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General Parenting
Does anyone ever wonder if the professionals REALLY know what is wrong with our kids?
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<blockquote data-quote="BusynMember" data-source="post: 530263" data-attributes="member: 1550"><p>When Lucas was four, and we had only had him for two years, we took him to a psychologist (he was not yet legally adopted yet and we were forced to see this particularly "professional."). In front of Lucas, who had very good receptive language skills, he said, "Well, since he was born with drugs in his system, his MOTHER (not birthmother) obviously drank a lot and he must have some Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)/Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE) (I am paraphrasing). There is NOTHING we can do about THESE kids! There is no point in coming back, but you may want to reconsider adopting him."</p><p></p><p>Yep, that's what he said.</p><p></p><p>Lucas does NOT have fetal alcohol syndrome or effects. He has none of the symptoms. Lucas also understood the man and was bawling, which didn't stop him from blathering. I whisked my baby out of the office and didn't take Lucas back for an evaluation for a LONG time, until he was legally adopted and WE could pick who he saw. </p><p></p><p>In spite of making sure we took him to top flight places with great reputations, they all had differing opinions. And when I brought up autism, they all said "Absolutely not." But Tom and I knew he did have it. So we worked on getting him interventions for his various delays...speech, low muscle tone, sensory issues, social skills. That was enough for us. He was getting a lot of intensive help in school without his diagnosis because he was so obviously in need of it. The progress he made in every are with all the help was mindboggling and heartening, but we had to keep pushing them to not discontinue his interventioins because improvement didn't mean he no longer needed the help to keep improving. We managed to win each round. It wasn't easy.</p><p></p><p>Years later, we took Lucas to a neuropsychologist (still my favorites) and this one was from Mayo Clinic. You don't get much "better" than Mayo Clinic. After testing my son for ten hours and reading his entire history and also reading all of the forms we both filled out on him, he said, "To the best of my ability, I diagnose this child with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified, a form of autism. But I want to be clear with you that no diagnosis is etched in stone. There are no blood tests. Any professional, even the best, can be wrong. MAYO CLINIC MAKES MISTAKES ALL THE TIME!" I really appreciated this man. He was bright, concerned, worked overtime on our child, and was something most diagnosticians are not...honest. There IS no way to be sure any diagnostician is right, unless it is a medical issue that can be tested for. And most of our children don't have issues like that. And I'm sure professionals ARE wrong all the time. </p><p></p><p>It so happened that this diagnostician seems to have diagnosed Lucas right and he has rapidly improved since being allowed to get continued autism-specific interventions. However, the diagnosticians before him were dead wrong, especially the jerk who said he should maybe not be adopted and other stubborn jerk who insisted on bipolar and gave our boy tons of medications. </p><p></p><p>After all Lucas has gone through, Tom and I were right as soon as we saw him rocking back and forth and making no eye contact and screaming during transitions. I had just finished reading a book about an autistic boy and this child had all the symptoms. Yet we were shouted down time after time. </p><p></p><p>Mom (and Dad) gut is powerful. We live with our children. It is a pity that so many of our children are denied school and community interventions (which are plentiful in the US, if you push to get them) just because some professional thinks they know more about your child than you do. I can't wait for the day when there are brain scans (no, I don't trust Dr. Amen) or blood tests to definitively locate the problems our differently wired children have so that they can get help in every country in the world...the right help.</p><p></p><p>I am very alarmed at how quickly doctors throw stimulants at three year olds who happen to be more active than other children. I agree with doctors from other countries that at least wait until age six or seven to prescribe them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BusynMember, post: 530263, member: 1550"] When Lucas was four, and we had only had him for two years, we took him to a psychologist (he was not yet legally adopted yet and we were forced to see this particularly "professional."). In front of Lucas, who had very good receptive language skills, he said, "Well, since he was born with drugs in his system, his MOTHER (not birthmother) obviously drank a lot and he must have some Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)/Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE) (I am paraphrasing). There is NOTHING we can do about THESE kids! There is no point in coming back, but you may want to reconsider adopting him." Yep, that's what he said. Lucas does NOT have fetal alcohol syndrome or effects. He has none of the symptoms. Lucas also understood the man and was bawling, which didn't stop him from blathering. I whisked my baby out of the office and didn't take Lucas back for an evaluation for a LONG time, until he was legally adopted and WE could pick who he saw. In spite of making sure we took him to top flight places with great reputations, they all had differing opinions. And when I brought up autism, they all said "Absolutely not." But Tom and I knew he did have it. So we worked on getting him interventions for his various delays...speech, low muscle tone, sensory issues, social skills. That was enough for us. He was getting a lot of intensive help in school without his diagnosis because he was so obviously in need of it. The progress he made in every are with all the help was mindboggling and heartening, but we had to keep pushing them to not discontinue his interventioins because improvement didn't mean he no longer needed the help to keep improving. We managed to win each round. It wasn't easy. Years later, we took Lucas to a neuropsychologist (still my favorites) and this one was from Mayo Clinic. You don't get much "better" than Mayo Clinic. After testing my son for ten hours and reading his entire history and also reading all of the forms we both filled out on him, he said, "To the best of my ability, I diagnose this child with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified, a form of autism. But I want to be clear with you that no diagnosis is etched in stone. There are no blood tests. Any professional, even the best, can be wrong. MAYO CLINIC MAKES MISTAKES ALL THE TIME!" I really appreciated this man. He was bright, concerned, worked overtime on our child, and was something most diagnosticians are not...honest. There IS no way to be sure any diagnostician is right, unless it is a medical issue that can be tested for. And most of our children don't have issues like that. And I'm sure professionals ARE wrong all the time. It so happened that this diagnostician seems to have diagnosed Lucas right and he has rapidly improved since being allowed to get continued autism-specific interventions. However, the diagnosticians before him were dead wrong, especially the jerk who said he should maybe not be adopted and other stubborn jerk who insisted on bipolar and gave our boy tons of medications. After all Lucas has gone through, Tom and I were right as soon as we saw him rocking back and forth and making no eye contact and screaming during transitions. I had just finished reading a book about an autistic boy and this child had all the symptoms. Yet we were shouted down time after time. Mom (and Dad) gut is powerful. We live with our children. It is a pity that so many of our children are denied school and community interventions (which are plentiful in the US, if you push to get them) just because some professional thinks they know more about your child than you do. I can't wait for the day when there are brain scans (no, I don't trust Dr. Amen) or blood tests to definitively locate the problems our differently wired children have so that they can get help in every country in the world...the right help. I am very alarmed at how quickly doctors throw stimulants at three year olds who happen to be more active than other children. I agree with doctors from other countries that at least wait until age six or seven to prescribe them. [/QUOTE]
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