does anyone else find this????

[claire33]

Hi All

 

My k had an assesment in january (cognitive) and i just got the results from camhs.

What they have said is that he is well below average when it comes to learning, and they would say that although he is 7 yrs old he is probably only fonctioning at about 3-4yrs.

They also said that he responds better to visual cues than verbal as he has limited understanding of verbal which i already knew, however he does have really good rote memory.

However nothing else at the moment.

I was just wondering if it is possible for a child with learning difficulties like this to be on asd aswell?????

[Deedee]

Hi Claire yup my M was very like K at that age and when assessed they said he was very much a visual learner.He is firmly on the spectrum but it is weird you know he presents different 'attributes' under different circumstances if you know what I mean?? On some days he's very autistic,flapping,spinning etc, on others he's totally focussed on things.One specialist thought he was non-verbal,another thought his speech was 'fine'(there's that flippin' word again..),another said he has a profound communication difficulty!!! Our children are all so very different but all so very alike...its still early days in some ways but hopefully his individual bits and pieces will reveal themselves to you as M's have to us and he will get the help he needs.I have visual cues everywhere indoors and they do(when they remember) use them at school.Our diagnosis of ASD took nearly 2 years of watching and assessing as they couldn't be sure at first but when we got it,it actually helped open a few doors for M which although he already had a list of dx they still didnt seem to help until he got ASD added to it???

*Please excuse the rambly posting this evening as the boys are all vying for my attention,even though Dads watching them!!!*

[claire33]

Hi Claire yup my M was very like K at that age and when assessed they said he was very much a visual learner.He is firmly on the spectrum but it is weird you know he presents different 'attributes' under different circumstances if you know what I mean?? On some days he's very autistic,flapping,spinning etc, on others he's totally focussed on things.One specialist thought he was non-verbal,another thought his speech was 'fine'(there's that flippin' word again..),another said he has a profound communication difficulty!!! Our children are all so very different but all so very alike...its still early days in some ways but hopefully his individual bits and pieces will reveal themselves to you as M's have to us and he will get the help he needs.I have visual cues everywhere indoors and they do(when they remember) use them at school.Our diagnosis of ASD took nearly 2 years of watching and assessing as they couldn't be sure at first but when we got it,it actually helped open a few doors for M which although he already had a list of dx they still didnt seem to help until he got ASD added to it???

*Please excuse the rambly posting this evening as the boys are all vying for my attention,even though Dads watching them!!!*

Thanx for that deedee it was just puzzling me a bit as i thought that most kids with asd were usually quite bright, i was so convinced that k is on the spectrum but i see things and reads things sometimes and i think well he doesnt do that maybe hes not?

I know all kids are different and everything but how are you supposed to define what is ans what isnt an autistic trait??

[Deedee]

Hi Clare to get an ASD diagnosis they often do a number of tests and questionairres we had ADOS and DISCO amongst others.They also look for what they call the triad of impairments which is explained far better than I could ever hope to put it (lol )on the NAS website.M was sometimes showing lots of traits and other times it was more subtle so thats why it took a while for us..The spectrum is just so vast its a hard thing to tell sometimes wether they 'fit' the criteria or not.

The other problem we face as parents is the difference in attitudes of the professionals,some will acknowledge ASD straight away, others take years,some prefer to list other names (PDDNOS etc) for what all go together to make up ASD its rather confusing!!

[baddad]

Hi clare -

 

There's a very very damaging public perception that all autistic children have some sort of 'special ability' or are exceptionally 'bright' in some way - basically because most media exposure tends to concentrate on the Savant skills that a very small percentage of autistic people display (I think it's around 2% but don't quote me on it).

The reality is very different, and most people diagnosed on the spectrum have some sort of learning disability too. That doesn't necessarily mean that autism and LD are linked - it could just be that those who are autistic AND LD are more likely to get diagnosed. (There's a great deal of speculation that there are greater numbers at the HF end of the spectrum who don't get diagnosed because the challenges they face are - in professional eyes - less severe or do not comply with the stereotypes of typical autism...)

Personally, I believe that autism impacts on LD in a way that makes the 'LD' more severe the further into the spectrum an individual is, and that - in context - autism is a 'barrier' to the usual learning processes that some individuals are better equipped to navigate than others...

In a nutshell, if you could 'remove' autism the LD would remain, and if you could 'remove' the LD the autism would remain. When both factors are present they have an indirect impact on each other that gets mistaken for a single condition...

As to what is and isn't an autistic 'trait' the only thing you can really say is that there are few absolutes. There are many features which regularly occur, but variations between individuals are huge...

There are some very generalised 'overviews' of autistic traits Here:

 

http://www.autismlondon.org.uk/publications/factsheets.htm

 

That you may find useful

 

L&P

BD

[claire33]

Hi deedee

 

my k does have what they call the triad of impairments but i guess they all have them to a different extent. Although sometimes its hard to understand wether its his adhs or its an asd if you know what i mean.

His little ways have always been there but i have noticed a lot more since hes been on the meds for adhd i suupose thats because hes no longer bouncing off the walls well not all the time anyway.

what is ADOS and DISCO ???????

[claire33]

Thanx baddad

 

You made a good point there is alot of things media wise and other which does dictate that people with autism are in some way exceptionally talented' i think this is what confuses me alot as my k (god bless him) is not intelligent (so ive been told) however his memory is excellent.

Yet as i said his asses showed him to have signifficant learning difficulties and to be functioning at approx 3-4yrs.

Along with other things.

Thanx for the link i will take a look

Edited March 30, 2007 by claire33