Hey, maybe I’m an asshole too 
But more seriously - no, of course I didn’t saddle my kid with that as a name. It was the cutesy pre-birth name we saddled him with, and ever since then that’s been the name we use to refer to him on message boards. His sister, natch, is Moon Unit. In fact my Dopername came from that. So it’s not quite “Bobwife”, but close enough.
Oh bullshit- you and your sister don’t have a disorder- you just won’t sit the fuck down and focus. You’re just acting out, and there is nothing wrong with you. It was just the “designer disease” that your mom latched onto to get attention.
Right?
If you think that all doctors make specific, detailed inquiries and diagnose and/or prescribe only that which is the warranted product of those inquiries, I would like to introduce you to some doctors who will blow your MIND.
If you have enough money and influence, you can have your daughter diagnosed with testicular cancer.
But most people don’t have that kind of money and influence. Certainly not enough to explain the rise in autism cases in recent years. For those that do, why on earth would they choose autism? ADHD or even Asperger’s syndrome I could see, as such a diagnosis would allow them to say “my child is smart but has problems that require him/her to receive extra time or special considerations”. But it wouldn’t be in the parents’ self-interest to have their child diagnosed with autism.
In our school district, ADD/ADHD is just a label that gets put into the kid’s file, Autism unlocks the $ and gets the kid special services like speech therapy, occupational therapy, para-pros, etc.
So it can be in the parents best interests to get the ASD diagnosis, to get their kid the accommodations they need.
Are people in this thread really claiming that there are kids out there labeled autistic or Asberger’s that are just weirdos with parents that want them to get special treatment? In my 10 years of teaching, I’ve never met a kid with those diagnoses who didn’t clearly fall on the autism spectrum. Kids with autism or Asperger’s are quite obvious, and their lives are difficult because of it. I don’t think it’s a flavor of the month disorder. It’s real, and those kids do need accommodations. Also, other children tend to be evil towards them because they are so obviously different, and they suffer in many other ways. Now, saying that they’re just stupid or lazy seems like adding insult to injury. I’m not talking about Mr. Leary saying it-- he’s an entertainer who makes his living saying stupid shit. I’m talking about people on these boards who ought to know better.
As for ADHD, it’s a real thing, and kids who have it also need special accommodations. The difference between a kid who’s just a brat and a kid with ADHD is also pronounced and real to an experienced eye. What I see more often than a wrong diagnosis of a kid who doesn’t have it is a kid who really does have who isn’t being treated at all or whose treatment is ineffective. These kids have a very, very hard time in school, and it’s often a bad situation. I’ve seen intelligent, wonderful kids fail to get an education because of it. It’s a sad thing, and too flippantly disregarded or dismissed by people railing against it as a made up medical issue.
Rubystreak is dead on. If you look at the characteristics of people with these disorders, they will fit solidly in the category. It’s not just Johnny acting out for attention. ADHD does not look like every other kid. People that say this are ignorant.
A perfectly normal, healthy, but lazy/spoiled kid wouldn’t need speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc. This is my point. The services offered to children with autism aren’t going to help an ordinary but lazy kid. A phony diagnosis for some type of learning disability or certain other disorders might require the school to allow the kid extra time on tests or put pressure them to tolerate the kid’s bratty behavior, so I can at least see some point in an overbearing parent wanting their kid to get such a diagnosis even if it wasn’t justified. But contrary to DigitalC’s claim, I cannot see any reason why a parent of a child with NO real mental disorder would insist on getting a phony autism diagnosis from Dr. Feelgood.
I can’t even imagine how to get a quick diagnosis for autism. We’re STILL in the process of evaluation after 13 months from the referral from the pediatrician, through evals from two OTs, a speech therapist, a full physical with blood work and now two visits to a psychiatrist. Plus hearing and two vision tests. The OT and ST have been treating her as if it’s been confirmed and the psychiatrist says it’s all formalities since she has most of the signs, but I’m still a long way from getting any sort of extra money or assistance, or even Sp’Ed preschool help.
I have known a guy who says he has Asbergers. Or Aspy as he calls it. He’s never been formally diagnosed, he just assumes since he’s a social misfit…so I see where Leary was coming from now that I see the context. Maybe we should be putting more blame on whoever put this out of context bit out there for us to find offense with. Because when I first saw it I was pissed as hell. I already deal with the idiot spectrum: one side thinking autism isn’t real and the other side blaming it on everything from vax to dairy to fluoride in the water.
I’m of two minds about it. I have very significant problems all my life focusing and from time to time have had to drop my dope account because it was too distracting. If the ADD /ADHD tests were available when I was kid I would quite probably be diagnosed as having classic ADD.
Having said this I have had to buckle down and force myself to focus to get on with life. It’s very tough at times -double tough, but I do it because I have to. If I had drugs and a diagnosis like many children do these days I’m not sure I would have been as inclined to suck it up and discipline myself to get on with it.
I’m skeptical of people who claim that they absolutely know that ADD-ADHD is a real disease because the protocols are so sloppy and variable that they can potentially include virtually any maladaptive behaviors, and make no mistake there are a number of parents (primarily mothers) who diagnose their child based on magazine articles and will tirelessly chase a diagnosis of ADD, or Aspergers etc until they get someone to agree with them. And I guarantee you they will find that therapist or doctor that agrees with them They always do. Beyond this re diagnosing anything the whole debacle of the facilitated communication mess(they were giving out academic degrees in this) makes me wary of claims that defy common sense and people who claim they just know this stuff is as real as can be.
There are people in this world with real, intractable organic problems (the OPs kid) , and there are people in this world with problems that some degree of behavior modification could go a long way toward solving. Some people will use a diagnosis as a crutch to be lazy and ineffective, other may get resources as result of the diagnosis that gives them skills to cope.