Autism Diagnosis

[Verbena37]

Hi,
Not sure if this is the only SEN section but seems a lot of similar stuff.
DS (10) has recently been diagnosed with autism.....after I got the GP to refer him to a private paediatrician and clinical psychologist. However, he was referred for a PDA assessment but they did a general autism one, including ADOS-2 (don't have the report for that yet) but ruled out PDA.

Their reason for ruling out PDA was because he was biddable as a toddler however, people on the PDA Society forum say their children were also biddable as toddlers because the pressure put on them was less (I.e. No school). We feel that most of his behaviours are demand avoidance.

My worry is that is just says autism and not Aspergers or high functioning autism etc. It also says he has sensory processing disorder (we kind of guessed that) and other writing problems but to me, 'autism' describes classic autism and suggests (or perhaps I'm totally wrong) that the child has learning disabilities rather than being very able but has learning issues. For example, he didn't have speech delay, he walked early, he is very tactile to friends, he has good eye contact, he understands emotions, he understands sarcasm etc. In fact, school didn't even notice there was anything than neuro typical behaviour.

Any ideas? Will the ADOS report specify something more than simply 'autism'? I thought perhaps that because Aspergers has not been included in ICD-10, they have just used the whole, generic term of autism?

Autism is Autism. Aspergers, HFA, all the same spectrum condition.

The problem historically is that they were researched independently (Aspergers and Autism were actually coined by seperate researchers for the same thing in different parts of the world). As it came to be recognised as part of a spectrum condition it started to come together under the umbrella of 'autism' with subtypes.

In the last 2-3years this has come to be quite awkward, because enough professionals in both teaching, research and enough parents who are becoming better informed, realise that they all fall under the same spectrum.

So whereas before the use of divisions helped people to understand the condition without too much additional explanation, now it is doing the reverse. Aspergers needs to be caveated within the full spectrum description etc, which inevitably leads to more confusion about which aspects are present and not. So in many respects it is now easier to start with 'Autism' and then explain that it is a spectrum condition, different traits are present in different presentations and then say that your child falls loosely within what would have previously been called x/y/z. It allows parents, professionals and carers to begin from their sound knowledge of Autism being a spectrum condition.

Long story short, don't worry too much about the name it is given. I would not be surprised if your report does specify something else to give some sort of reference point.

Thank you sooooo much Flanks.....you've said it perfectly and I understand it.....after ages searching every ASD website I could find. None have explained it as well as that .
I'm going to screen shot your answer for my husband who is having trouble coming to terms with everything.
My stress is lifting!!

My pleasure

My DS (8) was also diagnosed with autism this year. I also struggled to believe the diagnosis because I assumed aspergers which is what fits best for him - they said autism as he had some speech delay (but everyone in my family does). In the end though aspergers is not longer an actual diagnosis I believe as it all falls under asd and to be honest it doesn't really matter. He will get help where he needs it and the label means very little in the scheme of things. The only thing that bothers me is telling him as he doesn't think he is different. Well I guess he is different to an extent but then so is everyone he is just different in a specific way IYSWIM?! Make sure you read Tony Atwoods books - brilliant and recommended by our clinical psychologist. The aspergers one was like reading about my DS word for word!

Thank you. I will order the books....heard good things about them.

Cool thank you....i will take a look on the SN boards.