poss mild aspergers question - worth pushing for diagnosis

[GreenGables1]

I have long thought my DS (7) might be on the spectrum; he talks in quite a loud, flat voice and struggles to use any inflections; he is super bright, and he doesn't do empathy or understand when people don't want to play with him. He can't be persuaded to do anything he doesn't want to do and gets terribly upset when he is told off. He does now offer cuddles (on his terms) but he wouldn't have take much physical affection for at least the first two years of his life. He's had lots of medical problems, so docs have always concentrated on that. Now he's older the social friendship stuff is more obvious to us, though his teacher says he gets on well. He is also beginning to notice it I think, as he says he can only keep friends two days - they love him at first but then don't want to play any more with him. He ends up playing with much younger children. He loves work and does extremely well academically and gets on v well with teachers and adults, generally, so I think that masks his problems with peers. My question is whether, thinking all this, its worth trying to get him assessed? I suppose I'm wary of adding another label to him and he's clearly doing well academically at school. How much does it help later on? We've just moved him to a private school as he had a scholarship, but he won't stay in the system unless he can get scholarships throughout, as we simply couldn't afford it. I think the much smaller class has really helped him. Thanks in advance for any thoughts :)

[Handywoman]

I am having a similar dilemma with dd (also aged 7) who has a formal assessment for ASD in the pipeline. In my case, our speech and language therapist was clear that problems with social communication can become more marked as children mature. This is particularly so in our case, because girls' social interaction as they mature is based so much on conversation. My dd's conversational skills and interpretation of figurative language are pretty rubbish. At 7 year old, kids are pretty forgiving. At 14 years old, when the playground games are over, I fear this will not be the case.

I am considering therapy with the speech and language therapist to work on non-literal language and social stories. We already know about the (social communication) problem before the diagnosis, so a diagnosis may seem irrelevant right now. But we don't know how the impairments will change with time. A diagnosis (if it comes) will give me a framework through which to view my dd's needs as she gets older. So, for me, I think it will be useful.

That's how I view it, anyway, a signpost for the road ahead. But for everyone the decision will be a different balance of risks/benefits.

HTH,
Handywoman xxxx

[SallyBear]

It does sound familiar to me! My DS is very like that in a lot of ways. He was dx at 8 with Aspergers.

[StillIRise]

DD was officially diagnosed at 13. Mostly so school would give us some help. It has and they have made changes so things are better.

[StillIRise]

The label has also helped her understand why she feels different to other people.

I agonised over it for years but generally it has been positive.