Help with diagnosis

[peanutbear]

I wonder if you could tell me where to start last year my son saw a educational psychologist who diagnosed him with Aspergers but no more help was forth coming so I asked for him to be seen by the CAMHS team in our area

we have recently moved house to a new area but I have recieved a letter today from his old doctor to the new team that states

"The ADOS examination that was carried out did suggest significant social communications problems and he scored within the autistic range "

so I thought he had an Autistic Spectrum Disorder which was exxplained to me as Aspergers syndrome

is the above statement medical speak for aspergers or do they think he has high functioning autism which I am now being led to believe

sorry is rambled but he is in yr5 now and I want to get him some help before he goes to senior school and know how long these things take

I don't know what he means from the statement. It is a bit vague. Does he have a statement of special educational needs/

no nothing just that statement and a load of background information

No one has ever mentioned getting a statement of educational needs

but I do have DLA that the psychologist helped me get

Does he have difficulties at school that require extra support? If so then I'd advise you to think about applying for him to be assessed.

no not really he was a little bit behind in his reading but and writing but he is catching up fast
His maths and science is fine

Its his social problems that worry me where ever he goes to school he gets called gay which obviously upsets him and he is always being bullied
he really struggles to make friends and when we are in company he says things that people consider rude
even in the supermarket people are always telling me I shouldn't let him speak to me in a certain way etc

He makes strange noises and does a lot of hand flapping and has taken to banging his head on this saying it make s him feel better

this weekend he really pushed me to my limit by doing silly things that my 4 year old does

he always comes down to the level of the child he is playing with

I just want him to be happy and to make friends he wont go to any after school activity I have tried to take him but he goes once and never wants to go again

It doesn't sound like the LEA would assess then. Its hard when they struggle so much with making friends What support do the school give him with his social skills?

Also have you read Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers Syndrome by Luke Jackson? I found it really helpful.

No help at all really they have an autistic boy in james's year that gets socialisation help but untill the psychlogist asks the school for it it doesnt get funded

I even paid £2000 for the course at teh Drore group but that was a waste of money for James

I have read the book and it was a great help I am going to phone the aspergers society today to try and get James some more help

Thank you ever so much for your replies this is hard work isnt it

ADOS is just one tool of many used in the assessment process. They can't diagnose on its results alone.

When my ds was first assessed (he's now 9) we were told his ADOS score was high and he very probably had AS. However when other tests were completed and reports gathered, the results balanced out and he didn't get a dx at that stage because he didn't tick all the relevant boxes.

We went for second opinion and a further assessment in the end, we got the dx and moved on, but I just wanted to say that one test alone doesn't confirm a diagnosis.

Has your ds read it? Do you think he's old enough to apprecaite it? My friend's ds read it in year 5 and he said it really helped him to know he wasn't the only one to feel the way he does.

Ah he has had lots of other test with a psychologist before the psychiatrist report but the were diagnosed as
aspergers and semantic pragmatism! so I was lost !!

I think thats a good idea about James reading the book I might try to read it with him

thanks again