Newbie with AS evaluation question...

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My daughter will be getting evaluated to see if she has AS in the next few months.

As parents of children with AS, do you see any questionable practioners or children that have been mis-diagnosed in your opinon based on your experiences?

The assessment was a suggestion by a school therapist because of a couple of common AS symptoms. She has been in the care of therapists, psychologist and psychiatrist for the past 8 years due to an OCD diagnosis. I would have thought it would have been something they would have caught a while ago.

How do you trust these people? The assessment is going to be performed at Kaiser, which is a large HMO that provides services through out Northern California.

sounds like you're skeptical of an aspergers dx....my son was dx'd with depression at age 13. the docs said that there was something else there, but the depression was masking it. fast forward to a year later, and we took him to get a neuropsych eval which revealed aspergers. along the way he was hospitalized, and the docs there gave all sorts of tentative dxes including: ADD,ODD, and MPD. Because son is so high-functioning, many were skeptical of the dx. he does, however, fit the aspergers dx.
as far as trusting providers, i'd see if you can talk to any clients they've had or read testimonials about them......

Welcome to WP!

Tim

OCD can be real OCD or it can actually be part of Aspergers... You could be swapping one diagnosis for another, but not necessarily.

When you, as an adult, first look at the aspergers questionnaires etc... they seem old fashioned and they don't seem to relate well to your child. My wife and I thought so anyway. We were skeptical for a while but since the diagnosis helped and also led to an understanding of our child's behaviour we accepted.

The first roads are hard but it's worth it.

Do whatever research you need to do to feel comfortable.

Thanks for the tips.

I have been researching but it's hard not to get overwhelmed.

You guys are great!

how old is your daughter?

She is 14 now, a freshman in high school.

going back to your original question I do know of some people who were misdiagnosed earlier but then later changed to AS but I think that was because the diagnosis was not as fully recognized as it is now, or at least it is better now. Several parents I know of from around where I live that have older kids with AS started out with a different dx. But as was said earlier, they were given a dx of AS later, but some of the other stuff (ADHD, ODD, OCD etc.) were "co morbid" conditions. I would be fairly confident of how they diagnose your daughter, and if you do disagree, get a second opinion.

I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety/phobias for years and these things certainly masked the Aspergers.

Pandora said:

In the mid 90's, mum sent me a clipping about Asperger's and she'd underlined all these traits that she thought I had. I didn't see it at first but then I realised I had almost all the traits.

I couldn't find any doctor to agree that I had Asperger's as they said I was too high functioning and didn't line things up. Even a really good counsellor I saw for a couple of years said the same. Her testing showed that I had all the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but no "real" precipitating event.

It took nearly 7 years to be referred to a psychiatrist who diagnosed the condition within 5 minutes. The following year, I was referred again and he added the secondary diagnosis of persistent low grade depression.

Mum and I spent years trying to find out what was wrong with me because I didn't cope well with leaving home and had some really severe bouts of depression.

Wow.. 7 years.

Do you feel better now having a diagnosis - sort of like belonging? (or does it make things worse?)