Skip to main content
Close Button
Donate
  • Replies 2 replies
  • Subscribers 80 subscribers
  • Views 665 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Criteria Not met?

NAS76317
over 2 years ago

Hi all,

I am a mother of 2 boys. My youngest was diagnosed last year ASD Level 2 and a mild cognitive impairment. My eldest is 8 and I've suspected since he was 1.5yrs that he may also be autistic.

Background: delayed speech and language, had no interest in peekaboo, pattycake games etc. No interest in waving bye. He smiled as a baby and laughed. But as a toddler and child he doesn't very often at all. He has no social reciprocity with us, people he knows let alone strangers. If we leave school for example, and we pass a friend of his who said goodbye, he walks past and doesn't say anything back or wave.

We had an ASD assessment through our local universitys psychology clinic. It was conducted by a Provisional Psychologist and overseen by her supervisor.

His SRS questionnaire showed "severe" traits. ADI-R met cut offs for all domains. And he scored a 12 on his ADOS (cut off score being 10). However, the 12 was only in

Scores:

  1. Language and Communication (reporting of events, conversation, use of gestures) = 0
  2. Reciprocal Social Interaction = 12 (this section included items such as having unusual eye contact, lack of facial expressions directed to examiner, amount of shared enjoyment in interaction, and amount of reciprocal social communication)
  3. Stereotyped Behaviours and Restricted Interests = 0


"You will see scores of 0 above, however as mentioned this is based on the AODS-2 algorithm and does not mean he didn’t score any points in these areas overall."

They said that because he was able to show some gestures in a follow up play based session with the psych and her supervisor after the ADOS assessment - such as thumbs up, showed how big his dogs were with his hands etc and when the supervisor mentioned what her favourite food was and then asked him what his favourite food was. After a period of time, he eventually asked the psychologist what her favourite food was. They felt he didn't meet all of the criterias and therefore was not diagnosed with ASD.

I don't know how to feel about this, as I disagree as this does not come naturally at all for him asking questions and he may have felt some form of pressure to ask. Is it worth getting a second opinion?

  • over 2 years ago in reply to Catlover

    Yes, according to the fact that he could do this. He did not meet the criteria of A2. 

    1. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.

    Despite their report saying he had little to no eye contact and limited facial expressions. 

    Further go on to say that he did not meet the criteria of A3 because he has had 2 friends since kindy and understands toy sword fighting, lol. Even my diagnosed child knows toy sword fighting. I really feel like they were using the most minor excuses to negate everything else. He may have friends but he also only plays with them if it's something that interests him. For example, we had his cousin over yesterday and as soon as his cousin wanted to play something else, my son would go lock himself in another room playing what he wanted to play.

    I'm glad your daughter eventually got a diagnosis. It's hard when they don't meet a lot of the stereotyped criteria!

  • over 2 years ago

    He showed them how big the dog was? Isn’t that normal for an 8 year old? Goodness me!

    I’m not medically trained, and I’m not saying that this non diagnosis isn’t correct. But I am a mother of a child with Autism, ADD and Dyspraxia. I knew she was different from a young age. I didn’t realise it was Autism until she was around 10.

    You have another child on the spectrum, and your gut says this child does have it too. I’d ask for a second opinion. I know how it feels to hear this. They are professionals and you trust them.

    I was told my daughter wasn’t autistic. Some of the reasons were, she shrugged her shoulders, had an imagination, and smiled. She was 15! Of course she could smile and shrug her shoulders! She could also mask from junior school upwards!