[senco-forum] ASD diagnostic checklist URL

Hi Brendan,

I was neither poking fun or trivialising autism. I do take exception  
slightly that you feel linking these characteristics to APD is trivialising  them, 
but when they apply to autism they are not trivial.

APD is no less serious or awful than autism and each of these  
characteristics can apply to APD too. All I'm saying is how easy it is to  misdiagnose such 
conditions as I know for a fact that this has happened. How can  testing be 
truly exhausitive when APD is so little known yet in the UK and  children have, 
and still do,  slip through the net..like Graeme's son? I  don't doubt that 
autism exists, I didnl;t say that every child diagnosed with  autism had APD. 
But although people in general accept that autism exists, many  do still doubt 
that APD exists.

My point was  exactly that these characteristics  are not all displayed by 
normally  developing children, children with APD are not normally developing 
children  either and each difficulty can have far-reaching effects both 
educationally  and socially. And they are by no means an exhaustive list of what 
affects those  with APD either, just like autism. 

People DO blindly accept  criteria like this often without questioning them - 
I feel they should be  questioned. If those that diagnose such conditions 
were aware of APD wouldn't it  be better to send these children for 
(scientifically based) APD testing before  labelling them autistic to remove any doubt? If 
they are then found not to have  APD no harm has been done but to live your 
life labelled as one thing and  never knowing it is wrong is, to me, a crime. 

There is a  member of the OldAPDs list (in the US where APD has been 
recognised for many  years but still does not get funding under DSM-IV criteria) who 
was consigned to  a psychiatric hospital for several years and later found to 
have APD -  no  psychosis at all. She is a highly gifted visual spatial learner 
whose crime was  that because if her APD she just did not conform to the 
norm. Parents in  the US often accept a DSM-IV classification of any sort, 
especially  autism-despite whether it applies or not, when their child has just APD, 
simply  to be able to get services. Is it so wrong for me not to want that to  
happen here?

Step back and consider it from another side, please.

I respect you and your  experiences greatly- you should know that, and I 
thought you knew me better that  that too. I would never trivialise SEN of any 
sort. It isn't a contest of whose  condition is the most important... but 
children with SEN seem to lose all the  time because of what has been described on 
this forum lately as "absolute  certainties"... many professionals do not ever 
look outside their own safety  zone, their area of expertise, criteria that fit 
the box they have learned to  recognise and many children do not fit into 
those neat little boxes and have  co-morbid conditions and overlapping 
charactieristics whixch make diagnosis  difficult and often need more than one 
diagnosis,  and so many perents  give up after struggling to get one, if they are lucky 
enough to even get that  far. I have rarely come across anyone who has only 
APD... in fact at the  moment I can't recall anyone.

Having just any diagnosis is no better than not having  a diagnosis, when the 
diagnosis made is not accurate or complete. We need  to avoid that at all 
costs.

Best wishes,
Aly

Chair Auditory  Processing Disorder in the UK/APDUK

www.lacewingmultimedia.com/APD.htm 
www.apduk.org