This blog post can be found at Can Mom Be Calm

http://canmombecalm.blogspot.com/2009/08/aba-vs-adhd.html

I remember the day I had a psychologist come to my house to evaluate Spencer. At the time, he was about 20 months old and wasn’t getting much out of speech therapy because he was too distracted to follow any directions. His speech therapist had an ABA therapist come to observe Spencer and the therapist said that ABA would benefit him.

Everyone thought he would have a hard time getting the ABA therapy because kids without an autism or PDD diagnosis do not usually get it here in New York. However, the psychologist that came to my house that day to test him, asked me a series of questions and within an hour she told me that Spencer had PDD-NOS, shut her laptop computer, and walked out of my apartment. I felt like I was hit by an truck. Doesn’t she know that you just can’t talk to people like that?

I went to the bathroom and wept.

And then I was angry – angry because he “got a diagnosis” and angry because that psychologist gave me the diagnosis like she was telling me I had a sinus infection. I hate when people are like that because I have to waste my time getting pissed off at them before I could refocus on the more important issue.

PDD-NOS? My Spencer? I couldn’t believe it but then I was re-educated by my social worker who told me that a diagnosis of PDD-NOS at Spencer’s age was very plausible. This is because a child with ADHD at age three can be diagnosed with PDD-NOS at that time since you can not diagnose a 3-year-old with ADHD.

This is why I always call Spencer and Logan the ADHD brothers because I have a feeling that Spencer will eventually end up with the same ADHD combined-type diagnosis as Logan. I suppose I can also easily call them the PDD brothers because at this point, I am certain that if Logan was evaluated at age 20 months then he would have gotten the same PDD diagnosis.

After swallowing the sadness, I talked to my good friend Sue, another special needs mom. She told me that despite whether or not the diagnosis was correct, I should be glad that Spencer got the diagnosis because it was going to be so much easier to get him ABA therapy from the city. I guess special needs moms always think in terms of what kind of battle they’ll have to have once they set their mind on something they need for their child.

I had great hopes for ABA therapy and I was right to dream big because soon after he started ABA therapy, Spencer’s vocabulary of five words seemed to jump to fifty within a blink of an eye. I know I’m exaggerating but really everyone was amazed at his progress.

TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST DESCRIBING ABA THERAPY, PLEASE GO TO http://canmombecalm.blogspot.com/2009/08/aba-vs-adhd.html