Proposed autism definition changes

A-fucking-men.

My son was diagnosed in the spectrum when he was in kindergarten. When my wife and I looked at what the spectrum entailed. It was so damn broad that I could easily have been in it at that age too.

Too many schools, especially those in states where funding on based on teacher performance, as my state does, are pushing kids towards an autism spectrum diagnosis. If you sign the paper they gave you based on their assessment that your son is in the autism spectrum, I believe they count those students differently when it comes to standardized tests, etc.

During the meeting we had with the school corp psychologist, one of my son's school's own employees bravely spoke and said she disagreed with the diagnosis, saying that my son was too young to be diagnosed in the spectrum and might just have maturity issues. She was summarily wisked out of the room.

When I saw the report, and took the above factors into consideration, I refused to sign. Not only did I think it was an over-diagnosis, I questioned the motivation of the school district to be diagnosing kids at all when they had a vested interest in the end result. I told the school officials that I wanted him treated just like everyone else. If he acted up, do what needed to be done. I wasn't about to sign a paper that took them off the hook and gave me an excuse as a parent to explain behavior I thought was correctable.

Now, had my wife and I seen signs that he was not progressing, we would gladly have signed. It was never about whether he "had it" or not, but the motivation on the school's part to surmise that he did. Bottom line, I didn't trust their diagnosis.

We did take our son to a psychologist off-site. She said that if he had anything at all, it was mild Asperger's, and that school's almost always over-diagnose or mis-diagnose the spectrum and said that someone who is 5 is way too young to make a definitive judgment if he's borderline, as my son was. After a year or so, she said he probably didn't even that, he just had some maturity issues and was going to be fine. He hasn't gone to her at all in nearly a year.

Since then, my son has grown up a lot. He's in third grade now and the issues he had when he first started in school have almost all faded with time.

I don't have the expertise to decide whether the spectrum should be reigned in, my gut tells me it should, but I'm only speaking from my narrow experience with it. I know there are ramifications to changing it which would be negative, as many here have cited.

I guess my experience has taught me that the spectrum should only be diagnosed by those that don't vested interest in the outcome. Schools should absolutely not be in that business.

 

Schools don't want kids in special education. Standardized testing doesn't come into play until third grade. Plus, schools don't get enough funding from states or the federal government for the full cost of special education.

 

They do standardized tests before that where I am. And even if they didn't, it's in the school corp's interest to those names on the dotted line early and take them out of the system.

And we're not talking some massive level of special education. Any "special education" my son would have received would have comprised of, at most, a half-hour session on a weekly basis.

Parents my wife and I know who did sign the spectrum document said they regretted it later because the school corp was doing very little about it.

When their funding is based on testing, I smell a rat. It is in their interest to diagnose it ... and then do little about it.

 

I feel sorry for the kids who legitimately need the help. They become caught up in the gaming of the system with the kids who are borderline.

 

There is a limit to how many special education students are excluded from normal assessments in making AYP determinations. Schools try to limit special education populations.

http://www.lefave.net/uncategorized/181/

 

NCLB, AYP and the subgroup game is way too complicated for me to type out here, but it does happen. Is it happening here? Probably.

Just a few thoughts...

1. Too many people are labeled "autistic." It does need to be split up so the people with the various symptoms can receive the proper care they need. Right now it is too broad.

2. Special education is an educational format that meets the needs of students who are not best served in a traditional calssroom. The rule of thumb for me is can this child function in a normal classroom setting without help? If the answer is no, then you start the child study process and see what part of special education the student falls into. If Asperger students are no longer autistic or falling into special education, that is an incredibly poor decision by the higher ups. Those kids cannot function in a normal setting. They need special rules or tools to succeed as a student.

I also love calling advance placement courses special education, because it is. Pisses people off, but it also opens people's minds to not thinking special eduaction is for stupid people.

 

The American Psychological Association would SEEM to have reason to set its criteria for diagnosis here as low as possible. Lower criteria means more people with the diagnosis and hence more insurance coverage for patients that members of the APA can bill against.

The fact that the APA SEEMS to want to act in a way that is counter to the financial intersts of its members is either confusing or completely counter-intuitive.

 

Interestingly enough, our experience was the opposite. Our son was diagnosed by doctors, and the school, who didn't want to be bothered for the additional services and modifications, were the ones who fought the diagnosis.

We'd show the school what the doctors would recommend for services and modifications, and would show them the doctors' reports, and they'd be like (among the many other stupid things they would say) "Well, we're not doctors, how do we know this what he needs?" Then they'd try to make him conform to their way of doing things, and when he couldn't/wouldn't, they'd get all pissed off. We kept telling them, "We told you so." They still wouldn't listen.

As far as whether or not the diagnosis should be reigned in, I'd say, like the disorder itself, there's really no one way to define it. Everybody is different, and, except for the severe cases, you really have to take it on a case-by-case basis. Except it seems like these guys are trying to make it considerably harder.

I'll give two examples of people my wife and I know. One is a single mom with two kids (and some major issues herself). The boy, who's around 5 or 6, has been diagnosed with autism, and he does have some major issues. The daughter, who is, I think 4, behaves badly. The mom, who rarely disciplines her kids, usually just shrugs her shoulders and says they're both autistic, even though the daughter really isn't, and the boy receives some services, but not as many as he should be receiving. She kinda gives the parents who use autism as an excuse a bad name.

Then there's this other mom with a boy who is 12. He is autistic. Everyone can see that he is autistic. He flips out if the slightest thing goes wrong, and he has those convesational issues where everyone will be talking about one thing, and he'll talk about something totally opposite and will keep obsessing about it. Except, the mom is in total denial that he's autistic. She tried to keep him in a regular classroom for years, even though he practically failed every year. He's finally in a special ed classroom after much arm-twisting from the school, and is way behind because the mother was in total denial.

So, it really runs both ways. You have kids who are diagnosed who probably shouldn't be, and kids who aren't diagnosed who really should are autistic.

 

On the spectrum?



None of your business.

 

I do wonder this - is Autism something that has been over-diagnosed in recent years?

I do think that is a fair question. You wonder how we go from almost no cases of autism to 1 in 110 or whatever diagnosed with it. That seems like a spike that doesn't make sense

 

Discourage people from getting tested for breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Change the definition of who has a medical issue.

Welcome to Obamacare folks. This was all entirely predictable.

 

Using resources more efficiently isn't a negative.