Schools insist on doing their own testing before they can determine where they want to put your child. My daughter just turned 3 and received an autism diagnosis from her doctor a few months ago. She just started PPCD (public preschool for children with disabilities) this week, and the school is doing all kinds of assessments on their own before they will consider her as having autism. (Which I honestly do not understand)

Do not let the school pressure you into anything. You have rights as a parent and public schools do not have any say in the matter until the child turns 3 anyway. (I am assuming it is a public school. If not, then they do not have any say, period!) Discuss your concerns with them, and let them know you want to give your child more time before they place a label on him. Once they diagnose him as having autism, they will insist on putting him in special education classes.

I would recommend that you have him evaluated by a developmental pediatrician. If it turns out that he is on the autism spectrum, the sooner he receives intervention, the better off he will be!

Feel free to email me if you want to talk about this further! I wish you and your son the best of luck!

Answer 2

He may or may not catch up-

but getting intervention now will increase the chances-

even if it's not autism and only a basci developmental delay-intervention can be beneficial---

at this age he would receive services through your states Early Intervention System.

I know a child diagnosed with autism at 2-he just started mainstream kindergarten --a year late-but without any special education services-no one will know about his diagnosis when he is an adult unless he chooses to tell them....

If anything-getting a diagnosis from a developmental pediatrician and/or developmental intervention will make things better, not worse...

Answer 3

Parents must consent to any testing done. To be given the lable of autistic, a child must have extensive assessment done. In some states, this can be done by a psychologist or a psychological examiner. However, before they can test, they must have your written consent.

      Even if you give your written consent, before the school district can serve your child as special ed, a meeting must be held in which the school and the parents agree on a label and that the child will receive services. To be placed into special education, the parents must agree in writing.

     I encourage you, however, to allow the testing to be done. It may not be autism but another condition that is causing developmental issues. A thorough assessment will provide you with some answers.

If there is a developmental issue, than it is better to address it with intervention when he is still under 6, rather than waiting until to see if he grows out of it. This is because the brain is very flexible at this age and intervention has a chance to make the most impact.

Good luck.

Answer 4

talk to doctors.only they can predict  if he have it or not.some kids who are two do have speech problem  at this age i know two one who is older now in preschool and talking  real good.the older they get the more they will speak clearly .the other kid is two he speak some words but other is not clear he will develop this on his on.the teacher cant make that decision she can only suggest that there might be a problem and she should suggest doctors.look into this before making a decision.

Answer 5

Take him to a doctor, that teacher is taking this to extreme measures. He's two and a half!!!!! No worries, see a specialist if you're really that concerned!

answer mine please.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

Answer 6

No it won't harm you or him in the future.  Many people are labeled as autistic, even Bill Gates (Microsoft CEO) believes he is on the austistic spectrum.  Early intervention is extremely important.  There are "windows" of best intervention.  For both social skills and language development, those times are before seven years of age.  

Do talk about the diagnosis further with your pediatrician, too.  However, your child is probably going to receive the label of developmentally delayed with the possibility of autism at his age.  A child can receive these labels now and undergo later evaluations to continue or drop those labels.  This must happen every three years by federal law.  I'm sure a school psychologist has done all the proper screeenings and such.  JDeek is an advocate for saying the school's are doing everything wrong.  Sometimes, I suspect they are, too, but not in this case.  

Allow your child to receive the label and receive the extra intervention to help him have as few life-long difficulties as possible.  You can retest in a three years and see if the intervention is enough to drop the label altogether or if more things are needed for sucess in kindergarten.

Edit - Schools must do their own assessments to meet federal, state and local guidelines for the schools.  Some of these tests that are used a physican's office, etc are not standardized to a psychologist standards, which are much more strict as far as statistics are concerned.  I've actually seen a test that a child was too old to be screened by.  The child was 8 and the test's oldest age was five.  Did the child do well on it?  No, he was not their developmentally, BUT I could not use it for my paperwork.  Other times, extra tests are given to give the basis for a school's decision to protect themselves in case of a law suit.  If a school does not put these procedural safe guards in place, the school could be in a financial nightmare years later.  The way of the world.....

Also some areas do not have separate state and district programs.  Just an FYI.

Answer 7

This touches home for me.  My child was diagnosed with ADHD and in the beginning the school district will give you an IEP (Individual education program).  A 504 falls under the state in CA. and this is a system that has alot of fallout.  Please check further into your school district that your son will be attending and find out your rights.  As a parent you have many of them including a fair and approriate education.  I highly advise an IEP verses a 504 program.  Do your homework before they put him in a state program verses a district program.  The money you can save with an IEP is more than you understand right now.  District programs seem to leave the parents with more control than state programs.  Stay posative and keep asking questions.

A Mom

Answer 8

A school can NOT do testing to see if a child is autistic. A medical professional has to diagnose this.

And, schools ONLY do testing to see if a child can qualify for special educational services.

The childs problems can show up in this testing to determine sped eligibility, but this testing is NOT done to diagnose these type of problems.

All you have to do is write a letter to whoever wants this tesing done and refuse it. End of story. They are suppose to drop it after this.