Prelude to a Diagnosis

So, I haven’t written in awhile, and for that I apologize. But I owe a follow-up to our endeavor at the hospital in which we are seeking official, medical diagnosis/clearance for one of our sons.

We have met with a developmental pediatrician, and we have done a preliminary interview with a clinical child psychologist. That’s (still) all we’ve gotten done with the hospital. What remains is a battery of testing from the psychologist, which won’t be possible until at least August (we’ve been waiting since last September) The result of the pediatrician visit was a report of findings which, while certainly valid, also yielded that it would truly be up to the psychologist to make a more accurate diagnosis.

What we got in the ped’s report is “autism spectrum disorder …[which is] symptomatic of Asperger’s Syndrome”. During the appointment we got a verbal heads-up that this was coming in our report, and that it would need to be dialed in by the psychologist; however, the ped felt pretty comfortable with the diagnosis based on his observations and his own test results.

So, with that, I want to sidebar and say that this is what we expected. We tried not to lead the doctors down this path; rather, we wanted them to tell us what their diagnosis is instead of us persuading them into this based on confirmation of what we knew were exhibited symptoms. I feel pretty good that we got an unbiased evaluation from a doctor who “knows his stuff” in this area.

When I have more news, I’ll post again. AS is on vacation this month, so I don’t have any real updates on him right now.