My difficult child's first appointment with neuropsychologist

SunnyNC

New Member
Okay...FINALLY we had our first appointment with neuropsychologist for my 9 year old difficult child son. If you recall, he is the child that had the major meltdown a while back with my neighbor which resulted in us having an all out "you WILL help us or we will find someone who will" appointment with the pediatrician. They were concerned that he might have ODD or possiby mild autism and sent us to neurologist and to what I THOUGHT was a psychologist, who turned out to be nothing more than a physician's assistant (PA) who, without testing wanted to diagnose him with ADD and medicate him. Sooooo...fast forward to yesterday...

The appointment went well actually! :smile: She asked my son a lot of the same questions the PA asked him, but she also asked him many more questions that I could tell she was looking for very specific responses from him. Does he feel sad, no. Does he ever want to hurt himself, no. She did ask him about hearing things that no one else does...he said yes, then explained that he could hear a buzzing noise from the dishwasher that no one else could and that it hurt his ears. (I did know about this) She asked him if he ever has thoughts about something that prevent him from thinking about or doing anything else. He said yes. Cars...which I knew. Everything about cars, he is VERY MUCH into haha and has been since he was a toddler. She asked him what about cars he thinks about all the time. He said, drawing them. She asked him if there was anything else he thinks about all the time. He said Counting. (this was new to me) She asked him what types of things he likes to count...he said of course..cars! He then tells her, he has about 77 cars and went on to describe a few of them.

She asks him to wait in the hall and draw a picture of his family and then after that he could draw whatever he wanted while she spoke with me. She asks me some background questions about his behavior, his "obsessions", his sensitivities (touch, sound, etc), and eye contact (or lack there of). We are set up for testing for Autism and other behavioral disorders, but for right now, she is *thinking* that he is showing less aspects of Autism, and more toward an Inflexibility with more of an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) component. She said she definitely feels that with the testing, she will be able to answer a lot of our questions. I certainly hope so.

She sent me home with a packet of papers to fill out about my son, and a packet for his teacher to fill out. My son, after the appointment was angry with me (and continued to be for the remainder of the day) because he felt that the appointment wasn't for him...but was for me, since he spent most of the time in the hallway. He says that maybe I should just go to "his" appointments from now on. Ugh!

Have a great day!!
Rachel
 

Fran

Former desparate mom
<span style='font-size: 11pt'>The more information you get the better armed you are to help your child. Sounds like a credible neuropsychologist.</span>
 
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