Expert: James Michael Roan - 12/8/2005

Question
We live in Arizona.  How accurate are the school systems in diagnosing these disorders?  My 6 year old kindergartener has been diagnosed by the school as PDD with autistic characteristics.  She has an appointment with a developmental pediatrician, but not until Feb. 1, 2006.  Should I go with the school diagnosis at this point, or wait for the dev. ped.?  I want to make sure she is going to get all of the right help.  Additionally, she is currently in a regular kindergarten class (where she has made a lot of progress); the MET team wanted me to move her to another school where they have an autism program.  At this point, I have refused to do so because I feel it will throw her backwards for at least two months. Thanks for any help/advice you can give me.

Answer
Hi Jody;

To answer your first question: It varies, depending on the skill, training, and experience of the team members. I would take the testing and reports to the developmental pediatrician before changing her placement. Make sure your school and/or developmental pediatrician are comfortable/experienced with ruling out a nonbverbal learning disability, which looks very much like PDD-NOS and/or Asperger's Syndrome, but is very different in many respects. If your pediatrician settles on either PDD-NOS or Asperger's Syndrome, I recommend that you DO NOT place her in an autism school. My recommendation, which is supported by other specialists in this area, is to keep her in a general education setting with access to an educational assistant who is trained in the social challenges of children who are on the spectrum.

Additionally, you must demand that her school provide, at the very least, 1-2 hours per week of pragmatic language services to you daughter.

Let me now if I can help further and Merry Christmas!

Kind Regards,
James