having my son evaluated?

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Recently i've been considering having my son evaluated and i have a few questions for those of you who have gone through the process with older kids. My nephew was diagnosed when he was 3 years old so i pretty much know how the evaluations go for toddlers, but i'm wondering how it will be different for an 11 year old.

Can you all please tell me who evaluated your child (school, child psychiatrist, etc), what age your child was, and what all the evaluation process consisted of. I'm basically wondering if i was be filling out the same amount of paperwork my sister did, or will they be questioning my son a lot more than they did with my nephew. Will they give my son any written tests, and if so what types? How and what can i do to prepare my son for the evaluation if i decide to do it? Stuff like that.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Peace

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SAHM to 3 home schooled boys, ages 11 undiagnosed AS, almost 9 NT, and 4 NT. We also share our home with 13 companion animals including 5 cats, 2 dogs, 3 ferrets, 2 aquatic turtles, and 1 chinese water dragon

I was diagnosed later (even older than your son) and I wasn't asked anything at all. They did an interview with my parents, I got an IQ test, and I was observed at school. School diagnoses aren't all that complicated, a medical diagnosis would be more in-depth.

My daughter was diagnosed by a neuro psych. She did 3 visits with my daughter and 2 with me alone. The three visits consisted of IQ testing, some other tests (academic readiness and sensory stuff) the ADOS, & behavioral observation. I filled out extensive questionnaires.

When the school did their eval (to try and contest the neuro psych eval) they had a LSSP spend 15-20 mins with her one on one, do 15 mins of behavioral observation in the classroom, have me fill out 1 questionnaire, and had a visit with the Speech Therapist.

Do not allow the school to do the eval. I am sure there are good schools out there but I would never trust anyone but an MD or PhD diagnose my child.

My son was diagnosed with AS at the age of 8 last year. We took him to a child psychiatrist who specialized in autism. My wife and I had scores of paperwork filled out that was sent to us ahead of time from an autism clinic---filled with many questions about when he talked words, talked sentences, walked, potty trained, etc. I went through scores of video tapes documenting his milestones.

At the psych. office, my son was interviewed, we were interviewed, and the room was made quite interesting for him. The psych. had a fan turned toward the seat my son sat at. And there was a noisy clock on the wall. My son squirmed around a lot and was bothered by the fan and clock. The psych. took many notes. He used an extensive checklist and was confident in the Asperger's diagnosis.

Then we took the diagnosis to school. The school arranged there own array of psychologists to monitor our son in his classes. And they had him take tests. We were called into a meeting and told that their psychologists (one was present at the meeting) that our son was an easy evaluation for them because he fit Asperger's very well. The school even used our son as the sample autistic student for a statewide conference.

My diagnosis of AS came as an adult. I was diagnosed on the DSM-IV and the Gilliberg---and I met the criteria for AS on both of them. But since the school gave my son an IEP, they conducted much more intense and extensive tests for him to find his needs. He attends smaller classes and continues to take speech therapy at school.

Good luck. The process was very interesting and beneficial. Our son's life at school is much better now. The modifications the school has made for him has made him perform better at school and enjoy school better.

I'm in Canada so the options may be different, but we had our son assessed privately (very intentional decision, I personally would not encourage a school assessment unless you have no other options) and the process involved an initial info-gathering meeting with just myself and my husband, then one 1-hour testing/assessment session with our son each month for 3 months. The process was done by an educational psychologist.

Our son was diagnosed at the Weisskopf Center at the University of Louisville when he was nine years old, ~four years ago. His evaluation was two part: medical and psychological. We filled out lengthy questionnaires about our health history, my wife's pregnancy, his birth, and his health. We and his teacher filled out lengthy evaluations about behavior. All forms were submitted to Weisskopf in advance. The evaluations took place over two separate visits.

The medical evaluation took about 90 minutes. It was extensive without being literally probing.

The psych evaluation took about two hours. He was given the Differential Abilities Scales test and several others. We were able to observe part of the tests through a two-way mirror. Remarkably, the power went out during the exam and the room went pitch-black. He bolted from the room yelling for his mom! Fortunately, the back-up generators came on and he calmed down so the evaluation continued.

Although we were told it could take up to two weeks to get the Dx, we were told that day and got the written evaluation shortly thereafter.

Good luck to you and your son!

My son was 10 when tested. I did not go through the school. I can only speak for myself and my district - I didn't think they have doctors available that were qualified to look at the test results in a well rounded way and make a diagnosis. Anyway, we had about 9 hrs of testing done at a child neuropsychologist. I had to fill out a few quesionaires prior to the visit, so did my son. I talked w/ the docs for 2 hrs to discuss things from birth to now. My son did some written tests, some verbal tests, some non-verbal tests, some memory tests, all kinds. They didn't seem like tests, they seemed like fun, even though it was a long day (3 hrs then 6 hrs, 2 separate days).

There is nothing you need to do to prepare your son. Imo the less preparation the better. The point of some of the tests is to get his 'issues' to come out. They will give him tests to see how long it takes before he gets frustrated, how he handles challenges, etc...

I listed all the tests my son had done on another one of my posts. I will look for it and cc and paste. I recommend you ask the school to do all the tests rather than just doing the tests based on what they are looking for. E.g. if the symptoms you described sound like ADHD, they may only give him tests for that - the problem is that it could miss some very important strengths or weaknesses (other other diagnosis) he has if they decide where they are going before they start. You really don't want them to miss anything.

Here's the list of the testing we had done - some are forms filled out by myself or my son, some are tests done by the neuropsych doc. We just got the diagnosis literally 3 weeks ago. I did not go into this thinking my son had any type of autism. I did mention to the npdocs that the docs at the ER said I shoud have him tested for spectrum disorders, but that I didn't think he had anything like that and I was dumbfounded when they suggested it. Up to this point, the only diagnosis we had was Mood Disorder NOS and possibly bipolar and OCD. All these tests showed my son's PDD, learning strengths, weakness and style. These were extremely helpful.

From talking with other parents, my sons testing was extensive. I don't know if this many tests is common to get to an ASD diagnosis or if we needed that many because I told them I had no clue what was going on that that I NEED a proper diagnosis.

Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale, 5th Edition
TEA-Ch
DKEFS
CMS
WRAVMA
WJ-III
NEPSY-II
DANVA
ADOS
CDI
RCMAS-2
BASC-2
M-PACI
CASQ
CMRS-P
SCQ
VAB, 2nd Edition
ADHD Rating Scale, IV
BASC-2
BRIEF-Parent

The diagnosis is that my son ended up with through these tests was PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified) and Mood Disorder-NOS.