Is It Really Asperger's Syndrome?

Exactly one year ago this month, my son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome just by a fluke of luck! Over a seven year span we had tried to get help for our very anxious, frustrated and depressed son who has fine, gross motor and coordination difficulties. When the Occupational Therapist referred us to a developmental pediatrician because she thought he had Developmental Coordination Disorder, he referred us to a psychiatrist who promptly diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome.

What a relief that was......however, having been on the receiving end of other diagnoses, such as "spoiled child", "emotionally labile child", "depressed child" and "a child who has some obscure neurological condition for which there is no treatment" I have accepted the diagnosis with a grain of salt and done a tremendous amount of research to put my doubts to rest.

In fact, on the O.A.S.I.S. website there is an article about Non Verbal Learning Disorders that had me going for awhile, wondering if my son had that condition instead of Asperger's Syndrome. These two conditions are very similar but the key elements missing in NLD are perseveration on topics and focusing on intense areas of interest. Here is the link to that article if you would like to check it out: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/

Shortly after receiving the AS diagnosis, I found the Australian Autism Rating Scale and after rating my son, he definitely fell into the Asperger's Syndrome category, but there were still somethings that didn't quite fit. It wasn't until I found a site last week that I realized that all the symptoms don't have to fit the child, and every child can have a possible combination of symptoms, the three key areas being difficulties with social interaction, verbal and/or non verbal communication, and intense focus on special interests.

This article was actually a speech given by the mother of 4 children with different degrees of Autism. In her speech, Carolyn Baird lists 36 behaviours of a stress free autistic child. As I read through her article and checked off the behaviours of my child, there was no doubt left in my mind that my son has Asperger's Syndrome. Here is the link for that article: http://hunter.apana.org.au/~cas/autism/s... it is well worth reading if you have any doubts at all about the diagnosis your child has received.

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