Can I ask 2 questions re AS spectrum diagnosis etc?

[Southwest]

I have looked around but get conflicting answers so thought I'd find people who know here......

Can the docs make a diagnosis of Aspergers if there was absolutely no speech delay at all?

WIll they make a diagnosis of anything if there were multiple POTENTIALLY neurologically threatening events in the infant period?

We have been told ADHD by one educational psychologist and Aspergers by another (I know they can't make a diagnosis) I am not convinced he meets either of those

I am struggling with understanding the emotional side of Aspergers and what that means and when I read about it every time I want to be left alone by my children I start thinking I am on the spectrum, and my Sis is such moody cow maybe she is too and dh handwriting is so poor I wonder about him........
As you can see my head is spinning and I would be grateful for an answer
Thanks

Hi, I guess it depends what they mean by a speech delay.
DS1 has fairly severe AS, but he had no apparent speech delay. In fact he was talking very early in full sentences - mega long sentences correctly formed by 18months, lots of single words before he was 1.
However, at age 9 I guess that in some way he does have not so much a speech delay but a communication delay - he takes language very literally, can't understand jokes, and we are currently working hard on him learning when people are being sarcastic as he just doesn't get it.

By definition speech delay is the difference between autism and aspergers. People with aspergers tend not to have speech delay in fact may even be the other way around as Little miss says.
There is a great book you can get amazon called freeks, geeks and aspergers syndrome, I know the title is a bit but it is highly recommended by a lot of parents I know. It is written by a teenage boy with aspergers.

Thanks

I plan to get that if anyone ever decides that's what he has. (could read it if not I suppose but barely reading anything ATM)

DS had no speech delay at all and he is being assessed for AS. No speech delay is ususally the marker for proffessionals to go down AS route but not always.

Doctors cannot dx anyway it has to be a team of proffessionals. Neither can an Educational Psychologist. ADHD can sometimes be suggested when infact it could be sensory proccessing difficulties that are the cause of the symptoms. Some areas it is the peadiatrician that can dx, but mostly it is done though a multi-disiplinary team pathway.

You need to go through your GP and request a referral to either a developmental pead or camhs. Tell him what the EPs suggested, tell him what other concerns the school has and request that you would like him assessed :)

It can be very confusing thinking about AS, especially at the milder end of the spectrum. Although we really got a diagnosis of AS for my ds very easily, there are times when I could wonder if it is correct. Even the head of his support unit who knows and understands him really well has sometimes voiced her doubts. But then something will happen and there is really not doubt about it all. He also has some features which are there all the time but people who live with him tend not to notice until he is really up against something he finds difficult. e.g. He also has severe obsessive compulsive disorder and anyone seeing him struggling in his sessions with the psychologist would have no doubt about his AS. He also had no language delay and his problems now (he is 15) are very subtle social use of language. He makes lots of puns and word jokes because it is as if his mind can always see the literal and figurative meaning of words at the same time.

As for worrying about whether you and other members of the family also have AS , I think this is pretty much inevitable when you start examining your ds's behaviour in a detailed way. You probably can find traces of
AS type characteristics in others. It is more how many, how pervasive and how much difficulty they cause in real life that ends up in making a diagnosis. If you can find someone safe to give you an honest opinion about how you come across that might relieve the worry. Otherwise, if you can leave considering yourself and others until you have a diagnosis for ds, it might stop your head spinning so much. I do remember well the confusion of that stage and if I am honest, it sometimes still happens. BTW I don't think there's a mother on the planet who hasn't sometimes wished her children would leave her alone.

Sorry for the massive post. HTH

Sorry I also meant to say that sometimes in adults there can be something that might seem like an ASD trait but is actually caused by something else. I myself can be socially a bit awkward but I know that is because my strict religious upbringing meant that my early experiences were different from society's norm.

DS was dx with MOderate-severe ASD.

This dx was probably right then.

Now I think he has Aspergers with a speech disorder that is separate from the Aspergers.

I don't think it matters though tbh. Intervention is the same, usually crap generic stuff or if you are bolshy and lucky stuff that is specific to strengths and weaknesses. Neither is affected by what the dx actually is.

Whatever it is please try Listening Therapy, my son had S&L processing issues and struggled til yr 4 when I did this with him, my friend's daughter who had mild Aspergers did it at the same time. They are both now pretty much completely fine, which I never would have thought possible. Both are 15 in mainstream schools and about to do GCSEs this summer - both predicted Bs and a few Cs. Amazing. Please at least take a look at it, there are various ways of doing it and loads more places than when we did it.

I agree with what keepingupwiththejoneses said regarding the definition of Aspergers (DS2 has Aspergers and had no speech delay). The GP can't make a diagnosis, ask for a referal and keep an open mind. Many of the behaviours seem to overlap, and its possible to have a diagnosis of more than one thing, ie Aspergers and ADHD. It's all very confusing

Yes it is possible to have both ADHD and Aspergers, in fact it is quite common. Others are also right these thing can not be diagnosed by a single doc or phsyc there needs to be several different agencies involved each to look at the different areas.

Thanks all I really do value what you have all said
No Haudin thanks for you long post struck chord might leave asking others how I come across for a bit though (I would usually follow that with a wink but I can't find the right keys, or for that matter half the punctuation keys so pls excuse typing)

Can I ask again if anyone knows the answer to my second question? Ds spent ages in NICU as an infant with all the associated things that go wrong in hospital and I have been told that they can not diagnose something like AS spectrum conditions when that is the case although I'm not so sure about that presumably you can have CP and autism?

Thanks again

Not an expert by any means, but my friend's son has CP - quite severe, he is in a wheelchair etc. He has recently been diagnosed with having mild Autism as well (he is 16 now, this was when he was about 14). He is a gorgeous boy, very engaging and lots of fun to be around, he certainly does not display all aspects of Autism but definitely some. So from his case, I would say it is certainly possible to have CP and a dx of Autism, though this dx was not made until fairly late.
Hope this helps. Good luck.

If we go from what they're doing at the moment in the DSM 5 review of autism spectrum conditions, there's no difference at all between autism and Asperger syndrome. They're both autism.
But someone with autism can also have a learning difficulty
And they can also have speech delay/speech and language conditions.
Or they could also be a wheelchair user
Or also have epilepsy
Or also have any number of other things.

Unfortunately, in a way, "autism" "learning difficulty" and "speech delay" got mingled up and called "low functioning/classic autism".

They're now trying to unpick it all, and give each thing its own proper diagnosis and own proper level of severity and own proper therapy etc. It's nowt to do with behavioural difficulties, being nasty, not being able to speak or having a low IQ. But those things might happen with it. Or might not. In any combination.

Not sure that helps, but that's the current plan.

Autism is a) total panic (sometimes fairly invisible) if something unexpected happens and b) social clumsiness of epic proportions for years and years until we learn to compensate for it, plus also in 8 out of 10 cases c) big sensory processing differences (sight, smell, touch, taste, hot, cold, pressure, sound etc).

Thanks guys
And amber light that's cleared up a few things so thanks again

I expect I'll be back here soon we have an appointment next week (although it's the first we've waited a year for it I know nothing will happen)

Sorry is HFA high functioning autism and the other high functioning autistic spectrum disorder?

DS has Aspergers and was talking like a walking dictionary by the time he was about three. He certainly didn't have a significant speech delay.

Southwest

The current identification of the various issues is best described in Identification and Evaluation of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders 2007 including Aspergers syndrome which is based on the USA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV)

However all will change in 2013, with the introduction of DSM-V which will change how autism or ASD is defined, and Aspergers will disappear as a diagnosis. Obviously both children and adults will still have the same symptoms and issues, but how they will be diagnosed will be different, and some of the other issues which are quite close to ASD will be diagnosed more frequently, and there has been a suggestion of some new types of diagnosis for some specific types of issues. There is still an ongoing debate.

DS1 has been diagnosed with high-functioning autism and has no speech delay at all, and never has.
in fact he has been speaking very well and very articulately from a very young age.

the Asperger's diagnosis will soon cease to exist and HFA will replace it as it's basically the same thing

Aspergers will disappear

Can't do emoticons for some reason but I'm shocked.

I thought they would separate it from Autism at some point in the future from what little I know (and I freely admit it's looking like nothing) Aspergers and non verbal autism seem like chalk and cheese to me

from what i've read, the symptoms of aspergers and high functioning autism overlap so greatly and there has long been talk of it actually being the same thing but with a larger range of speech difficulties (or not) than originally thought

it's not being lumped in with "classic" autism which I presume includes children who are non-verbal?

Southwest my ds spent a long time in picu as an infant an now presents as what could be described borderline autistic or whatever the term is.

There have been studies which show that prem and blind babies have a statistically higher incidence of asd than the general population. Doctors are very focused on the life saving medical stuff but sadly there is little expertise for the rehabilitation afterwards.

For my child I prefer to focus on his specific issues.

How is your dc's physical coordination, balance and motor planning?

Paed told me there is absolutely no difference in children diagnosed with HFA and aspergers once they become teenagers. In fact, I'm wondering if it isn't just personality differences (ie introvert vs extrovert)

We are waiting on DX, but initial "thoughts" from the team are possible ADHD and/or aspergers. No speech delay like others, but quite ahead with words and sentences, again often taking language very literally. We ourselves have noticed a big problem with recognising and dealing with emotions, and an inability to relax and unwind (anger management and relaxation, both), in recent months.

DD is actually having, what we hope is the last assessment, before the team talks to us about a more formalised dx. And we are then getting the ed psych assessment done (too much going on, and so many delays generally, that we decided to finish out one before formally jumping into the other, although we have done the initial legwork and identified and contacted the ed psych, just going to wait until we have the dx before sending next lot of paperwork to her and starting the school observation etc).

But they certainly seemed to think it could be both on initial observations.