How did I not find this forum earlier?

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HI. New here.

Sometimes I feel like I've been parenting my son in a void for the past 20 years. I live in a somewhat remote-ish area (but in a city), and I've never had much luck getting services for my son. He's very bright, but ADHD and clearly on the spectrum although "technically" he doesn't qualify as autistic. Also ODD. But because of his intellect, getting services has been difficult. It was like everything I looked into thought he didn't qualify for some reason.

The local school system didn't do a great job with his IEP, and I had to finally pitch a giant fit in 8th grade to get one. High school went....... poorly. As did a few semesters of college.

I am raising him mostly on my own. I have a lot of moral support from friends, but very little practical support from anyone. He doesn't have friends, except online.

I worry a lot.

So here I am. Finally.

Welcome,

Sounds like your son has fallen through the gaps like sp many other "high functioning" people

welcome to Wrong Planet RuthDiane

Is ODD effectively the junior version of PDA?

Welcome to WP! I think you'll find the company here more reasonable than the folk you're dealing with in-person.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome.

Pretty much. Despite me standing around yelling "look out for the gap" to anyone who would listen for the past 15 years.

I had never heard of PDA but it sounds like PDA can be misdiagnosed as ODD.

My son was not diagnosed as autistic, only with "social communication disorder." It looks like maybe PDA is strictly an autism co-diagnosis?

"ODD is described as ‘persistent negative, hostile and defiant behaviour’ towards authority. Superficially there may be some similarities with a PDA presentation, however ODD is not an autism spectrum condition and therefore the root cause is different. Other points of difference include the fact that the more ‘social’ avoidance approaches seen in PDA (e.g. distraction, making excuses or procrastination) are not usually seen with ODD; positive parenting courses and reward-based approaches are beneficial for ODD, but ineffective for PDA; and children with ODD often appear ‘streetwise’ and are well aware of social hierarchy whereas with PDA, children are usually quite socially naive and believe themselves equal to adults." from pdasociety dot org. Forum won't let me post url

Welcome to WP RuthDiane. My son is also in his 20s and has ADHD, ODD, and learning disabilities. My brother and I fostered and later adopted him, but we lived separately so we were both single parents. It's kind of a long story! I also raised my biological daughter on my own. I can relate very much to what you've been through. I hope you feel comfortable here and you can get to know people who share your interest in parenting topics.

I'm starting to think that any three randomly selected letters might be some kind of diagnosis.

Hello, and welcome.

Welcome

Welcome to WPea!