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Neuropsych eval?

MirandaHobbesMirandaHobbes member
in Special Needs

We had our discharge conference with DS's private ST/OT/Social Skills classroom team. One point they stressed is that they believe DS should be reevaluated because they think his diagnosis may have changed. They thought his diagnosis (2.5 years ago when he was barely 3 yo) by a developmental pedi is "outdated" and doesn't reflect his current challenges. I would agree- they stressed that DS should see a neuropsych who specializes in ASD for an eval. We discussed that DS still has some anxiety that is inhibiting progression in some areas. For example, if told to write his name on a piece of paper, he'll pussy-foot around and waste time for 10 minutes, and then when the class is moving on to the next project he'll see that he's the only one who hasn't written his name and he'll melt down crying because he's lagging behind the class. He won't be able to pull himself out of the crying until he has completed the task at hand- which is obviously hard because he's so busy being distraught about being behind. Other things he cries easily about include game playing. He was playing Hi Ho Cheerio with some kids and kept crying whenever he was behind.

I'm excited to be able to find help to solve these anxiety problems- its obviously something he needs to overcome to be successful in school. I am wholly unfamilier with this whole genre though- help me out, what is it that they will do to help DS? Will he meet with a psychologist weekly to discuss things? How does the eval generally work? His anxieties are always small things- never big things. For example, today he cheerfully boarded a bus with 100 squalling unfamilier kids for his first day of camp. That didn't phase him a bit. But if we had been running  late for the bus, he would have been really anxious and probably cried about it.

TIA!

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Re: Neuropsych eval?

  • MirandaHobbesMirandaHobbes member
    -auntie- said:
    MirandaHobbes said:


    Anxiety drive the bus for most higher functioning kids on spectrum. It certainly does at my house. It can be really hard to anticipate what will trigger anxiety because DS doesn't process the world around him in the same way I do. So sometimes I find her really struggles with something I would have expected him to be OK with and sometimes he blows me away with how resilient he can be in other scenarios. Like tonight, I took him out to pick up a pizza and the sweet high school aged girl at the counter tried to strike up a conversation about his iconic "Hot Dog Johnnies" tee. He was like a rat trapped in a corner. We talked about how this exchange was just the usual pleasant connection between peers and then practiced what he might say next time.

    That is interesting- I've been coaching DS with what to say to peers on the bus to camp. He's smart- I always tell him to start with Ipad apps and games but he always reminds me not everyone has an Ipad, and he gets thrown off if they start talking Android speak. I told him to try to think of things the other person might want to talk about (which is probably the least intuitive thing I could say to him) and he quickly retorted- how am I supposed to know what they're thinking?? It really is hard to explain these social mores. 

    My guess, based on DS, is that a big piece of the upset is that he has a scenario in his mind and that when things don't work out as he would like or he had expected (with a little immature fantasy boy thinking) that he can't deal. Helping him learn to "be OK" .

    Yup, spot on. The fantasy boy thinking is at a fever pitch. Every morning in the car we have long discussions where DS will report all sorts of things that aren't true: It's going to rain today, I think it'll be a tornado!! Me: nope, blue skies, no rain today. Him: Well, it's gonna rain tomorrow Mom! It is! It is alienating other kids because he's constantly saying he's older than the other kids and has a hard time making the distinction between two kids both being 5, for example. The crying only occurs when he's tired- hence my other thread about the sluggishness. Literally he'll only have the real meltdowns in the afternoon/early evening. In the morning he can usually pull himself out of it.


    Thanks again for the advice- on my way to research some psych options. I got a list from his private team to consider.
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