Yes, my reasons are described above. Also, just because it looks like ADHD doesn't mean that it is, or that there are no comorbid conditions. I wanted to know exactly what my son had. Also, little did I know, this report turned out to be the key to getting my son what he needs. Without it, I strongly suspect the school would just let my son sink.
No Tellin - What about the Neuropsychologist? I asked the behavioral counselor about this because of things I've read on here and he seemed hesitant saying they're for developmental problems (meaning not really ADHD is how I took it), but then when we discussed ds social skills/problems, he said aspergers syndrome was a neurological developmental disorder (which I don't think he's quite at that level, but he has many characteristics of AS). Did you have to have a good "reason" to make an appointment with a neuropsych?
zjmom, we use a chart with stars. This is primarily for his school work. He has a hard time doing work carefully and reading all the directions to make sure he follows them. His grades were suffering because he would only do one of three things in the directions and get only one-third the credit. We use the star chart to reward him for bringing home thoroughly completed work. We've been working on coaching him on how to pause when he thinks he's done and go back to the beginning and re-read the instructions and make sure he did everything asked. It's taken about 6 weeks, but I think he finally does it automatically.
Fortunely, our son's a pretty compliant kid at home. Although he's disorganized and messy, he cleans up when we tell him to. He gets 50 cents every day that he picks up his toys before bed time (we make a mark on the calendar and pay him on Saturday). This has been a big motivator because he loves Star Wars action figures and likes to save up to buy them.
I've read the marble system thread and have been tempted to try it even though our son is pretty good at following instructions at home. We also have a three-and-a-half year old who would love to do it with him. I think this system would work on any child, not just one with ADHD. In fact, I could probably use the marble system on myself and my husband! Of course, since our son was diagnosed about two weeks ago I've taken a fresh look at our own disorganized, chaotic lives and begun to wonder if we both are ADD as well!
No Tellin, I agree that if we are going to have to battle the school for services, our first step will need to be a complete evaluation. But, do we still need one if our son is presently doing well academically and socially and we don't plan on pursuing accomodations or an EIP at this time?
NP VISITS ARE NOT A WASTE i AGREE. OUR SON STARTED WITH ECI AT 15 MONTHS. HIS BEHAVIOR HAS ALWAYS PUZZLED ME. DAD'S/miL ALSO DOES PUZZLE ME ALSO. MAIN FOCUS FOR THESE 2 IS MAKEING MONEY FOR A FAMILY BUISNESS. The family buisness gives no yearly raizes,terrible med. ins,No great employee benefits. The only iep negative thing I don't like is no real goals to come out of their LD which can happen with the correct educational intervention programs. You can still have a low iq and be gifted. True so if you have asd even. You can have SE pay for the NP ours is. We start the process this month. Adhd under ohi only if is hindering education.jzmom, I think you are right. We should trust our guts. If I thought my son was going to continue struggling academically or emotionally in school despite medication and some of the behavoir mod. techniques we're using at home, I'd get a neuropsych evaluation to help me make the school give him whatever else he needs. But, so far, it looks like what we're doing now make him pretty much a "normal" kid. So, I feel no pressing need to trigger the legal apparatus with the school and gather my own arsenal of experts.
Also, I really trust our son's teacher. She's been teaching for over 20 years, has won just about every teaching award there is, has her own ADHD son (now an adult) and genuinely cares about our son and sees herself as part of a team trying to make him the best student and kid he can be. There are other administrators at the school I'm not as fond of, but I trust our teacher.
It sounds like you may need to be a little more proactive than I'm being, particularly if the school is minimizing the issues (both aspergers/ADHD/behavior issues and giftedness) your son is facing. If I was in your shoes, I'd be martialing my own experts and meeting with whoever I needed to meet with to get that legal apparatus rolling. Good luck to you!!
I agree with you ivanhoe on the low IQ and can still be gifted. The sad part is, standard testing (at least in my area) only qualifies students for the gifted program by their test scores when other children could benefit from the program in their area of "expertise".
(Sorry to go off subject a little).
Loracle - I am have many of the same feelings/issues you have right now only my son does have behavior issues in school.
DS is also very bright and while having all these problems in school, I requested an IEP thinking he may be bored and got discouraging results - but, don't go with the teacher, start with the school counselor or pinciple. We also have and ESU unit I was told to call. The response I got from the school was "We know he's smart so an IQ test isn't necessary" - sorry, but I'm not taking that.
Through his behavioral counselor we've decided to check with the school counselor to get a BP (behavioral plan) and if that doesn't work since we haven't had an IEP, the behavioral counselor says we should be able to get him qualified with ADHD as "other" under the IEP requirements / SE.
I'm still learning alot and if there's one thing I've learned, you must fight for your child and go with your gut instinct. We have recently discovered my child may also have aspargers syndrome which puts me in another unchartered territory, but that's a whole other topic .
Best of luck to you, we all do the best we can and this board helps me keep my sanity some days.
Loracle - must have been typing at the same time.
From what you say about your ds's teacher, she sounds wonderful and you definitely need to be comfortable who you're talking with. Having a child herself with adhd is a great benefit!
About being more proactive - I'm kind of at the "wait and see" stage. He's been on the Daytrana patch for 2 weeks now - going well, Clonidine in the evening for sleep - a.m. going better, teachers say he's doing well.
He is in the gifted program here - one morning a week, not thrilled with the makeup work he has to do because I thought he only had to make up tests, but he loves the class. I am waiting for the school counselor to call me back to set up a meeting for a BP with the behavioral counselor, myself and the school (this is mainly issues with him getting up and ready to school on time in the morning - can be quite a nightmare, but now thinking some of this stems from aspergers).
The aspergers was just "kicked around" yesterday with a meeting with the behavioral counselor. DS is officially diagnosed ADHD/ODD, and I was upset with his idea that ds had anti-social tendencies so I've done lots of researching on the web and brought the subject up yesterday. I agree with a lot of what he said, but previously he hadn't got into enough explanation for me to "get" what he was meaning until I read about it myself. We both feel aspergers is a strong possibility, but at this time, I'm hesitant to have him officially diagnosed. I feel what's another label on my kid if we've at least pinpointed the problem area, now we can work on it. I have not brought this up to the school yet, but will speak to the school counselor. I have a feeling they won't be much help as far as ideas, but they are very willing to work with myself and the behavioral counselor. I will definitely proceed further if the steps we're planning are not enough for my son.
I am curious, what behavior techniques do you use at home? We've just started the marble system about 2 weeks ago and it's going OK, but sometimes he really cares less about rewards or punishment.
Aspergers is a type of autism. If so children in the spectrum are aloud a aid. THAT AID TRAVELS WITH THE CHILD ALL SCHOOL DAY. DANIEL LOVES REWARDS. PUNISHMENTS i FIND LOTS OF KIDS CARELESS ABOUT. WE BOTH DID AS A KID. WE DO 3 TIMES AND X HAPPENS. THIS WORKS BEST FOR US. Kids can be cruel and my son stands out enough as it is with his behavior and the trouble he gets in at school, I'm not sure an aid with him all day at school would benefit. He's not having a lot of trouble academically at this time. Do they help them interact with peers/and social skills?
Sorry, I didn't go through the posts above, so maybe this has been said.
I went to a child psychiatrist and discontinued the eval. He wanted to dx ADHD based on two 50 minute sessions of "chatting." He was not going to provide a substantial report. Also, child psychiatrists don't appear to know how to play the game. You need report that makes you a player in the game. And this is a game.
Here's why I recommend a neuro-psyche. You get a list of recommendations for classroom accommodations. You get a very thorough eval with test results to show the school. You have a legal basis to stand your ground (key). You've got a detailed report on file produced by someone who BY FAR out ranks a school psychologist. Things may be friendly now, but the dark side may emerge at any time. A good neuro-psyche report (that INCLUDES classroom observation) may be the difference between the school providing major services to keep your child in mainstream education VS your child being placed in an alternate setting. You need a neuro-psyche eval to protect the best interests of your child.
I am completely befuddled.
My 8-year-old son was diagnosed with ADHD by a pediatric psychiatrist about two weeks ago. We went to him because he was highly recommended by our pediatrician. He is a national expert on ADHD and bipolar in children, has all the best credentials, is supposed to be brilliant, etc.
We were totally unimpressed with him at our appointment, which didn't last longer than an hour altogether. He asked our son some questions and then us and then announced that our son has ADHD and wrote a prescription. He had no feedback from the school at all and didn't ask us or the school to complete any rating scales. We were stunned at the speed of the diagnosis (although I actually think it is true).
I've been toying with going for a comprehensive neuropsych evaluation. However, my son had his annual check-up with the pediatrician yesterday, and he said that it would be a complete waste of ,000. His words, "You'll spend ,000 and find out your son doesn't have learning disabilities, is very bright and probably has ADHD, which will bring you right back where you already are." When I complained about how quickly the psychiatrist diagnosed our son and with such little information, our pediatrician assured me that this psychiatrist is so good, one of the very best, that he knows exactly what questions to ask to make a diagnosis and we can be completely confident in his diagnosis.
What's the point of having this diagnositic criteria if we don't actually apply it in making a diagnosis? Is he right that, at this point, a neuropsych evaluation is an unnecesary expense? I like our pediatrician, but I'm amazed that he's saying things that contradict all the established protocols for making a good diagnosis.
So, should we go ahead and spend the ,000? BTW, while we could come up with the money, it's not chump change for us.
Hi Loracle. I had dd tested by a neuropsychologist because her behavior just completely puzzled me. She was also struggling in first grade. I wanted to know what her IQ really was, I wanted to know if she had LD, I wanted to know if she was ASD, and I wanted to know if there was something else going on I hadn't even considered. Keep in mind she had been having early interventions for speech and developmental delays since age 2. So I knew she had other underlying issues.
If you think your son is having other issues in addition to ADHD, then you should have them identified and quantified. It will help in getting the school to give him the help he needs.
Bump -- maybe somebody else has input.....Thank you so much for all the advice!
We don't suspect that our son has any other learning disabilities or disorders, but what do we know, right? Apart from his inability to pay attention and sit still, he seems like a bright, well-adjusted little boy. So, while I could be surprised, I suspect a neuropsych evaluation would confirm that he has no other learning disabilities (although his handwriting IS attrocious!).
My initial queries to the school (very informal) about an EIP, etc. were discouraging. My son's teacher basically told me that, if I asked for a school evaluation, their team would most likely conclude that he doesn't qualify for help because his grades are good. Frankly, he may not need any additional help. The medication is making a difference, although I'm not seeing the night & day transformations I sometimes read about on these message boards. His teacher says he's really focusing on his work now and the work he's bringing home seems to be confirming that observation. He also says he feels the medicine helps him concentrate. So, at this point, I don't think I need a neuropsych evaluation to "do battle" with the school (although I realize this could change if my son's grades start to decline or he starts having behavioral problems in class.)
The only solid reason I see right now for pursuing a neuropsych evaluation would be to assess my son's giftedness. My dad had a very high IQ and my son has shown signs that he may have inherited some of those smarts. While I do think my son has ADHD, I also wonder how much of what his teacher is seeing in class (she's the one who suggested we get an ADHD evaluation) is boredom and also how the combination of ADHD and giftedness might be expressing themselves in him.
jaderock54, great minds think alike! I made an appointment with another child psychiatrist for a second opinion. I explained to him my lack of confidence in the other diagnosis given what I felt was a failure to follow the diagnostic criteria. This new psychiatrist was very understanding and friendly, so I'm feeling better already. I agree with you that, if I didn't get a second opinion, I'd keep secondguessing whether the diagnosis was right.
angel_eyes, I hadn't even thought about the affect all these evaluations and doctors appointments might be having on my son's self esteem. We've been very careful not to make too big a deal about all this with him. I know I found the visit with the first child psychiatrist was very formal and strange. Fortunately, my son is a pretty confident, easy-going kid, so I think that appointment distressed me far more than him! But, this is something to keep in mind as we proceed. Thanks!
i have 2 boys that have ADHD one of which has other problems as well. when my boys were diagnosed the paediatrition suggested that the quickest way was to trial them on the medication, so we did, and yes the medication worked perfectly (they were very young when diagnosed my there were 4, yougest has only just been diagnosed) i didnt keep them on the meds as there were so young, we did it just to find a definate answer. the problems i would consider with what you are thinking about, is that you have already put your son through testing (whether or not you thought it was extensive enough) you have to remember that these kids have a low self esteam. it can do more harm than good if you keep having them look at and evaluated etc.
If you did want to go on with further testing have you thought of something like brain gym or the dore program, both of which can be found on the net. they assess the areas in the children in which the kids need attention, but with the idea of woking on these areas, in order to help overcome his problems, not to be just told that he has problems with this and that. i find its more positive for the kids and they respond better. my sons are starting with brain gym next week, are they are really looking forward to it, but when i take them to other appointments like doctor or psycholigists etc, its a great sorce of fear, frustration, anger and that is if i can get them to comply.
i hope this has help, i know you have just started on this journey, i myself have had 3 yrs of it so far. so good luck and i hope it helps
Angel
I had my 8 yr old tested by a neuropsych and it was the best 00 we ever spent. Now we can look at the report and see exactly what areas he has difficulty, which makes it easier to identify ways to help him. In addition to ADD we found also found out he is dysgraphic (really bad handwriting). I didn't even know that existed before.
Also, the school stopped arguing with us about giving him accomodations and finally admitted to the problem. Previously they had denied that there was anything wrong and said that he was "just a typical average kid".
You were right to think that the psychiatrist you saw was not thorough enough- talking to the child should be only one part of the evaluation process. At the very least I would have him assessed a second time, even if it's not a neuropsych, I know I would constantly second guess the dx if it were me.
Keep us posted about what you decide.