My Kid: Autie or Not

It's been five years since sweet M. was first evaluated for her significant speech and language delays and her difficult behavior.

She's eight now, and has had nearly a dozen diagnoses, some from the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition), and others that are less formal.

The less formal ones—the ones that her speech and occupational therapists have provided— include:

• central auditory processing disorder
• language processing disorder
• sensory integration disorder

Her school psychologist said she has:

• Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism

But since M. has a significant language impairment, she doesn't actually fit the DSM profile for Asperger's. Most Asperger's folks—Aspies as they've begun calling themselves—have good language skills, but have difficulties with social information and inflection.

The ones from the DSM—the ones that her physicians and psychiatrists have given her:

• pervasive development disorder, not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)
• mixed expressive-receptive language disorder
  
• generalized anxiety disorder
• obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  
• attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its cousin
• attention-deficit disorder, without hyperactivity, and, my personal favorite
• oppositional defiance disorder, also known as ODD.

And she is odd. I am, too. We're all odd. We're an odd family.

And it's an odd world in which a little girl would have a Dx for every candle on her birthday cake, and then some.

This blog will tell the story of our life with sweet M.—and the medical, psychiatric, therapeutic, educational, and legal worlds that have shaped our life with her.