Expert: Valerie Herskowitz - 1/8/2011

Question
Hi again Valerie,
I recently sent a few questions to you about my son and possible autism symptoms. We had our evaluation today. My son's developmental screening results I will list below. Perceptual/ fine motor-13 month level,Expressive language-11 months,Gross motor-19 months, Social/emotional-18 months,cognition 18 months, receptive language 11 months, feeding-18 months,combined self- care 16 months. The team thought that our next step would be to see a developmental pediatrician to rule out pdd-nos or some sort of spectrum disorder. The team said that he showed a few red flags but also did some really great things also. My son will begin working with the team on his skills while waiting for an appointment with a pediatrician. Well, just wanted to fill you in and thank you again for your past responses. Any input on the screening results would be appreciated! Thanks, Kristin

Answer
Hi Kristin

Well it does seem like he is exhibiting delays. Both Receptive and expressive language are at the 11 month level which is a very significant delay. So speech therapy is well indicated at this point. But the social emotional is on target which is a good sign as is the self care scores.

Let me know how it goes with the developmental pediatrician and my best advice is to stay focused on the therapeutic needs that your son has rather than the label be it autism spectrum disorder or not. He is very young and can make so much progress.

You deserve a lot of credit for taking the initiative to get him tested!

Keep me in the loop