pulling at staws so to speak

Also take a look at Sensory Integration Dysfunction. Some of the things you have described may be due to problems with motor planning and tactile defensiveness. If you have a few moments, drive over to a Barnes & Nobles or Borders, and take a look at the book “The Out-of-Sync Child.”

Best of luck to you in getting a diagnosis and the appropriate education for your daughter!

No, you can’t become autistic at age 10. Did the evaluator do an adaptive living scale? Try thinking of your daughter as someone with the skills of a younger child, but frustrated because peers have age appropriate skills; the average 10yr.old is very idependent, does household chores, shops with money, plays team sports, plays at friends’ homes, etc.; if your daughter can’t do these types of things, she may well be frustrated. Try to wait for the eval. results, bring a friend to hear them(or tape the meeting), so you can make sure to really hear the information.

It sounds as if a MR curriculum would really benefit your child. It seems highly unlikely that she is autistic because this is rather old to begin this diagnosis. You didn’t mention any academic performance other than the fact that she no longer qualified for LD. This means the IQ testing on the re-evaluation determined a lower score, which by theory should not have changed that drastically. Good luck

it’s highly unlikely the school has been unaware of it. I think it might be possible for a child who was homeschooled to be overlooked that long, but not one within the special ed system.

One of the above posters made a lot of sense. There has to be a specific gap between her performance and her IQ to qualify as LD. If she no longer qualifies, either her performance has gone up or her IQ down. Sounds like the latter, but by how much? If we’re talking a serious decline as opposed to her being borderline in the past and now dropping a few points, Id certainly consult a medical doctor as well. There are degenerative genetic syndromes that should be excluded. Just my opinion-but I’d play it safe and consult a MD.

Sure sounds like sensory integration dysfunction to me. Public school does not address this issue. Private OT can make a world of difference. What kind of IQ are you looking at?

Going from LD to MR may not mean that your child has failed but that the school has failed to educate your child. As for autism, in my experience, schools don’t even want to admit children with autistic DX are autistic. If you never had a private evaluation done when she was young, autism may very well have been… “not observed.” Language disorder, sensory intergration disorder, ADD, OCD, ODD… I see children with multiple lables like these who are obviously on the autistic spectrum but don’t have an autistic DX. Autism doesn’t rule out mental retardation though. 70% of autistic children are said to have mental retardation as well. Basically, every variation of the strength and weakness of the human brain is possible. To label every one of them would be impossible so we try to lump a bunch of symptoms together in an attempt to better understand human behavior.

Mel Levine calls people lumpers or splitters.

Some people try to lump a group of kids together others try to look at each child as an individual to try to understand their true strengths and weaknesses.

He is a splitter and so am I.
Even with that I understand that some kids really do fit well into one category.

Mine does not.

The diagnosis of mental retardation is based on IQ(less than 70), dev. history and adaptive behavior; it is not a matter of opinion or individual preference in grouping children. It may result from any number of condidtions or the cause maybe unknown, so an independent evaluation of the student is a good idea.

Have you had her checked to see if she has elevated metals>

Does she have any sort of digestive issues (chronic loose bm, extremely limited diet, like nothing but mac n cheese, pasta or cold cereal)

Does she have absense seizures?