son 5 going through assesments for ADHD and Asbergers

Who is doing the assessment? Is the Child Study Team at school doing an evaluation? They can provide a detailed evaluation with language skills (expressive and receptive), fine motor, gross motor, learning, social and IQ testing. Are you following up with a Neurodevelopmental Pediatrician or a Pediatric Neurologist?

He might be getting into fits because he is delayed in language skills.

While many physicians are looking for an ADHD/autism combination diagnosis, your son might not fit into the autism diagnosis, because he is seeking your attention and affection. A child with autism or Asperger’s would not seek for your attention.

Let us know how the evaluation goes.

Maybe, as much as you love your child, you are like many hard working people today. Working, to feed your son and keep a roof over his head. Maybe, the society we live in is one that grows ever more dependant on short changing our children. Not saying any parent least of all you gets up in the morning and says “Hmmmm I think today i will ignore my child and pretend he can just magicallly take care of himself while i watch soaps and eat bonbons on the nice soft couch!” No that is NOT it at all. But our society, is not the same as it used to be. With the changing demands the longer work hours, the finanvcial crunch and all the other crap i am not even going to get into… Maybe, at 5, being attached to mommy is naturally quite apropriate for a child? I am not a child spychologist though so this is just a speculation. But young children need attention. Not just to run you ragged and to give you more to do. It is how they learn to grow. Through your attention and i am sure you give as much to your child as you are humanly able to. You sound like a good parent doing her best. But there is just so much time in the day and the needs of survival often outweigh sadly the needs of psychological etc nature. Children have less practice coping with such a deficite. They don’t understand. Some maybe less so than others…. Maybe just a thought, finding another adult that he can form a strong bond with for some one on 1 time so he gets all you can give and some from someone else as well to suplement…. Perhaps this would help? I really don’t know though. What i do know, is having a child labled is a dangerous business and it can and frequently does mess up a large portion of their life. It seems prudent at 5 in my opinion which ofcourse is not that of an expert or anyone in the field but rather a child who was labled at about your son’s age with a bunch of stuff, Only to get a degree in archaeology and epigraphy, and back in school for egyptology, i read and write fairly fluently in 5 languages on top of english. On top of that i read and write ancient greek (linear B) as well as ancient egyptian hieroglyphs and the other 2 ancient text forms of ancient egypt. Also i read modern music notation very fluehntly as well as that of the ancient greeks. According to the experts i am dyslexic. I was almost 10 before i could write my first name. People grow up the brain it changes, it matures it grows. I am hardly anyone to give you advice and i wouldn’t presume to tell anyone what to do or what is best for their child, but after all that i have been through down this road especially where ADHD and dyslexia are concerned, i am not above begging you to stop for a while and i am sure you have agonized a loooong time already but please stop and agonize a couple years more if you can find a way and give your child more of a chance than the one i had, then see how you feel at that point and then perhaps, it is apropriate to have elavuations… But this lable it doesn’t just wash off with water when you grow up. It follows you for life no matter how acomplished you become or how skilled you become or how much you overcome. So please… He is 5…. Maybe it isn’t that he is moving too slow, but that society is moving too fast for all of us.

I wish you luck and i am sure as you know your child and i ofcourse do not, that you will make the best choice you humanly can for your child.

You might want to read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene. This gave us some great help when my dd was younger and had to be the focus of attention all the time. We learned it was due to her illness and got some great tips on coping with it. Also some ways to handle the extreme behaviors.

If he does have sensory issues, then a good book for that is The Out-Of-Sync Child. It has lots of great info on dealing with various sensory issues. Things like setting up a visual chart of the days schedule can be really helpful.

If the person coming for in-home help is not working, can you contact the service and request someone else? Maybe someone with more background or training? I would also request that services be provided more often as every couple of months is not often enough to develop any kind of relationship with the child or family.

((Hugs))

[quote=emma]I have a 5 year old boy who has had behaviour and social issues since he was a baby. He is going through assesments at the moment. The more we look into it, the more we are finding out about his issues. Hopefully he will be “officially” diagnosed in a couple of weeks but who no’s. I am finding his behaviour hard to cope with at the moment, he is constantly craving my attention. When i cant give him this attention he starts hitting out. He also hits himself which is a major concern to me. I have someone here to visit every couple of months from the MHT, but he is useless. I really need some help and advice on how to cope. Please someone help me.[/quote]

Hopefully he will be accurately diagnosed. You take him to 5 shrinks and depending how you present him you will get 5 different diagnoses.

OMG! A child craving attention YIKES! That sound abnormal.

You may wan to try showing him some love and reassurance. Kids kinda like that.

Maybe you should give him to parents who can handle him.

WOW, maybe someone coming here for honest help who sounds at their wits end and doesn’t seem to know what else to do could get some measure of compassion and some various opinions on their problem without such a harsh tone from some…. Snipy snipyy though, i agree, attention is what children need at that age still, kids need to learn to to do without and some have a harder time of it than others…

This sounds like a good parent doing all she/he knows to do…There is an old saying you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar… Many in this world including me could do well to remember it.

Thank you Mandi for your support. my son has just been diagnosed with ASD and ADHD. Thank you again

ADHD is totally fictitious. As someone who does not suffer from it who has been politely requesting proof now for over 20 years of exactly whagt and how my brain is different after all is said and done no organic proof of any kind exists for this bogus disorder. I have a dog that fits the qualifications. My current “expert” (who actually is not a moron, which is a miracle since most of them are idiots.) has decided to lable my dog as ADHD and dyslexic as i have now been trying to teach him to read for the last 2 years and still i have no evidence that he is learning. Also he is very hyper and doesn’t pay attention. My expert says i might want to try him on my vivanse…. I was like uhhh no. But anyway, the point is, america has the most bogus non scientific methodology of diagnosing this ADHD ld in the entire world. It does not meet with any scientific credibility what so ever my husband holds a phd from helsinki university in theoretical physics and will sign off to the fact that the scientific method involved in the method collection and diagnosis of this alledged disorder is not the least bit recuitable nor is it scientific in nature. He would also argue before prescribing medication to children with brains still developing it might be prudent to find some standard of proof that is measurable by science rather than allowing the method of subjective opinion qualifying as the sole determiner of a mental defective. I happen to think he is right and have long felt tthe same. These lables, ruine lives. They CAN be used to help people to but we have 24% of children in the usa now diagnosed as LD that is more than 20 times what it is in populations in other parts of the world of roughly the same size as our own. We use 90% of the world’s ritalin and even the UN is making statements about the over medication of american children. Yet the rate of those labled and medicated continues to rise. Even the doctor that named and created the disorder in 1980 says a large number of kids so labled do not actually have it. But as there is really no scientific method or theory or practice involved…. who can say what is what? But what we can prove scientifically is that the brain is still developing up into the mid 20s. There is no organic evidence for such a diagnosis in existence but plenty of trumped up theories being passed off as terrorizing facts, which they are not.

If it were my kid, i would say “You say my kid has ADHD, PROVE IT OR I WILL SUE YOU FOR SLANDER!” But, that is just me. And sorry but the opinion of a couple of people who have read theoretically about something in a book and can trump up alot of garbly gook who offer 0 organic evidence to actually back up their claim in a court of law will lose and wind up on the hook for slander.

I am not saying nothing is wrong evidently something isn’t right but when it comes to ADHD, before turning to the experts and their medicine maybe evaluate instead tthe situation and the child and his nature etc and see how the environment etc can be tweaked to be more efficient before going and finding flaws in the child that will inevitably steal his entire childhood and make hima pariagh in the eyes of society for the rest of his life. Demand physical evidence from these people NOT theory. Tell them to actually put the evidenc in your hand. Not to tell you what such and such at such and such university thinks is the cause of this this week, and how it is allegedly proving true in their dirty studies which have been over turned now multitudes of times in the past 20 years and even according to NIMH, as of yet no organic proof has been presented. Before labling people SHOW ME THE PROOF THAT THEY ARE DIFFERENT! That is my position 0on it. But hey to each their own. Just word to the wise if they suggest medicating be VERY VERY careful and look into all other options and ask additional opinions first because a child’s developing brain is easily ddamaged.

Hi emma~
I’m sorry to hear all you are going through but it’s great you now have some answers that can give you direction on how to best help your child. You sound like a very caring parent that will go the course to help your family as a whole.

Best wishes~

**Mandi,
The proof is in the pudding.

The proof is in the pudding, I am still waiting after 20 years of being used as a lab rat in their hitleresque experiments, to see a bowl of said pudding. IF the proof is in the pudding, i request that they bring out the pudding cuz i am hungry! And if they can’t yet after all these years of torturing children then perhaps it is time to explore avenues of the non organic for the anser and to cut down on their over medicating of children.

Hi Mandi~
The “proof is in the pudding” means, (in a way), that absence of proof is not proof of absence…and science is waaaaaay behind diseases and disorders. That is the reality of today. It’s very bad and everyone hates it.

Looking at other health issues that are also under-researched with no definitive test that are a clinical diagnosis, much like add/adhd but are also very real!…lupus - no difinitive test but the painful life threatening or devastating symptoms are there.
MS/Multiple Sclerosis — same but more so…
ALS — worse and no definitive test/proof.
Alzheimers — same-debilitating and life changing for family as well as patient deteriorates aggressively with no scientific proof of a specific disease processes other than sx.
I could go on and on…
The point is that just because science is lagging waaaaaay behind doesn’t mean it is not real.
We are all medical experiments but some docs’ are doing the best they can with what they have. None are perfect but neither are we.

Best wishes~