Aspies For Freedom

as a parent of an aspie ( now a teen) he has many diagnoses as well as the aspie. the reason i am told is because they need the documentation to allow him to take the medication to control some of his symptoms. he was diagnosed at the age of 3 . he began speech therapy at the age of 4, behavioral therapy at the age of 5 , medication at the age of 6, occupational therapy at the age of 8, behavioral vision therapy at the age of nine and an array of other therapies opened up as he was discharged from one therapy he would move to another. what is interesting is that government insurance (medicaid) covers it and traditional health insurance does not. (as a pa resident there is a proposal for $36,000 coverage per person for diagnosis and treatment of childhood autism disorder. ) I personally believe the american medical association allows the overlapping diagnoses to prevent tragedy from occuring if the patient is discriminated in the event of a diagnosis. which explains why you may have read enough about the different diagnoses to come up with the  diagnosis. My sons neurodevelopmental pediatrician is named Scott Myers. he is an expert in the pharmacological treatments of autistic disorder. he is at geisinger medical center --janet weis childrens hospital he told me one time he saw a "new patient" who was 26 years of age for a consult .

as for the documentary there is a series that was once done for the bbc called 7up, 14 up, 21up  and so on where they evaluated the development and changes of children as they grew but only interviewed the group every seven years to see how they were doing . a person has begun similar study of persons in the united states. I wonder if they should do something like that with a group of aspies...in other words the diagnosed on that particular documentary should be reviewed in seven years to see what changes have occured. I personally have observed changes in my own child just in the past 4 years of significance, with the behavioral therapy. and with every evaluation of course, comes a new opinion on something just  to throw me off as a parent. but sometimes there is a hope that maybe someone was wrong about a diagnosis or that a past treatment should not have been utilized but that has never been the case. but i savor every moment as he grows and watch him develops into a young man trapped in a child's body (his maturity has nothing to do with his iq. )which confuses people...