Asperger's Syndrome = the new ADHD?

Factual Questions
81

Please re-readbobkitty’s post - kids just don’t get “tagged” with AS. And all restless children aren’t “tagged” with ADHD.

If you’re sick, you go to the doctor, the best one you can find and afford, and pay what it costs to either get better or get advice on what to do now. Why is it different if its a psychiatrist instead of an internist or surgeon? And, since its apparent you don’t know any AS kids, since you asked the question, why would you assume we’re heading down that “path”, which is an erroneous assumption on your part?

I’ll tell you what happened with my son:

At age 3 I started taking him to pediatricians, telling them there was something wrong, I didn’t know what, but I knew there was. I kept doing that until I found one that didn’t pooh-pooh me as a paranoid, first time mom. He sent me to a child psych, who said yes, I was probably right - maybe - but maybe not, and that at his age who knew what it might be, and lets keep an eye on it.

I took him every couple of months, just to have the child psych keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, it was becoming very apparent that there was something different about my child.

At 4 or so, we went to the neuropsych, who did all the brain work - scans, EEGs, specialised tests, etc. Still no hard diagnoses of AS, but this is where we picked up PDD - which, as explained to me at the time, means “there’s something amiss here, but the child is to young to say exactly what it might be.” Incidentally, I’ve seen my son’s EEGs, and the comparison to neurotypical kids, and frankly its very different.

This is when we started the after school classes, teaching him to just be a person in the world around him - eye contact, personal space, how to say hello and ask to play, how to recognise if someone is really your friend or they are making fun of you, all that.

To cut a long post short, he didn’t get the offical AS diagnoses until about 9 years old, even though I knew and his doctors knew that he probably did have it. He’s still got PDD hanging around his charts at 11, along with a (mis)diagnoses due to his “hearing voices”. This turned out to be the TV in the other room - AS kids have trouble tuning out outside noises sometimes - but that turned out to be a problem. I’m very wary now of accepting any new diagnoses, because if its wrong it takes forever for it to go away in a paperwork sense. If I have any complaing about psychiatrists, this is it.

I’m not sure how you equate this, and other experiences like it, to “tagging” a “socially awkward” child with AS. Its anecdotal of course, but so are the stories of “zombie” children drugged by Ritalin (a stimulant that has the opposite effect in kids who are’t ADHD), and yet those are accepted wholesale.

Cheers,
G

82

So we can say that the two traits are unlikely to ever exist together?
Perhaps you mean that the DSM won’t permit diagnosis of both?

83

Yeah they are:

And as Asperger’s catches on as the newest buzzword among educators seeking a quick label for kids with socialization problems, we will see it being misdiagnosed just as ADHD is, with tragic consequences.

84

It’s a mistake to disbelieve that disorders exist because some physicians don’t do their jobs properly. It takes time and cash to do the differential diagnosis needed to determine whether a person has a disorder or another condition. And symptoms are often so similar that it can be a crapshoot.

As with every other medical condition, the key to better health is to ensure that you are in the hands of a competent professional. If you take your restless teen to a shrink who ‘diagnoses’ ADHD or AS after one appointment, then you’re in the wrong place.

If you must br wrathful, focus that wrath on lazy or inept medical personnel rather than on the real sufferers of real disorders. Or maybe on medical schools that seem to focus more education on treatment than it does on diagnosis.

85

I don’t disbelieve these disorders exist; it is a fact, however, that they are widely and frequently misdiagnosed.

I have no wrath for either those who suffer these disorders, nor for those misdiagnosed by school psychologists whose goal is keeping order in the classroom rather than treating illness.

86

Do you mind if I ask what medication your son currently takes? I’m curious in an abstract sense, more than anything; we don’t feel meds are necessary or appropriate for Dweezil (12 YO, AS or high-functioning autism) but we wouldn’t be surprised if down the line, we feel he would benefit from some help.

87

Do you mind if I ask what medication your son currently takes? I’m curious in an abstract sense, more than anything; we don’t feel meds are necessary or appropriate for Dweezil (12 YO, AS or high-functioning autism) but we wouldn’t be surprised if down the line, we feel he would benefit from some help.

88

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Medicating Our Children: Should Doctors Prescribe Antipsychotic Drugs for Kids?

Need I continue?

Guin, I know that you are defensive about your industry, and that’s understandable. However, if you deny that Americans (esp. children) are being vastly overmedicated, you should at least admit that it’s an ongoing debate, and has been so for years.

89

I’m saying that they’re two sides of the same coin, like folks with bipolar disorder may appear to have depression, but in fact have a completely different disorder. Folks with AS can appear to be sociopaths, but with a closer look it’s obviously a different set of issues.

And part of the problem with AS is it’s often initially diagnosed as something different, like schizophrenia, until the neuro testing is done.

90

I never said that there are children that are over medicated-I meant your assertation that doctors care more about money than they do their patients, and that that is the REASON many are misdiagnosed.