tessaturtle
New Member
How important is it to get Autism as the Primary Identification on the IEP? difficult child has had an IEP since he was in 1st or second grade, but it was always under EMotional Handicap as the Primary. Specific Learning Disability was added as a secondary in 5th or 6th grade. He is now 16, in a court ordered placement, and still failing in all aspects of his education (social, most academics, etc.). After 11 years of being diagnosed with various things (o.d.d, adhd, Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), conduct disorder, bipolar, anxiety, mood disorder not otherwise specified) and treated for those, primarily bipolar, he underwent a full neuropsychologist, and after a complete and thorough review of his history, an interview, observations, he was diagnosed with Autism. The Psy dr. was astounded and couldn't believe the signs had been missed all along. So this answered a lot of mysteries as to why every sped school he was in, every therapy we tried, and every medication he was on never significantly worked!
After this new and final diagnosis, the IEP team met to determine whether we should change his primary disability to Autism. After a long, round about discussion, where most of the team seemed to agree that he meets the criteria to change to Autism as the identified primary, the school person pushed hard and eventually convinced (or more accurately confused us all) that he didn't fit the first criteria on her sheet. We were able to get her to agree on a primary identification of Other Health Impaired - noting Autism as the impairment and secondaries of the EMotional and Learning Disability (LD). On reflection and after having the time and space to look into it more and understand it more fully, we are wondering if we shouldn't have pushed harder to get Autism as the primary. Our concerns are that he has been misdiagnosed and as a result been put through therapies and education that might not have been able to reach him for his entire life; now that we know differently, he has Autism, there are different approaches that have not been tried with him that are tied to that diagnosis, so we want the Autism front and center to remind people who will be implementing his IEP. Or is it fine that its OHI so long as they try to utilize approaches that have proven successful with Autistic kids. A note: I really get the feeling that not only does the school person not agree that he has autism but I also think that she has a picture in her mind of what an autistic looks like - and its more of a low functioning. She even kept repeating that "well, D has an average IQ and he scored well on his speech language assessment (which was given one on one in a separate room, and judged by someone who's only contact with him was the hour long test she gave him)"!
Any thoughts/advice are greatly appreciated!
After this new and final diagnosis, the IEP team met to determine whether we should change his primary disability to Autism. After a long, round about discussion, where most of the team seemed to agree that he meets the criteria to change to Autism as the identified primary, the school person pushed hard and eventually convinced (or more accurately confused us all) that he didn't fit the first criteria on her sheet. We were able to get her to agree on a primary identification of Other Health Impaired - noting Autism as the impairment and secondaries of the EMotional and Learning Disability (LD). On reflection and after having the time and space to look into it more and understand it more fully, we are wondering if we shouldn't have pushed harder to get Autism as the primary. Our concerns are that he has been misdiagnosed and as a result been put through therapies and education that might not have been able to reach him for his entire life; now that we know differently, he has Autism, there are different approaches that have not been tried with him that are tied to that diagnosis, so we want the Autism front and center to remind people who will be implementing his IEP. Or is it fine that its OHI so long as they try to utilize approaches that have proven successful with Autistic kids. A note: I really get the feeling that not only does the school person not agree that he has autism but I also think that she has a picture in her mind of what an autistic looks like - and its more of a low functioning. She even kept repeating that "well, D has an average IQ and he scored well on his speech language assessment (which was given one on one in a separate room, and judged by someone who's only contact with him was the hour long test she gave him)"!
Any thoughts/advice are greatly appreciated!