Our New Chapter: Diagnosis

Both of Aiden’s past Autism diagnoses came from 2 school districts in 2 different states. There isn’t really a shred of doubt in our minds (and hearts) that he truly has ASD. The only question was, where in the spectrum does he fall into?

So why haven’t we sought the formal diagnosis after all these years? I guess you could say, we may have been somewhat ignorant in this matter. It never really occurred to us that there was a difference in what we already had versus what we haven’t gotten. We didn’t realize until last week that in order for us to get insurance approval for Aiden to get Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Behavior Therapy services outside of the school setting – he needed to have an Autism diagnosis from a Developmental Pediatrician or a Pediatric Neurologist.

Aiden has been homeschooled for the past 3 years and we have just been incorporating the intervention methods that we have researched on into his IEP. Every time we’d learn something new that could work for him, we would incorporate it into our parenting style. It has been a lot of trials and errors but we’ve gotten a few tricks right. We also thought that what we were doing was way better and way more effective than a 25-30 min session with a therapist 1x/2x per week. After all – at home and with us, Aiden is comfortable, safe, learning and thriving.

As he hits double digit in age next week – the reality of him coming into his teens thereafter, and then inevitably his adulthood had us pondering a lot lately. Are we really the only ones he need? Can we really give him every tool there is out there to survive? I mean, what will happen to him if something happens to us?

Today, we set our own insecurities, arrogance, ignorance, and pride aside. For the love of our first born and a brighter future for him, we met with a Pediatric Neurologist.

Aiden has Autism in the mild(to moderate) spectrum.

• Encephalopathy- G93.40
• Autism- F84.0 mild
• Neurologic disorder- G98.8
• Neurological complaint – R29.90
• Transient alteration of awareness- R40.4
• Social communication disorder – F80.89
• Developmental Concern – R62.50
• Fluency disorder associated with underlying disease – R47.82

We haven’t grasped what all the technical assessment and scores mean yet but, we are committed to learning all there is to learn in order to help Aiden.

And so, a new chapter begins for our family.