Expert: Celtica - 10/14/2010

Question
My son recently underwent a brief course of therapy and was informally diagnosed with Asperger's. I don't believe the therapist shared this information with him, only with me, and as a full battery of tests, developmental info, etc was not the focus of our time, it's possible that the "correct" diagnosis "should" be HF Autism or some cocktail of differences and disabilities. Therefore, my first question is whether it's important to get a thorough evaluation resulting in a more definitive label. My feeling is that a list like this: http://www.ascendgroup.org/about_cc.html feels pretty accurate and is enough to be going on with, since I have no desire to FIX my son, just to understand and equip him. Others have encouraged me to get a more specific diagnosis, which I suspect would be just the beginning of a long and exhausting process of therapies, school adaptations and litigations, and interventions all sending the message that he's broken and needs repair. My second question is how to share this diagnosis with my son. I'd like to convey to him that he's part of a club of successful, happy, contributing people that have worked very hard to figure out how to live in a world that is not really set up for their convenience, and that he can therefore be comfortable with whatever discomfort he feels and use his considerable intellect to figure out how to work around it. Thirdly, I would like to know at what age you realized you were autistic, how you figured it out, and whether you would have liked that process to have been handled differently. Thanks so much and sorry if this is too rambling...

Answer
Hi,

sorry for not repsonding sooner.I didn't recieve a notification that I have questions pending.

This question is difficult to answer. Generally speaking it's always better to have a more precise diagnosis. Even if he recieves a diagnosis you're neither obliged to reveal it to his teachers nor does he have to have therapy or anything if he doesn't want to. However it's always good to know if "it" has a concrete name, both for the person with autism, as well as for their family. Even if he doens't need accomodations now, he may need them later, or might whish to seek therapy.
If I were you, I'd just wait for a quiet moment, get a book about autism/Asperger's you yourself enjoyed reading (I highly recommend anything by Tony Attwood, he has a very positive attitude about AS, or print out things from the internet), even if it's for adults, and talk to him about it, give him the book to read and see how he takes it. If he's anything like me, he will be really relieved to know why he's the way he is.
I have know for all my life I was "different" from everyone else and had huge problems (I was thought to be gifted, and "gifted people sometimes have "such" difficulties and are excentric/odd, and was told stories about Einstein who hadn't even spoken until he was 5 years old (not that I'm anywhere near as intelligent as that) - autism, especially the milder forms of autism were not widely known when I was younger) it didn't have a name until I was 19, and I wish I had known it earlier, because school and puberty had been the hardest time for me, really and an early diagnosis would have spared me much frustration and suffering (and probably also lots of bullying if my classmates had been informed about it).

Hope this helps,
C.