How to find help??

[justour2boys]

I'm a newbie, but have been lurking for some time. Reading many of your posts have helped me realize I need to seek more help for my oldest difficult child, and hope this will in turn help me. Everything is a fight!

My "Mother" powers of diagnosis suspect Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), ODD and dsylexia (sp?). He has had educational testing in the past and we have ruled out ADHD but he does have a diagnosis of Auditory Processing Disorders (APD) (auditory processing disorder). He has a 504 plan and is just hanging on at grade level... but I know there is more.

So here is my question... I know I need to start with a neuropsychologist evaluation, but how do I go about finding the right dr?

I have tried our local childrens hospital and they don't do them anymore ?!? And my difficult child's pediatrician is no help... doesn't give recommendations.

Where do I turn??? Local psychiatric hospital? Any professional organizations? Yellow Pages? Web?

What should I be looking for... what questions should I be asking?

And direction you can offer would be helpful!

thanks

 

[AnnieO]

If your local children's hospital doesn't have a neuropsychologist, I'd find the next largest one up the chain. However we had to dig a bit - best thing is to call the hospital and ask for psychiatry and then ask THEM about it. So the local one might, it's a question of who you get on the phone!

That said, our closest kids' hospital doesn't have a decent psychiatric dept so we went to the next big city. And they're great.

 

[compassion]

I had my difficult child evaluated by someone with 30 years experience. He did it one hour at a time. I got referral from her psychiatrist.
I had her on the list at the local university teaching hospital for neurupsych exam:it took about over 3 months just to get an appointment. She ended up never showing up.
If you have a center for autism and related disabilities, they should be able to give you support and referrals.
i would go with someone with lots an lots of exerience with educatidnal testing/learning disabilities,etc., a psychologist. A big city should have a number of options as should an university town.
I have gotten a lot of support from attendng Nami meetings.
We are done testing for now. Even though I highly suspect she is on the autsim spectrum, I am burned out with assessments this past year.
We have gone though psycriatric assessments (two), neurosych testing, plus hearing, speech and two hospitlizations (one for 9 days and one for 3.5 months).
We are exhausted in many ways.
I found out today that she has been accepted at a small school for high risk girls (out patient). She will start in about a month. There is one teaher for 10 girls and 4 counselors for the 30 girls. This will put her in a structrued environment for 6 hours a day.
Take care of yourself! Compassion

 

[totoro]

Our psychiatrist recommended ours but she was also listed under CHADD's website. CHADD has a great network of resources, sometimes better than most.
Even if you don't suspect ADHD it can't hurt to cruise CHADD's website.
Our Teaching Hospital is great but I personally found after using their psychiatric and Neuro-psychiatric dept that our private Nuero-Psychologist and private psychiatrist was much better.

Some places the Hospital is better or vice versa.