Advice about getting a quality evaluation

Post Reply New Topic

Any suggestions or solid information, even referrals would be welcome. We live in the north Orange County area of Southern California. My son has a school diagnosis of Asperger's and ADHD, and his older sister, I have concluded, fits very much the profile of the often overlooked ADD as it presents in many girls. That is, she has been having huge problems at school and her assessment ended in the conclusion that she didn't have anything because she was so defiant to the teachers (in my opinion that was their motivation) and because she will copy friends' behaviors in order to fit in (their reason why she does not have AS). In other words, she's doing poorly but they could not identify or will not acknowledge that she might have a reason why she neglects to turn in already completed homework and can't keep an already clean room clean for one measly week even for a huge reward. So her brother is already getting lil training classes at school, but if there's a reason, a correct course of action to help her, I want to find it. The kid is smart as heck, and I'm not just saying that. She's smart and she feels like an idiot (when it comes to school. At home she finishes all my sentences and corrects me all the time). I don't want some goody-goody telling her she's so smart and wonderful, like the lady who assessed her intelligence and told her she was one of the smartest kids she'd ever tested. I'm not complaining that she told her, everyone needs to hear stuff like that sometimes, but I've been there, and you have to be careful... if you take a kid who is underachieving and tell them how smart they are but don't recognize that they still don't know how to do the work, you create a little monster who thinks not that she's smart enough to do better, but that she instead is too smart to need to try. My daughter is already apathetic about school because she's gone on so long struggling. And she already thinks she knows more than we do... she's always been like that. I'm sure she's just decided it isn't worth it. And she's only 11.

So I'm going to ask her doctor for a referral, but I'm not just going to go to any old doc he says without making sure the person knows their business. As we all have seen, there are very many therapists who mistake their emotion-driven opinions for professional judgments, who will tell you as if it's gospel truth that your kid does or does not have, cannot possibly or absolutely must have, even though they may not remotely have or most definitely do have... whatever it is. Really, a group would be better...

When I was her age, I was assessed by a psychiatrist who told my mom that I had confusion about my sexual identity because I wore jeans to the interview. In 1983. Of course, because girls never wore jeans in 1983. Please. Whatever. I suppose he thought that was enough to explain my entire array of problems.

My son is the squeaky wheel. No one is going to be able to ignore or forget him no matter how much he accuses us of it (middle child; I firmly believe in the environmental effects of birth order. I've seen plenty). But my daughter is friendly and outgoing and bright and her teachers think she's defiant to the point of allowing herself to repeat 5th grade just to show them. Well, all I can say is, if my kid is that obsessed with punishing her teachers for expecting so much of her (which I do not believe for a second), then she definitely needs professional help!

Either way, what help can you offer? I need.

Instead of relying on a single referral, I would see if there any pediatric psychiatrists covered in your plan. Then call the psychiatrist and find out if he/she has an active case load of children on the spectrum . You need a physician that has practical experience with autism/aspergers/adhd children, someone who can recognized the symptoms and rule out other disorders, and has current experience with the latest therapies and drugs. Then bring the names back and ask your GP to refer you to one on your list.

Now you may run into a problem where your insurance won't let you see a psychiatrist (MD) because of the way state law has mandated mental health coverage. For example my plan would only pay for my son to go see a psychologist (PhD). Since I wanted a specific psychiatrist that specializes in autism, I paid for the assesment myself. It was about $700 to get the formal dx of autism with adhd.

i don't know if you have a resource center in your state, but here we have a wonderful resource center that puts out a book of providers that are familiar with spectrum disorders........

Y'know, I haven't checked either of those things. What I think I will do is look into all that before speaking to the doc. They have put my daughter into a lower level math class (which would have incensed me six months ago but which I think is necessary now, and I think is helping her self-esteem already in that she can keep up and even gets to help other kids in class) and we are really monitoring her schoolwork, though we have sadly have had to impose a whopping penalty for lying about it. Not surprisingly, she had gotten into a bad habit of keeping us "happy" saying she was almost finished with assignments she hadn't started because she got caught up reading. Lying is something she can control.

So my point is, I don't think much more than that will get accomplished this school year on it, so that gives me a little time to research and get assessments done. It took until January to get the school's version completed, what with my son coming ahead of her on the list (with incidents of running from teachers and locking himself in the office bathroom) and if I had a diagnosis in hand now I doubt we'd get anywhere before Summer. It's a good school, but busy. It's one of those districts with just enough lower ranking schools that the higher ones get some run-off from people like us. In my case, I couldn't settle for the local school because they had a huge amount of English learners. I knew my son would be high needs, and my daughter was transferring from another such school where her mediocre efforts had been accepted and praised because she already had mastered what most other students found challenging, for good reason: speaking English. We knew she could do better and no one was interested.

I guess I'm just realizing that was why it took so long to see that she wasn't just being lazy (why try more when teachers are happy with less?) and that it isn't changing schools, or the sourpuss teacher she had in 4th grade...

I never thought ADD would be a relief.

I'll check that stuff out. Thank you both.