The daycare just declared my 2.5-year-old kid to be autistic (long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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**spazurek - **

Day care providers are not in a position to diagnose a child. Licensed teachers are not qualified to diagnose a child, a team of specialists work together to identify a disability and develop an individual education plan. Labels are usually avoided under the age of five. Toddlers and preschool children are identified as developmentally delayed, a broad umbrella, but until a child reaches a certain maturation, it is difficult to diagnose the specific cause of delayed development.

I would take your son to his pediatrician. The physician can refer you to the proper specialists and hopefully ease your anxiety. Also, remember the public school is a great resource. Early intervention is available to children starting at age two. At least through the public school, you will work with credentialed educators and therapists.

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spazurek, you’re using a lot of “I” statements–“I think,” “I feel,” “Andrew is my kid.” I’m curious, what is your wife’s take on this? Does she share your philosophy, or would she prefer to have Andrew evaluated? It seems crucial to have both parents on the same page with this.

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Well, I can’t say that I understand your reticence to “label” your child, because, well, frankly, what you think happens isn’t what happens, but it’s your child.

What I will say is this - your child will get labelled. Will. If it’s not by professionals who are trained in demystification, one of the most important steps in education for exceptional children, it will be from peers, which will scar the child more than anything else, and teachers who are not trained to offer the right advice.

I cannot tell you how times the parents of exceptional children insist that their child is perfectly normal. I’m reminded of Jenny McCarthy, who was so insulted that a day care provider suggested she get her child tested for autism she had him fired, and then found out her totally normal child was autistic. It happens. Is it necessarily the case with your child? Absolutely not; I sincerely hope it’s not the case. But I guarantee that unless those day care people who made the suggestion to you made the suggestion to every single other parent whose children acted “perfectly normal” then they would have made that suggestion to every single other parent. What you perceive as perfectly normal is going to be light years away from what people who have years of experience with hundreds of children are going to see. They saw something. Why would you insist they didn’t?

This kid “read” all the time. He had excellent verbal skills. However, he couldn’t read. Turned out that he had memorized the book and when he was “reading” to his mother he was actually staring into the other room and reciting from memory. His parents, until he was tested, insisted he was perfectly normal. He got the early intervention help he needed, and succeeded brilliantly.

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Low level ‘autism’ of various stripes is the latest diagnostic fad, and an endless mirror in which professionals and worried parents can see whatever they want to see. Years from now tomes will be written detailing how vast numbers of kids with fairly minor behavioral issues were thrown down these diagnostic rabbit holes by a confederacy of well meaning worried parents, well meaning care providers and well meaning professionals.

Psychological and behavioral diagnoses in modernity have a very checkered history, and I think it’s important to understand how heavily invested people are professionally and emotionally in the conviction that these diagnostic criteria are “real” . People attempting to make these determinations are often treating these psychological and behavioral categories as finely honed diagnostic metrics and settled science, when in fact they are anything but. Intellectually no one should be able to appreciate this better than you.

Think back on Freudian analysis and how the related diagnostic categories were viewed . Our entire society was invested in the notion that these diagnostic criteria and their unpinning paradigms were absolutely valid and real. And in a very meaningful sense they were 'real" to people. Society from top to bottom accepted the diagnostic criteria and explanatory power of the Freudian paradigm as virtually a settled matter, dissenters were a distinct minority. However, over time inconsistencies in the model accumulated and it unraveled.

Focusing like a laser of the behavioral quirks of a two year old is absurd unless the behavior is sufficiently dysfunctional to be of real concern. The real problem is you have strangers raising your toddler. Your son needs to be out of day care and to be with his mother or you. If you cannot arrange your lives to accommodate this you have effectively made the decision to keep him pinned like a displayed butterfly in a scenario where he will continue to be judged by this or that caretaker wishing to employ their mad diagnostic skillz and that’s not where he needs to be.

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I think two years old is a ridiculously early age to be worrying about behavioral issues, but I have no experience with children so take that for what it’s worth.

On the subject of autism, though, autism is about as ‘bad’ as a square peg is compared to a round one. It’s just different, not bad. The problems with autism and to a lesser degree Asperger’s is that the initial assumption a person makes upon meeting someone new is that they fall into the standard behavioral and mindset patterns most people do. This isn’t a problem until reality stops matching assumptions and the person insists on trying to fit that square peg into a round hole. Something or someone is going to get damaged that way. This is especially bad when parents or authority figures try to force the autistic person into a certain mold.

Like I said, I don’t know children that well, but I have a close adult friend whose life was a living hell until she was able to get away from said authority figures and get her own diagnosis and education. Instead of having to be upset and dismayed that she can’t live up to the expectations of those around her, she now knows exactly why she’s different and can circumvent those potential problems through education or prior arrangement. As a result, she’s vastly happier and more comfortable than she used to be.

The point here is that, should your child in fact display behavioral characteristics that make it very difficult for him to interact with others, a diagnosis is not a bad thing. It lets you know what he’s up against and how to work around it. Still, I think two years old is probably too young to make any definitive statements.

It really does help if you think of autism not as a disorder or something that needs to be fixed, but simply a different state of mind. You can’t fix it, and there’s some would argue it doesn’t need to be fixed. The only reason it gets to be a problem is other people’s expectations and assumptions, and those can be circumvented.

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I’m going to talk from a different perspective here:

I have ADD, and I was NOT diagnosed as a child. In fact, I was even taken to this place in 1971 to find out why I was doing so badly in school even though I was obviously so intelligent. Their evaluation: that I had “the worst case of passive-aggressiveness they had ever seen”. :frowning: (They also missed what I now recognize as depression)

Through most of my scholastic career, I was told time and again that I would do so well if I would “just work a bit harder”. The implication was always that I wasn’t doing well because I was lazy, or deliberately not doing the homework out of some sort of stubbornness.

Would I have done better if I had been diagnosed properly at an early age? I can’t say - I might have been discounted as a hopeless case, or I might have been taught the skills I needed to live up to the potential that people saw in me. I do know that I am very, very lucky in that I am very good at a job that works relatively well with my “quirks”. I am also lucky that my ADD is not very bad. Many people my age were not diagnosed and ended up with much worse problems - self-medicating with drugs and alcohol or bouncing from job to job, unable to deal with day to day pressures of coping with a culture that tries to force them into behavioral patterns that just don’t work for them.

I do think I would have rather been “marginalized” as someone with a learning disorder, rather than constantly berated for not doing something I didn’t have the skills to do, or even the knowledge that I was missing important skills.

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unconventional is absolutely right. For daycare providers to even use the word autism is unconscionable, and in the strictest sense, illegal.
Diagnosing is practicing medicine without licence.

Did you ask them what credentials they possess that qualifies them to make such a life changing statement?
My opinion: find a new daycare.

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Did they diagnose? They “recommended he be evaluated for autism.” They did not say he was autistic - they said they saw signs they felt would be best evaluated by a professional.

Frankly, if they saw signs of autism and did not mention it, THAT would be unconscionable.

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It doesn’t sound like the daycare diagnosed him. Nor did they “declare” him autistic, as the OP titled the thread. They said he should be evaluated. At least that’s how the OP wrote it.

They shouldn’t be diagnosing but if they notice something is unusual or wrong or quite different than the hundreds of other kids in their experience, they should say something. If they noticed that Andrew had a way of consistently favoring his left side, or if they noticed he squinted a lot when trying to see the board from the back, I expect any parent would be pleased to be informed of that: “Andrew might have hurt his leg or something; we don’t know why but you might want to have him checked”; or “Andrew is squinting a lot; he might be nearsighted, you might want to have this evaluated.” Would people feel insulted or that their child is being labeled to be told such things? I doubt it.

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:dubious: That’s just how little kids are.

-FrL-

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Sometimes. But by 2 1/2 both my kids could extrapolate - unevenly, but the start was there. I doubt the daycare teachers are just making shit up - they aren’t likely to be recommending an evaluation because this kid seems like every other kid in daycare.

Sometimes I think my children are odd - then I see them around other kids their age and am reminded mine are pretty normal. In this case, the daycare teachers are comparing this kid to other kids his age in daycare and saying something MIGHT be wrong.

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I don’t know about North Carolina, but one reason to get him tested here in Texas, is that if they are diagnosed with autism, developmental delayedness, or a couple of dozen other things, then the education process starts much earlier.

As in at 3 years old. Educators know that the earlier the better, as far as learning is concerned, and staggeringly more so for children who may not learn through normal teaching methods.

It’s not that children with autism or whatever else can’t learn. Far from it, but they do require different and specialized teaching techniques and more individualized attention to perform up to their potential than your average student would, much like a G&T child does.

You seem very concerned that “by God, there’s nothing wrong with him; he’s perfect as he is.”, but then later on in that post or another, you talk about “diseased brains” and “mental defects” when talking about autism.

Is it so bad to admit that he may be out of the ordinary? All you have to lose is your fatherly pride if you get him tested and it turns out that he is indeed autistic. At that point, getting him the best education is the best thing you can do for him, and your responsibility as well.

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I read this thread with increasing concern. I think the OP is a good dad, one who is very worried about his son. But I don’t see Andrew in here. I see a lot of spazurek’s fears for Andrew instead. Testing for autism is now recommended at about age 2 by the AAP (American Ass’n of Pediatrics). Testing at this age does NOT lead to a label or a box within which Andrew is forced to cope as best he can. Testing at his age involves going to see someone who plays games with Andrew and give information to his parents. In no way is this punitive toward him or denigrating to anyone involved.

What distresses me in this thread is the pre-supposition that Andrew will now be marked for life in some odd, shameful way. I have to say this to the OP: as a med student/resident (whichever) would you hesitate for one minute if the issue was Andrew’s kidneys or lungs or heart? Of course not–you’d look for qualified, appropriate tests to RULE OUT any anomaly or disorder.

So why not for autism or autism spectrum? You are NOT the expert here. You are the dad. I feel I have to say this as well: my parents(physician and nurse) almost allowed my sister to die at age 7, because they couldn’t see what was in front of them–she had diabetes. My best friend in elementary school also almost died (also mother a nurse, dad an internist) because she had appendicitis. Her dad mentioned something to his partner at the office one day about how M’s fever just wouldn’t come down etc. His partner went to his house, swept M off the couch and took her to the hospital–her appendix had already ruptured. She was 9.
I tell you this, not to scare you (for every anecdote like this, there are the mis-diagnoses as well, and much made of nothing), but to help you. I had something similar happen to #2 son. Forgive me if I bore you with this:

He was a sick infant–RSV, croup, bronchiolities, URI after URI. One pediatrician in the practice made the diagnosis: Asthma. I knew that that diagnosis would follow him around forever and any respiratory anything would then be attributed to asthma. I balked at it. I refused it. I pissed off a young pediatrician. But until he was almost 5, I had him on the meds, as prescribed. The thinking is that if the child still exhibits symptoms of asthma by age 3-4, kid’s asthmatic-and he was.

#2 son had his last wheeze at 4 and 1/2. I did not do the Singular and the inhaler that fall–just to see how he did, a trial for a few weeks. Got a cold (his trigger)–no wheezing. I kept the nebulizer in the closet (where it still is today-I’m nothing if not cautious). Not a wheeze. Got another one-nothing. Hmmm. Then he went in for his Kindergarten check up.

Sure enough, another partner started the exam with “and how is #2 doing with his asthma regime?” I told him about the no meds, no symptoms, no nothing. He frowned at me, but knew I was an RN, and he checked over my kid with a fine tooth comb. I even brought him in when he had a cold–no wheeze. No asthma. He is no longer considered “asthmatic” by the peds practice. I am not stupid, and know that he could well become so later on. He is 9 now, and fine.*

It seems to me that you are just outright denying possibilities here.

I bored you with that because my son did get a “label”–and I fought one off of my own. I fought an easy label for myself last summer when I got pneumonia and complained to the pulmonologist (who said I could go straight from the hospital discharge back to work the next DAY), that I was too tired to work. He told me that was because of my depression (on Lexapro at the time). I said, no, it’s a whole different tired, and he gave me some time off from work.

I understand about fighting the easy labels, believe me. But you also need to realize that Andrew’s course, no matter the dx, will NOT be the same as yours. He has is own path to run in life. It’d be best if you allowed as many possibilities to open up for him as possible. If he truly does have some type of issue, denying him that care is not helpful to him. I know you know this.

Thing is, the earlier the assessment can be made, the better for Andrew–either way the it goes. If does have something–he gets the help he needs. If he doesn’t, you get the anxiety relieved. How is this not in Andrew’s best interests? How is it not in yours?

*I do NOT recommend that anyone do this. Talk to your doctor before stopping of changing the med regime prescribed. YMWill Most Definitely Vary.

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spazurek, you don’t have to answer or respond to this in any way. Or to any of these posts, for that matter. You don’t have to justify, explain, or fight. But you have asked for perspectives and here is mine.

(By the way, it’s going to be fine)

I have an eight year old with a language disorder, unspecified. We began testing him when he was three, because he spoke from about 12 months to about 3 1/2 years exclusively in a language of his own devising. This is of course unheard of except in works of fiction but there you are.

Er, there I was. In retrospect it is clear that the language was in many ways a harbinger of the future. Because he is a bright boy, my son compensates brilliantly and in unusual ways. So it has been very difficult to figure out what was going on.

(Did I mention, your son is just fine?)

Until he was 5, everyone who came in contact with him thought his receptive language skills were just fine. When he was five, he was being tested for IQ by a woman who watched him carefully, then moved behind a screen to ask him the next series of questions. His performance plummeted and a short while later it became apparent that his receptive skills were terrible – unless he could see your whole body and face. He derived nearly all of his comprehension of language from non verbal signals. This explained great deal of his hostile behavior towards some of the folks at school (for example) who came to work with him. They did not want to single him out so they acted like they came to work with the whole class. But it was self evident to him that this was not true and he became furiously angry at the contradiction. It was his opinion that he had to work his ass off to understand people and it was unfair of them to send him mixed signals. (It also explains why two of the aides at his nursery school were convinced he was psychic, lol.)

But his behavior looked very much like the kind of resistance to change characteristic of the autism spectrum. Behavior can look like one thing and be another because all behavior is communication.

(Oh, by the way, it’s going to be okay)

This is merely one of a gajillion examples. My child has not yet been diagnosed with any Autism Spectrum Disorder but it does keep coming up. And I understand why, now, though I did not when he was three.

Here is where I am after some years and a lot of drama: a diagnosis is not a label. It is a ticket. Like a train ticket. It is a ticket to therapies, treatments, advice, literature, and a lot of support. Oh yes, and good deal of commentary on everything you do. It is not important that the diagnosis be perfect. His perfect diagnosis is himself after all. To analogize a bit, it is usually not important to know what exactly caused an ear infection. It is important to have a handle on whether it is viral in nature or bacterial for treatment, though. Similarly, it is important to make certain that your ticket is for a train going in the right direction.

The reason I have forbidden anyone to use the a-word (snort) in my kid’s file unless they are actually qualified to make the diagnosis is that the treatments/therapies/school accommodations appropriate for the autism spectrum mostly just piss him off and do not help. That train is going in the wrong direction. Therapies/accommodations for language and communication disorders do help, so that train is going in the right direction. My own child also has some visual tracking issues of a peculiar kind and has had some problems which point in the direction of hemispheric dominance problems. None of these things are pathological but in combination with the language problem they point at atypical neurological development.

(Did I at any time bring up that, um, it’s really okay?)

When I say therapies and so on you have to understand that from my kid’s perspective we are talking about games and playing. Most of the therapy he has had consisted of playing games and fun things to do which were in fact carefully targeted. That’s what therapy for toddlers/preschoolers is.

The very best decision I made in all of this was to rise him with a perfectly matter of fact acceptance that he is different, that there are things which are easier for him and things that are harder and that’s really all there is to it. In fairness, I had little choice as he already knew. But I could have put it off. I have seen the results when people pretend there is nothing going on – to themselves and the child – and they are not pretty. It seemed to me in some ways that denial is the failure to accept what is, and that my child might well understand that as a failure on his part. Kids do.

It is common for young children to go through string of diagnoses, because as you rightly point out, the range of non-pathological behavior for young children is very broad indeed and children do not always ahem cooperate by displaying their full range of behaviors on command.

ASD’s are indeed at the moment the flavor of the month and they are being redefined so quickly it is hard to keep up. There is not universal agreement about what is in and what is out in terms of The Spectrum. And in some ways it is because it is the phrase that pays-- there is a fair bit of money being thrown at research and there is a lot of interest just now. In some other ways it is a bit of a conundrum. There used to be little to be done for autism, but now there are several approaches. The problem is, those approaches work best started earliest. So then the question becomes, what is the harm in going ahead – since the therapy consists after all of playing – as it will become apparent soon enough if it is not helping, and is unlikely to do any harm.

(By the way, it’s really okay)

I am as psychic as my kid and I am having a brainwave that you are reading a lot. Somewhere in your reading you might want to look at Dr. Greenspan’s Floortime which I am afraid is also associated with autism but really doesn’t have to be. It is used in a number of contexts and is also useful for kids with no disabilities at all. This often turns out to be the case, who knew when Sesame Street was invented to address literacy problems in the inner city that it would become the darling of the white middle class?

I refer to my child’s language disorder as his gift and that is not some kind of bullshit circumlocution. In many ways and on many levels it is the best thing that ever happened to him. It is integral to who he is and I wouldn’t have him any other way. On the other hand, there is no reason not to free him up to use his intellect on his school work (and also coming up with new Lego Exoforce guys) rather than using it on ways to understand people and to be understood.

Oh, and you know…
It’s really okay. PM me or email me if you feel like chatting. I have so been there and it is not fun. But you do eventually get it to turn loose of you so you can get a handle on it. And try to let go of the anger towards his teachers. They felt they had to tell you and probably didn’t like doing so either. They have no percentage in "labelling"your child in particular. They may be wrong but they are not doing it for kicks or out of malice.

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I wasn’t talking about anything the daycare teachers said.

-FrL-

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Recommending testing is not diagnosis. In fact, the first line of screening is always the teachers. IDEA requires it. If the teachers did not make the recommendation they could be in serious legal trouble.

Could the daycare have couched it better? I dunno - I don’t know what they said or how they said it. Did they have the obligation to suggest testing? Yep.

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I’m a father of a 6 year old son who has gone through what you are going through, Spazurek. He has bounced around from one label to another, from many different people; some that are qualified, and many others (including day care workers) who are not. PDD, ADHD, ASD, Asperger’s, Einstein Syndrome, etc…my son is like a nomad; drifting from one diagnosis to another one the whim of professionals who don’t even agree with each other. You are wise to protect your son from being labeled by the day care, because they could use that against him as an excuse to not serve him (ours did when he was 3). Schools look towards ASD diagnosed kids as extra money, and like to keep a firm grip on that label for his entire stay, regardless if he is actually in the ASD.

But you do owe it to your son to find anything and everything that might be of help to him as well as yourselves. We had our son tested by three different private practice psychs who specialize in this particular field; none of them were school affiliated…We didn’t even want to consider what bias might be used. The results?

#1. PRR-NOS with obsessive compulsive disorder.
#2. Asperger’s
#3. ADHD plus the PRR-NOS.

IMHO, he actually displays a combination of each.

These tests were done when he was 3 to 5 years of age. He wasn’t even testable when he was two, because of speech and language issues. Even the specialists couldn’t agree on a particular diagnosis, even at 5 years of age. I just don’t see what testing a two year old at this point is going to accomplish…I think it will just cloud things up even more, especially if your son has speech and hearing issues which will affect the reliability of the test. An important matter to discuss with his evaluator.

I think there was some good info from some posters here, and also some bad info as well. The best thing a dad and mom can do is be the best filtering system for all the information you are gonna be bombarded with over the years from professionals, semi-professionals (pediatricians), know-it-alls (school admin and some day care owners) and ignorant strangers who just regurgitate what they read in People magazine, or see on the internet. Been there, done that. As time goes on, you will become informed to the point of knowing more than your pediatrician, and should be able to converse ideas with a trusted specialist on a high level.

The most notable things our son does:
He just became potty trained last Thanksgiving.
By age 3, he could identify the 12 major colors, and most shapes…even could distinguish a hexagon from an octagon, trapezoid from a parallelogram.
Would line up his cars/trains in order of color and shape and make extensive road/rail systems to support the whole long line of cars/trains.
Was noted from 2 years and older to put together jigsaw puzzles faster than kids twice his age. Can now do 100 piece puzzles with little help the first time around, and then faster (without help) the subsequent times after.
Has difficulty writing and coloring within the lines.
Obsesses over certain items, including his mom.
Has terrible high-pitched screams when things don’t work out as expected, or senses rejection, however so slight.
Can be very loving and in need of hugs and kisses, but then can give you a straightarm to your head if he doesn’t like something or someone.

Any of these items sound familiar to you?

Anyways, good luck with finding your path these next few years.

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Classifying my eyes as defective was the first step in the path that let me come out of the optometrist with my first pair of glasses and exclaim “MOM! THE TREE! IT HAS LEAVES!!!” “Uh… it’s always had leaves, honey” “But I mean individual ones, it’s not a big green ball.”

Nothing wrong with classifying things as defective when they are.

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I think you might find a neuropsych test useful. I don’t know what they do for kids this young, but they have their methods.

What is remarkable to me as a parent is how personality and experience can alter the way your child is perceived by caregivers and teachers. No one person’s opinion should dictate how your child is labeled.

The truth may lie somewhere in the middle. When you compare what you think, what prior and current teachers have observed, and what an expert finds in testing, you may have a better picture of how much is personality versus pathology. Testing can be really valuable, but it is useful to remember that the test administrator is spending mere hours with your child, which is not the same as seeing him day in and day out.

And another note–don’t worry yourself overmuch about whether you should have been scheduling playdates or whatever. Your son is too young to do much beyond parallel play and he’s surely getting enough contact with other kids from daycare. When he’s in elementary school, playdates may be important for development and to foster friendships, but at this age, don’t sweat it.

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With all due respect, you’re incorrect.

The following is just a general example, having nothing to do with the OP’s child: There is a very wide range of behaviors that are considered “normal” for a two-year-old, including hitting, biting, and breaking stuff. Some of what spurs these actions are just curiosity about their world, i.e. “What would happen if I bit this person the same way I bite my lunch?” A normal two-year-old can also begin to learn that these behaviors are unacceptable. If a child seems to be unresponsive to the usual forms of teaching and discipline, including peer pressure, and continues or escalates these behaviors over time, that can be a indication that something might well be amiss.