I have a few questions about Pervasive Developmental Disorders and the
role of the school system in identifying and diagnosing children with
them.
To give you some background information, I have a ten year old son.
He seemed pretty normal up until he was about 4 years old. When he
was about 4 we noticed that his communication skills weren't as well
developed as other kids his age. We had no health insurance and he
didn't attend pre-school. When he started kindergarden, his teacher
couldn't figure out how to teach him. She even thought at first that
he was deaf. The school didn't get around to testing him until the
end of the school year and when they did, they said he had a learning
disability in reading and math and he should be in special ed. When I
asked about his speech, they said it was fine and not to worry about
it. When we eventually got insurance, I asked his doctor about what
was wrong with him and she said he had a motor coordination problem
and was shocked that the school wasn't doing anything about it and
referred him to physical and occupational therapy. To make a long
story short, every year it has gone on like this. The school makes no
progress teaching him even though he tests average on intellegence
tests and when I take him to a doctor and ask to figure out what's
wrong, they say the school is responsible.
Finally in fourth grade, his teacher recommended that we ask his
doctor to test him for ADD,so we did and she diagnosed him with ADD
and prescribed medication. The medication worked minimally but at
least his teacher was finally able to teach him to read. When he
started fifth grade (this year) his teacher said that the medication
is no longer working and asked if he'd ever been evaluated by a
neurologist and was shocked when I said he hadn't (I had asked his
doctor to refer him to a neurologist before and she said there was no
need to.) I talked to his doctor again and she referred him to a
psychiatrist.
Well, the psychiatrist talked to him for about an hour and said that
he obviously didn't have ADD and that he had a pervasive developmental
disorder (though he still needs to be more thoroughly evaluated to
find out which disorder he has.) Again, she was shocked that the
school hadn't done anything. She referred him to the San Diego
Regional Center for Developmental Disabilities and when I called to
make an appointment, they too were shocked that the school hadn't done
anything and said it was the schools responsibility but they would go
ahead and test him anyway (he hasn't had his appointment yet.)
Now, my questions are these:
Who's responsibility is it (in the state of california) to identify
and diagnose kids with pervasive developmental disabilities (autism,
asperger's syndrome, etc) the child's doctor or the school? (because
the school says it's the doctor's responsibility and the doctors say
it's the school's responsibility.)
Does there exist a website where I can get my questions answered by
experts?
In simple terms, what are the main differences between
high-functioning autism, asperger's syndrome and ADD? |
Request for Question Clarification by
kevinmd-ga
on
05 Dec 2002 18:56 PST
Hello techgoddess,
I am not a pediatrician or a psychiatrist, but I can answer the third
part of your question (i.e. the differences between ADD, asperger's
syndrome, and autism). However, I will leave the question open in
case other Researchers can answer your first question (the issue of
responsibility). Perhaps having 2 seperate questions - one dealing
with the legal aspect and one dealing with the medical aspect - would
help.
If the medical information alone can satisfy this question, I will be
happy to research it for you.
Thanks,
Kevin, M.D.
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