Asperger’s Syndrome and an Official Diagnosis

So, since I began this blog to share my insights about parenting a child with AS, I thought I’d share some news as well. This might not turn out to be an advice post as most of my other ones in this blog are.

This month we are going in to see a battery of doctors who will be testing and prodding and poking and hmm-ing at our older son, referred to in this blog as AS, to provide us with an official, medical diagnosis of his condition. That being said, we may find out that AS doesn’t have Asperger’s at all, but we are pretty confident that we’re going to hear a panel of professionals tell us what we already know - that he does have this condition and his case is on the mild side.

The question is begged: why are we even doing it if we know the outcome? For us, I think it’s about closure. We’ve spent the last three years (since he was just turning 2) trying to figure out why none of the “traditional” parenting skills were particularly effective, why several of the things which should be easy to understand for a child are like throwing a glass of water at a forest fire, why we’ve had to be so unconventional and “work so hard” to get him to the functional level he’s at today. So, we don’t need a doctor to tell us that he’s got AS so that we can feel like we’re battling a known thing or so that we can feel like what we’ve done was “worth it” - we’re not trying to compartmentalize our child. We are more interested in using the resources which become available to us when he is indeed diagnosed to build upon the foundation we’ve tried to give him. It’s what any concerned/proud parent would do.

Of course, I will post the outcome of our visits. Even if AS is proven medically not to be officially AS, I will likely keep maintaining this blog as long as there are readers for it.