The Verdict is In

      If you aren't a regular reader, I'll fill you in quickly on what's been going on developmentally with Xander. In the last 6 months or so, we have seen a real increase in both positive and negative behaviors. He is starting to talk and ask for things (with prompting) more than ever before, which is a huge win! He's always slowly taking on activities others want to do without so much of a fight and devoting more time to things like reading a book or doing a puzzle.

     He has however had some negative new things arise. With better vocalization has come this God awful scream he uses whenever he's too happy/sad/excited/annoyed etc to express himself. He's always taken to repeating himself or others like a broken tape recorder. Without the tv, his visual stims have increased and have caused more than one public display. All of these and more were things we discussed with his developmental pediatrician and BSC, who both felt he was showing more signs towards Autism over PDD-Nos now that he was getting older. As far as his DP was concerned she had already labeled him with Autism in her paperwork but his formal diagnosis could only be changed by his psychologist.

     The benefit to a change in diagnosis would be the options for preschool specialized classes would be greater. We could check out the autism class AND the developmentally delayed classes and make the best choice for Xander rather than have no choice in the matter other than going the private class route.

    Earlier this month, we had the visit with the psychologist and with the help of our BSC we covered all the bases, detailing all the changes in the last few months. We talked a bit about the changes happening this month with the new version of the DSM-V and how that might affect Xander but he informed us that their company as of right now was going to stick to the old test criteria until farther notice. He was surprised to hear that the woman for the intermediate unit told us that with his PDD-Nos diagnosis Xander couldn't get into the autism class, he advised us to fight like hell if that seemed like the right class for him, but made a point to say that it might be a moot point after he was done going over the results of the interview.

    Two very long weeks later, the eval write up showed up in the mail. And it seems it is going to be a moot point because he has been changed to autistic disorder (PDD).

    Now please don't read this and assume that all we care about is getting a label and go off on me about how that shouldn't even matter to us, we are horrible for obsessing over a label, we are limiting him by even talking about it etc. (yeah that's happened before!) 

    We only care from an educational/funding/services point of view, plain and simple. We don't see him any different now than we did when he was born and love him more everyday with or without diagnoses and labels. If anything this has made us even more proud of our son; his determination, strength and brilliance amazes us daily! We have accepted and embraced the challenges we, as a family, will face in our future and this is simple a stepping stone to a more accurate way to help him get to his full potential. And we see no limit in sight for the amazing things he can achieve!

For more info on the differences between PDD-Nos, Autism and Asperger's, 

click the"Learn About ASD" Tab under the header and explore those sites!