We too got the "You don't want your child stigmatized by that label..." speech at our last IEP meeting, when it was agreed that a re-evaluation was probably a good idea. And our little guy (6, in K) is also one of those kids who holds things together wonderfully at school, but has huge, screaming, kicking, biting meltdowns at home. He scored higher than his older brother on the ADOS test, even though he's less outwardly stereotypically autistic, on casual observation.
I did find an advocate to come to that last meeting and it was an eye opening experience. Here, we have free advocates available through the school district - all volunteer and all parents of ESE kids. Our advocate had the same school psychologist evaluate her kid( learning disabled with "autistic tendencies" - this particular school psych doesn't like the A word I guess.
To us, it isn't a stigma - it represents a particular way of thinking and interacting with the world and if using the word autism makes it easier to describe/understand those characteristics to other people, and makes the world an easier place for my kids to navigate and be understood, than label away.
06 Mar 2013, 9:19 am
