Q regarding therapeutic assessments

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My son had his assessments done by the speech therapist.

I sat in during the sessions and my son ran through the tests at ease.

He was so borred because the things was so easy...she even looked at me in surprise when he read so beautifully, exct. I just gave her one of those: "Jip, a know" looks....(I don't think she realizes that he can read perfect and dont understand what the story is about)

I'm only receiving feedback next week.....but what worries me is that she will be 'blinded' by his good performance! What I'm trying to say.....
During the assessments he does great in the tests......he makes eye contact, he laughs, tell jokes...looks 'fine'!
She did have the 'privaledge' to almost see an outburst during the first session when he 'had enough' and didnt want to participate any further !

What she doesn't see is how he gets in groups of people.....how he sometimes become inappropriate with 'clown behavior'...how he 'doesnt get' jokes....how he stares at people, standing to close to them and observing them as if watching a tv program.....She also didnt see in what a mess he was 2-3 hours after the assessment...had terrible headache, chills, very anxious!

I'm worried that we are spending all this money and time and at the end because of his good cognitive abbility his results looks fine.....I need some one to see what I'm seing in order to help us! I did give her good background info....maybe I must just wait and see.

I did really well in ST too... but they don't see what I'm like with people in the community (aka, a hot mess!). Maybe someday therapists will go out with their clients.

exactly!! !! !!

Hi! Can't really offer you any help, because I just posted a very similar question as I am in the same dilemma. We are doing our eval in a month. My 4.5 year old son is quite smart and verbal, and he tends to do well in one-on-one interaction with an adult who is paying attention only to him and doing things he is interested in.

Change the setting--his classroom, home, church, stressful situations, strangers, and then you see what the issues are. I'm worried about spending a lot of money for evaluations that may not be exactly accurate b/c of the unrealistic setting.

Sorry I'm not help--simply in a similar boat and interested to hear what responses you get. Keep us posted.

There should be a way to find someone to go observe him in a natural environment and write a report. In preschool, the local YMCA had a free program that sent a behavioral therapist to observe and make recommendations. We took his report when seeking a dx and to his initial IEP. In K we hired an educational consultant to go observe at school for 2.5 hours. She charged $50/hr. It seems to me there should be a speech therapist who could do the same. Might cost $75-$100/hr.

It seems to me to be a no-brainer that the therapist would observe him at school at least! Anyone who knows ANYTHING about the autism spectrum knows that ASD kids can often interact just fine with adults in a one on one situation but be entirely different in groups especially groups of their age peers. The private OT we hired and the school district personnel all came and observed DS in the classroom in addition to the one on one evaluations they conducted. You only get a small slice of the pie when you are one on one with these kiddos.