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Aspergers: "catch-all" diagnosis?

Autistic children are correctly diagnosed:

  • 0-25% of the time

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • 26-50% of the time

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • 51-75% of the time

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • 76-100% of the time

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Don't know/not sure

    Votes: 5 50.0%
  • Other (please specify)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    10

BDBoop

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After reading this article, I wondered what everybody else's perception is on Children Behaving Badly.

What percentage of children diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are correctly diagnosed?
 
I'd put it at somewhere around half, maybe a little less. I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was a kid, and since then, I've lost pretty much all the characteristics. Really, I don't think we should be diagnosing kids with mental diseases at all. They're still developing.
 
I honestly have no idea, but I have learned to NEVER say in a forum full of mom's to aspies that it's possible any child is just behaving badly. No lube was involved in the destruction of my posterior.

/sniffle
 
One of my specialty areas is Asperger's Syndrome. Similar to ADD/ADHD, it is slowly becoming a "garbage can" diagnosis. If a child is showing ANY social "oddities", they get pigeon-holed with this. It's really not as common as one might think with all the talk of it and requires someone trained in being able to diagnose the disorder. There are certain criteria that must be met. Just being "odd" or having social difficulties isn't enough.
 
In my opinion and personal experiance, 9 times outta 10 if a child misbehaves constantly it is because the parents spoiled the crap outta the kids or did not or were too afraid to properly discipline the kids.
 
After reading this article, I wondered what everybody else's perception is on Children Behaving Badly.

What percentage of children diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are correctly diagnosed?

Is there a conflation between badly behaved kids in the US with Autism / Aspergers?

The article seems to discuss badly behaved kids / parents with zero discipline skills taken into adult oriented space rather than the Autism / Asperger's brain spectrum. From the POV of a parent of 3, I find it a constant battle to keep my eldest two behaving however I do have to say I demand the very best from them and I am very very hard on them for poor behaviour. They learned early that if I said "no" to something - I meant it. Punishments were never physical but they had no doubt I was punishing them for something when I had to.

From the POV of dealing with around 6 students in 15 years who had Autism / Aspergers - there was very little similarity between evidence of Asp / Aut and evidence of poor behaviour.

I think there's a general problem with people understanding social niceties of behaviour, consideration of other people and aggressive behaviour but that has little to do with brian malfunction and more to do with our cultures as a whole.
 
From personal experience, I would say that a lot of the kids diagnosed with various forms of autism are just late bloomers and introverts. I would wait until at least post-puberty to make a diagnosis like that, especially since there's not really any treatment you would want to start at a young age.
 
I think it's a catch-all diagnosis. I've seen plenty of people who have been diagnosed with Aspergers who I figure aren't really autistic, they're just jerks. Lots of people use it as an excuse for anti-social behavior, they've been improperly raised and figure they have a "get out of jail free" card by claiming a disease. Not everything is a disease, people. Bad behavior and bad upbringing can't be blamed on biology.
 
It's tricky...if the child does fit the spectrum there are many programs, learning techniques, and social coaching skills that can help them develop to their highest potential. If the child doesn't fit the spectrum is there harm in using those programs anyway?

About a year ago, I stumbled across an article about this girl and it presented a whole new view of autism to me. If this girl is representative in any way of somebody with autism or somebody with symtpoms that fall on the spectrum I see no reason why we shouldn't offer social coaching, learning techniques, and other programs to these children.

Then again, behavioral disorders =/= autism, necessarily, and the same with poor behavior related to a lack of discipline or structure. Autism spectrum symptoms and behavioral disorder symtpoms can sometimes be similar, but there should be marked differences that lean towards one assumed diagnosis or another.

I would also add that socially awkward behavior =/= autism, either. Some people are just socially awkward. Sometimes it's a cultural thing, sometimes it's because of a lack of exposure, sometimes it's because you have crazy ass parents who indoctrinated you with a concept of society that is so far removed from reality that you can't comprehend the world around you.

So background is important. A family history and observations should be done before a diagnosis is made regarding behavioral disorders and autism.
 
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First of all, YES YES YES to this article. Thank you. Someone had to say it.

But anyway.

It is possible Asperger's is becoming a catch-all, in the same way ADD/ADHD was when I was a small child. I was diagnosed as ADHD by a lazy GP when I was 4. My dad took one look at the Ritalin prescription and said, "Speed? You want me to give her speed? **** you." And we left.

15 years later, I finally found out what the real problem was, and it wasn't even a mental disorder: I had sensory defensiveness. Not only did they get the specifics wrong, but they were in completely the wrong category.

No one had bothered to actually run any tests on me. I never even got a proper psych eval. My dad did not believe I had ADHD - the symptoms didn't fit. He was right. I still thank him sometimes for standing up for me.

The thing about young kids is that they can't communicate as well as adults. Acting out is their response to EVERYTHING. You have to try harder if you want to find out what the real problem is.

I also see a clear difference between kids who are just ill-raised, and kids who have problems. I learned not to act out in public by the time I was 3. But I had to start learning to tell people when something was getting past my threshold of what I could visually/auditorily tolerate. Fortunately it's pretty specific things for me, so it wasn't too bad.

I see a similar thing in other kids who have genuine problems. They often really, really want to behave. You can watch their focus shift in and out, between trying really hard to be good, and slipping back in to whatever is bothering them.

Kids who have just been allowed to run loose and believe they're the best thing since slices bread aren't like that. They don't care that they're annoying everyone around them. They know they can get away with it. And a young child doesn't yet have a true sense of empathy - so they don't really understand HOW annoying they are.

Kids are really over-diagnosed and mis-diagnosed these days. Our understanding of child psychology is incredibly weak. If a child isn't developing normally, then help them develop normally and hold off on the labels until they're a bit older and there's a clearer picture of what's going on. A lot of the time it's nothing. Kids just develop at different rates.
 
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After reading this article, I wondered what everybody else's perception is on Children Behaving Badly.

What percentage of children diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are correctly diagnosed?

Well it tends to be applied to anyone with high iq and low social skills, if you take that far enough then it could be applied to 80% of those in a postgraduate bar on the average evening, where do you draw the line?
 
After reading this article, I wondered what everybody else's perception is on Children Behaving Badly.

What percentage of children diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are correctly diagnosed?

I don't know.

Personally, I think when it comes to diagnosing psychiatric disorders in general that our country is pretty bad at it.

Also, I think we should be careful about diagnosing children. It can be pretty easy for a child to have one disorder and then have it be misdiagnosed as something else.

I think we should also be careful about the degree to which a child is suffering a mental illness or a behavior disorder. Some children suffer worse than others.

As I understand it, while Asperger Syndrome is basically high-functioning autism, the behaviors of those who suffer it are very similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder and to sociopathic behavior disorders. Personally, I think kids are very prone to those types of behaviors anyways and so doesn't necessarily mean that they suffer a clinical disorder - sometimes, things really are "just a phase."

Also, the minds of children are constantly developing. I've heard it said that it is not until a person's mid-20's that it stops developing. So I think before then a person's brain is all over the place anyways. So, for a lot of young people, maybe what those behavioral problems are are more just them developing.
 
If this girl is representative in any way of somebody with autism or somebody with symtpoms that fall on the spectrum I see no reason why we shouldn't offer social coaching, learning techniques, and other programs to these children.

Actually, I wouldn't mind it if we provided social coaching, learning techniques, and other programs to all children who may need it - not just those who are clinically diagnosed with some sort of mental or behavioral disorder.
 
Many of the people that have been labelled with ANY of the childhood disorders (or for that matter adults diagnosed with Bipolar, ADHD, even depression) are labelled that way by their parents (or themselves) or by medical doctors. For the MOST part, kids that see a psychiatrist or responsible therapist are properly diagnosed. MOST being a relative term but I would say comfortably somewhere between 51 and 65% are properly diagnosed by cesponsible and trained clinicians...and add in another 10% that are properly diagnosed as per the symptoms displayed (people change...truly autistic folk generally dont).

A lot of it is environmental...but then you have to separate the nature/nurture part again. When I hear "he is just like his father" then that begs the question is he mimicking or displaying learned behavior or is it "who he is."
 
I have a child right now that has been diagnosed with ADHD, Manic Depressive Disorder, and Aspergers. Each diagnosis being by a separate doctor. One being a pediatrician, the next being a psychologist, and the most recent being a pediatric cognitive behavioral therapist (thats a mouthful of a job title).

In the end, I don't know what is wrong with the child. You cannot discipline him because he has forgotten about it a few minutes later (seriously, the boy's short term memory is terrible). And its hard to teach someone a lesson if they can't remember anything about the situation. Yet if you talk about one of his obsessive subjects, he could give you a dissertation. He has been given several IQ tests and they range from 150 to 155. Also, he has the weirdest phobias. He plays in the mud yet he is a germaphobe. If you give him a "don't do that look" he literally is afraid someone is going to attack him (which is especially annoying when we go out to dinner). When he talks, he stutters because he cannot get his thoughts out quickly enough and wants to get them out before he forgets them again. He also has some fairly severe fine motor skills issues. Especially with things like writing or tying his shoes. He also has no sense of time. However, I have played games with him and have gotten him to do fairly complex equations in his head.
 
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I have a child right now that has been diagnosed with ADHD, Manic Depressive Disorder, and Aspergers. Each diagnosis being by a separate doctor. One being a pediatrician, the next being a psychologist, and the most recent being a pediatric cognitive behavioral therapist (thats a mouthful of a job title).

In the end, I don't know what is wrong with the child. You cannot discipline him because he has forgotten about it a few minutes later (seriously, the boy's short term memory is terrible). And its hard to teach someone a lesson if they can't remember anything about the situation. Yet if you talk about one of his obsessive subjects, he could give you a dissertation. He has been given several IQ tests and they range from 150 to 155. Also, he has the weirdest phobias. He plays in the mud yet he is a germaphobe. If you give him a "don't do that look" he literally is afraid someone is going to attack him (which is especially annoying when we go out to dinner). When he talks, he stutters because he cannot get his thoughts out quickly enough and wants to get them out before he forgets them again. He also has some fairly severe fine motor skills issues. Especially with things like writing or tying his shoes. He also has no sense of time. However, I have played games with him and have gotten him to do fairly complex equations in his head.

How old is your son?
 
I said 0-25%. There are way more "bad" kids today, and it's discipline. My son was really an odd kid, and I think it was his high IQ. We had to readjust our lives because of his ill-temper. I'd say he did have ADHD, but went untreated. He takes meds for it now. Not sure the Adderall gets rid of being ill-tempered though. We just stayed home a lot. A shame really.
 
One of my specialty areas is Asperger's Syndrome. Similar to ADD/ADHD, it is slowly becoming a "garbage can" diagnosis. If a child is showing ANY social "oddities", they get pigeon-holed with this. It's really not as common as one might think with all the talk of it and requires someone trained in being able to diagnose the disorder. There are certain criteria that must be met. Just being "odd" or having social difficulties isn't enough.

Thank you. I didn't know it was a specialty area, but I knew you'd be able to shine some light on the discussion.

Can you share what you voted? I make my polls visible, but for whatever reason cannot see the results once I've cast my own vote.
 
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How old is your son?

he will be ten next month.

I just went out to lunch with the family and he literally had a panic attack over not getting a toy at McDonalds (full blown, I am going to die). Also, I have spent years under the assumption that he was doing it to get his way, but lately, I am not so sure its the case.
 
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From personal experience, I would say that a lot of the kids diagnosed with various forms of autism are just late bloomers and introverts. I would wait until at least post-puberty to make a diagnosis like that, especially since there's not really any treatment you would want to start at a young age.

sure there is treatment. i think a proper diagnosis is critical, and at a young age.
 
From personal experience, I would say that a lot of the kids diagnosed with various forms of autism are just late bloomers and introverts. I would wait until at least post-puberty to make a diagnosis like that, especially since there's not really any treatment you would want to start at a young age.

In true cases? No way on God's green would the parents survive the wait.
 
In my opinion and personal experiance, 9 times outta 10 if a child misbehaves constantly it is because the parents spoiled the crap outta the kids or did not or were too afraid to properly discipline the kids.

So how did you handle it with your own children?
 
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