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telling your child their diagnosis

simon

Hi -my son is 8 years old and diagnonsed with high functioning autism 18 months ago. He struggles with social situations, making friends and staying calm as well as managing his immense anxiety. He has a part time LSA at school.  

We have so far not told him his diagnosis as we felt it would not really help him and might be detrimental. We talk in terms of him having difficulties others don't and needing support for this reason.  However, we feel that it may be time to tell him he has ASD and then linked to this maybe to be more open about his diagnosiswith others as well. (we wouldn't do this if he doesn't know himself).

However, we don't want him to feel labelled and for this to have a negative effect. Opinion seems to be divided on whether it is a good idea to tell a child this age when they are high functioning asit is perhaps not so obvious to others with these children.  Not sure if this post makes sense...hope it does! Appreciate thoughts.  Thank you.

Parents

  • Hi Hotel California,

    No you are not wrong, that was me.

    We have now commenced with appointments for official diagnosis with the ADOS test but the person who is carrying out the test has known my son for two years and we have been made aware of ASD for the last two years now and and  are all very sure of the diagnosis, it is just not written down on official paper!!

    I did not want by son to go through two or three assessement tests without knowing what they were for Autism Spectrum/ Aspergers.  he is a very clever child and i do not want to lie or cover up the truth, i have also heard all too commonly the child may be told or diagnosis discussed with the child by a unthinking DR without the parents ever having discussed it with them, i did not want to risk that happening so we have covered what "i think" my son has and that is how it was put and left, he was not stressed by it , i am sooooo relieved to say and we are covered if some "twit" mentions it by mistake infront of my son. 

    I am not stupid or uncaring , i have been thinking this over for a long time and by son does not show some traits he has most if not all, with his early years history the diagnosis is certain, it just has to be made official, so it can state it on his Drs notes for the future if needed.

    I know what you are worried about people using the label too easily as an answer for behaviour problems, but we have read and discussed this with experts for two years before we have got to this stage so not just a spur of the moment thing.

    Puffin

Reply

  • Hi Hotel California,

    No you are not wrong, that was me.

    We have now commenced with appointments for official diagnosis with the ADOS test but the person who is carrying out the test has known my son for two years and we have been made aware of ASD for the last two years now and and  are all very sure of the diagnosis, it is just not written down on official paper!!

    I did not want by son to go through two or three assessement tests without knowing what they were for Autism Spectrum/ Aspergers.  he is a very clever child and i do not want to lie or cover up the truth, i have also heard all too commonly the child may be told or diagnosis discussed with the child by a unthinking DR without the parents ever having discussed it with them, i did not want to risk that happening so we have covered what "i think" my son has and that is how it was put and left, he was not stressed by it , i am sooooo relieved to say and we are covered if some "twit" mentions it by mistake infront of my son. 

    I am not stupid or uncaring , i have been thinking this over for a long time and by son does not show some traits he has most if not all, with his early years history the diagnosis is certain, it just has to be made official, so it can state it on his Drs notes for the future if needed.

    I know what you are worried about people using the label too easily as an answer for behaviour problems, but we have read and discussed this with experts for two years before we have got to this stage so not just a spur of the moment thing.

    Puffin

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