A little nervous, don't know why

[mrsbert]

I have an appointment with a psychiatrist at a privately owned center to discuss DS8. This is first meeting in line to have him fully evaluated. He was evaluated by the public school system at age 3. I never really liked the way things were done but that's in the past. He was diagnosed with a developmental delay, and speech delay. I know there's more going on and as a mom, I feel I can do more for him. I try not to self-diagnose , but I can really get caught-up in all of the checklists and symptom pages on websites.

Really, I just what is best for DS8 and a name. If it's still just developmental delay then so be it.

Still nervous though.

 

[LMC]

I have had my best luck for testing with a Developmental Neuropsychologist. He tested IQ, and all sorts of learning disabilities. He can even diagnose ASD. This particular doctor gives very detailed recommendations on the course needed for an education plan. If you have a Developmental neuropsych in your area you might want to consider that. Our psychiatrist only visually watches (this is the evaluation) and diagnosed both my sons ADD and ADHD but he never gave any infor on additional problems. I do see him regularly for the medications they take and we do talk about some of their problems but he did not do the same types of eval's that the neuropsyc did.

 

[Libbyt]

Trust your instincts! I was in exactly your position when my dd was 3 - she had SOMETHING going on, general delays, speech issues, but we never got an actual diagnosis or explanation until she was 18, when she was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic metabolic disorder. Sometimes science has to catch up before you find explanations, it took all those years for us. Even if your son's issues continue to seem only borderline, go as far as you can to get an explanation - all the way to a geneticist if you can. Trust that YOU know your child better than anyone, ask questions, do your research!

 

[bookwormde]

Psychiatrists are typically the least qualified (and competent) to diagnose neurological variations and associated delays, If you can find a developmental pediatrician that can be a good starting point but typically a pediatric neurologist of neuropsycologist is one to the best routes if you do not have a major medical center which specializes in ASD and other neurovariations.

Has he had an IQ evaluation done since 6, and I assume with a speech delay a full auditory processing evaluation was done. If he shows and above average IQ in any of the subsections or any auditory processing issues it is definitely time to dig deeper, as it is if there are any social differentials or heightened anxiety.

Developmental delay is such a broad area it is a little difficult to be more helpful without more description of the specifics.

bookwormde

 

[jodifla]

I have an appointment with a psychiatrist at a privately owned center to discuss DS8. This is first meeting in line to have him fully evaluated. He was evaluated by the public school system at age 3. I never really liked the way things were done but that's in the past. He was diagnosed with a developmental delay, and speech delay. I know there's more going on and as a mom, I feel I can do more for him. I try not to self-diagnose , but I can really get caught-up in all of the checklists and symptom pages on websites.

Really, I just what is best for DS8 and a name. If it's still just developmental delay then so be it.

Still nervous though.

Just be sure to check out this person's qualifications. There's a lot of people doing a lot of bad diagnosing out there.

If you want to talk more about speech delays, there's a natural late talkers board on yahoo that has a lot of info.

We ultimately had to take our son to a university research center to find out exactly what was going on with him. He has a severe receptive/expressive language delay, and that receptive deficit affects him in a lot of ways. In school settings, he can look almost ADHD, although that's not the right Dx for him, nor is ASD, which the school is fixated on.