Autism-World

sweety:over 14 years and 3x’S that amount of testing at high quality childrens hospital facilities. They have suggested a few syndroms but will not verify. Now in a local testing facility I was told he has autism. I see that he displays many charactistics.
Is this a ‘blanket term” right now. Like all the ADD facouple of years back or like tonsils. Did they steer away from suggesting autism because he has some serious issues and autism is not suggestive of them. THIS IS NEW if you have any info or experience please respond. I want to help him and he is almost impossible to test or discipline because he is all over the place.

Poopy:I’m sorry you and your “teen” have had to endure 14 years without answers. I’m far from an expert. I can only relate to you what I know from my nephew.
He was diagnosed around 3 yrs old, seemed to exhibit behavior as of around 2 years old. His official diagnosis is PDD. He was also non-verbal until about 3 years ago. (he’s 10 years old) When he was diagnosed, he immediately began intense, 6 day a week speech and occupational therapy and it has made a huge difference. I don’t think that autism is a blanket term because they don’t know what’s wrong. I think it, and PDD are “umbrella” terms, because there are so many different variables in behavior which exist from child to child. For a 14 year old, you have your work cut out for you. It’s going to be very difficult to modify his/her behavior at this point. Difficult but not impossible. I don’t know where you live, but autism is more and more common and, in my opinion, this is a travesty that it wasn’t picked up. What age did you start testing? I mean, I think after they reach 4 or 5 the condition becomes obvious in children.

N0_white:I have a 14-year-old who has autism. We, also, went through years of testing and different specialists before we got a diagnosis, though in our case, it was only about five years before we finally figured out what was going on. My child, also, has mood swings that make testing and discipline difficult. Believe me, I feel your pain.

I don’t necessarily think “autism” is a blanket term, but it is a “spectrum” type syndrome, meaning that there are several components to it and each of these components can be more or less severe on the spectrum, making the autism that my child has, different from the autism that your child may have, and they could both be different from the type of autism yet another child has, and so on.

I would urge you to seek out a clinic or hospital – maybe one that is associated with a large university – for a second opinion and additional information. Most “regular” medical doctors maybe only encounter a few patients a year who are on the autism spectrum, so they may have never seen a case of autism that presents exactly the way your son does. There are a lot of good resources on the web – try Cure Autism Now, the National Institute of Health, or the Autism Society of America. All of these can give you information and support – just google them.

Hang in there. Autism is a tough disease to work with, because they look so normal on the outside, but work so differently than us “neurotypicals” on the inside. Thank God it’s finally getting the attention it deserves. My heart goes out to you – please e-mail me if you want/need more info, support, etc.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Autism Diagnosis.