Cuddlepie

I would quit CAMHs and find the best private paediatrician you can - especially one who specialises in ASD. I live in Australia and the systems sound very similar, ie we have CAMHs etc here. But an ASD diagnosis is quite an intense process with three specialists who see the child separately and all three have to agree. I would contact an autism association in your area for advice. Also, read Paranoid Parenting by Frank Furedi. It will totally put your mind at peace PLUS give you your power back again. You will know more than CAMHs after reading this book

Parenting courses for ASD? Don't they understand that conventional methods do NOT work for ASD, and this is well known. CAMHs desperately needs autism training. And our ASD kids need autism interventions, not "parenting". Sheesh! Like us, you will probably be best to learn a therapy yourself and do it with your son. We're doing RDI with ours (Relationship Development Intervention). It's expensive, but if you get their DVD and books you can do some yourself. Scerts is another similar one. Good luck!

I have taken my case to the Chief Psychiatrist and I am pursuing from CAMHs an apology, the case-notes to have all the false and defamatory information erased, better ASD education for CAMHs, and an investigation into their overly-liberal "attachment disorder". So far all I have received is an apology from the psychiatrist for if she "said anything that upset me" . Not what she did and didn't do. Interestingly, in the "apology" letter she expressed a disagreement of the ASD diagnosis (even though it was the full ADOs assessment with the speech therapist, diagnositician and paediatrician over two weeks of intense testing, and pretty much irrefutable), BUT the same letter was copied and put into my son's case notes with that paragraph missing .... possibly because she wants to cover up her initial diagnostic error. I pointed this out to the CP. So we're waiting on his investigation now.

Exactly, Coolblue. And this is really scary. When I was psychoanalysed by the two therapists at CAMHs, both firing questions at me at the same time, I realised that if I had not had a secure and happy childhood, with no divorces or traumas, my son would never have received the correct diagnosis, and he would not be thriving as he is today because of autism interventions. Instead, I would not only have to deal with my son's extreme behaviours on a daily basis, but also the trauma of having to go through psychotherapy on a weekly basis. When the therapists couldn't find anything in my past, they started looking for more "subtle" pathologies, ie like; when they asked me how my father was to me, I said he always treated me like a princess, they said: "what about when you didn't feel like being a princess?" I replied: "I was always a princess ... I still am!" LOL. They also repeated the question: "give us 4 words that describe your mother" about 4 times over. They were trying to get me to say that my mother was neglectful or didn't love me. But my parents DID love me! They couldn't believe it. Meanwhile, while all this Freudian rubbish was going on, my son was suffering, hiding under desks at school, biting people etc. You can read the full story on my blog. As time went on I realised that they were almost trying to get me to confess to a crime I didn't commit, and that as my anxiety levels increased from their increasingly intimidating tactics to "break me", I could well have confessed to something I never did. Scary thought. That is an excellent point! Also, Frank Furedi in his brilliant book Paranoid Parenting goes into the reasons why parents are blamed for everything http://www.amazon.com/Paranoid-Parenting-I...2282&sr=8-1

According to the official DSM IV criteria for RAD, the child must not have ASD. The American Psychiatric Association calls for great care to be taken when diagnosing RAD, to rule out ASD. One of reasons you can't have both is because the same area of the brain is affected either from a neurlogical disorder before or soon after birth, OR extreme social deprivation. In this post http://radfad.blogspot.com/2008/12/closer-...er-part_23.html on my blog, I argue that RAD is only possible these two ways. With PND or even abuse, the typical child still experiences intersubjectivity with yourself and with others, even if it's not perfect. See also the www.quackwatch.org link about attachment disorder, and the fake criteria that a lot of professionals have been conned by. There is a lot more info, and arguments why AD cannot occur so readily as some believe, on my blog here; http://radfad.blogspot.com I welcome any challenges to anything I have written.

Hi Stressedmumto2, Thanks for telling me your story. You can't win with these people; no matter what you do, they will turn it into some pathology, even if you just love your child; they will say you're "over loving" or some other ridiculous thing. It's terrible what is happening, and we have to do something to stop it, but we need numbers. If this was happening in America, there'd be a war! Please join my group, even if you just lurk. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/momsforempowerment/?yguid=2842

I know exactly how you felt! It is the most confusing, shaming, frustrating and belittling thing they can do to a mother. Like you, I had struggled and done everything in my power to help my son, yet was getting nowhere. The "attachment disorder" diagnosis was like adding insult upon injury. I know .... isn't it disgusting? Sounds like a 'witch' trial. The irony about us was that I had suspected autism in my son from an early age, so I spent hours upon hours with him, showing him how to play with dolls, and having him resist me saying; "dolls don't talk". I also spent hours teaching him about facial expressions and emotions. I was his speech therapist and his OT as well as his mother! So when we finally got sent to CAMHs they saw he could play with dolls imaginatively and could recognise emotions, so they still had all the other social impairments, so they diagnosed Attachment Disorder, saying that I wasn't emotional enough, probably because they couldn't find anything else. When in fact, my hard work had simply made their job harder to diagnose my son, as was confirmed by a proper autism diagnostician! What irony. I'm glad you didn't get it written in his file, but it is bad enough to be put up for judgement like that. That's a possibility. I've put an entire post on my blog about why therapists are diagnosing AD rather than ASD that you might be intersted in. I've listed 10 reasons. The CAMHs I went to were all avid Freudians and Attachment Theory fans - in fact it had all the makings of a cult.

I'm a mental health nurse, and that is exactly what I have found as well! I love the kids, but the people who work in those sections of mental health have no sense of humour and the atmosphere is always very serious and tense, as well as extremely cliquey.

My dh and I saw that movie and we didn't really relate to it, because the boy's symptoms in the movie are more to do with an intellectual disability than autism. Plus Charlie (the boy with autism) even references his family members' faces for meaning, which is not like autism at all. Although the movie is enjoyable to watch, I don't think parents of kids with HFA or aspergers will find anything they can relate to, except the public's reactions to the boy.

Hi everyone, I'm new here and I am wanting to know how common it is becoming for ASD children to be misdiagnosed with Attachment Disorder, and the mother blamed. My son is 8 and has HFA. Before we got the diaganois a year ago, my son and I were sent to CAMHs by his school. I thought there was something wrong from an early age, but was mostly dismissed by professionals. My son was diagnosed with RAD by CAMHs without my consent, even though we have never neglected or abused our son and he is our biological child. I was actually suspected of having a form of MSBP. They said he was like this because I "wasn't emotional enough" and therefore didn't honor his emotions. I couldn't relate to it, yet I was so devastated I cannot express how much this hurt: to see my son flapping and spinning and screaming, and thinking: "that's all my fault?". None of the attachment things I did made any difference, and we had even practised "attachment parenting" since he was born (ie long term bf'ing, family bed etc). So I was at a loss of what to do, and refused the psychotherapy they tried to coax me to do (and thank God I did!) A year later, some specialists came to observe our son at school and insisted he needed a proper autism assessment. He was dx'd with autism after having the full asssessment. I'm happy to say that now he is thriving from the autism interventions. There is no way he has RAD: and he tells us he loves us at least once a day. He is a happy, secure child. I have started a blog about this, plus a more detailed version of my story; http://radfad.blogspot.com/ which I intend adding to in the coming weeks as I have amassed a huge amount of very interesting information over the past 2 years. Being blamed like this really hurts, even after the vindication of the diagnosis. Since then I have been trying to find others who went through similar experiences, because I want to start a counter-movement against the increasingly prolific use of Attachment Disorder. When you analyse it, Attachment Disorder is just an attempt to reignite the Refrigerator Mother. And autism used to be an Attachment Disorder. The only difference between RAD and Aspergers syndrome is neglect and/or abuse, and now therapists are even discarding the abuse/neglect and going for more "subtle" pathologies in the mother. This extremely dangerous for both the child and the mother. I have started a yahoo group to serve as both a meeting point and support group for parents who were misdiagnosed with RAD or its variations, yet their child really had autism, here; http://groups.yahoo.com/group/momsforempowerment/?yguid=2842 06133 Anyone interested in being part of this group is most welcome. Here is the blurb; We are searching for anyone whose child was wrongly diagnosed with the latest fad diagnosis: "Attachment Disorder", when they were later found to have a developmental, genetic or neurological condition, ie autism, aspergers, PDD, or other. We are against the liberal use of Attachment Disorder and want to increase awareness about it. We question the hysteria and hype around Attachment Disorder and its tendency to pathologize motherhood, or, in the case of adoption, the child. We promote the empowerment of mothers, rather than the blame and disorientation that these fad diagnoses bring.