When Schools Label Kids As Autistic, Services - and Utter Confusion - Follow
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With no medical diagnosis needed to receive special education services, children in Minnesota can be labeled autistic by school districts alone. With 1 in 81 students getting special services for autism –- more than anywhere else in the country –- could we be over-identifying them?The article goes on to explain that the districts' purpose in labeling children is to ensure that they receive needed services, including early intervention, speech therapy, and so forth. Interestingly, though, there's no explanation of why districts are allowed to place a medical label on a child based on non-medical evaluation.WCCO-TV calculated the rates for all school districts and charter schools in Minnesota using data from the Minnesota Department of Education. We found the largest districts are servicing children at an even higher rate than the state average....
"The educational diagnosis, being much more broad, can include a lot of children who might not fit the medical diagnosis for autistic disorder," said Dr. Stephen Olsen, who works at Park Nicollet's Alexander Clinic which specializes in diagnosing autism.
"The medical person looks at a lot of different medial possibilities, including neurological functioning –- something that the school doesn't," Olsen explained.
In Thomas' Jamboree preschool, 10 out of 30 children are getting extra help. Roughly three times as many students get services for autism in his district than are estimated to have the disorder by the Centers for Disease Control....
St. Paul Schools are above the national average too. One in 107 children is on the spectrum in that district, but the district said a medical diagnosis shouldn't be necessary for getting help....
"We definitely have kids who qualify as having autism spectrum disorder who would not be identified in the doctor's office or even at home," said Cecelia Dodge, special education director for the St. Paul Schools. "Parents see more typical behaviors, because school places different demands on kids."
It seems likely to me that many Minnesota children now receiving "academic" autism labels are not, strictly speaking, autistic - though they may have speech and/or social delays. Such children are very likely to outgrow such delays (perhaps benefitting from appropriate services). Will we then learn that autistic children in Minnesota are being "cured of autism" at amazing rates? If so, will we then learn of theories for these "cures," ranging from climate to water quality?
In a community already coping with confusion relative to causes, diagnoses, treatments, and outcomes, can we really afford to muddy the waters further? While I have no objection to school districts evaluating for and providing services related to specific issues (speech delays, social skills deficits, etc.), it seems absurd for schools to actually label kids with medical conditions.
What's your take on this practice? Does your state allow schools to label children with medical diagnoses? If so, how do feel about it?
Comments
Lisa
Imagine my surprise when I read MN autism rates was 1:81. I live in MN and this segment was about early intervention which will offer services if delays are seen no matter what but an educational diagnosis is not the same as a medical one and they stated most of these children in EI wouldn’t qualify for the criteria of a medical Dx of a spectrum disorder, including this child Thomas. So why does the educational EI label these kids with autism? It’s good kids get that EI, that jump start is very helpful but why add an autism label at all? Why not just developmentally delayed? This state doesn’t use that label, however and maybe they should.
I also disagree with what they said about what PDD-NOS was. It is not in the middle and contains both of each end of the spectrum, it’s a DX when criteria’s from any spectrum DX cant be fully met.
Parents are under the impression the school district did diagnose autism, ours did that to me and about blocked the door when I suggested we were going for that 2nd set of eyes- medical DX. Parent’s are under the impression with that educational label, your child has autism which is not a diagnosis. Without the medical DX, you cant really state your child has autism.
What is the most important factor of this, which goes along with things I often post, is the rates of MN is based on educational services as is most states rates. If half these kids would not qualify for an medical DX, what fraction does that take away from that 1:81? There is no statistic that defines of which children have the educational label along, and which like my child has both, that and a medical DX. There is a total flaw in the recording of national autism rates. Another important fact they didn’t go into is kids with true autism or a label, once in elementary school, watch what happens. Listen to parents and those services. MN’s big focus is EI, but after that the fight begins. This is a great place for when your child is young, but for the long haul it’s just like any other state.
This is how the ADHD diagnosing epidemic started. Autism is best treated with school based interventions but maybe the state should higher real doctors just to do the diagnosing part.
It bothers me that schools apply labels at all. The only thing they should say is that the child is eligible to EI or additional services. In Illinois, my daughter (who was been given the ASD Dx) was labeled as “mentally retarded” by the schoold district, even though they have the doctor’s written diagnosis. Their statement was that my daughter didn’t fit their autism criteria and they were not allowed to label her as “developmentally delayed”. So, I would much rather have my daughter labeled “autistic” than “mentally retarded” (that, by the way, she is not).
Anna
I can understand the frustration with the label. In my state- New Jersey, it can take 9 months just to get an neurodevelopmental pediatrician appointment, especially with one that comes from recommendation. So as far as EI goes, it’s better if the schools err on the side of labelling and provide the services, but a medical diagnosis is generally required for a child to be labelled autistic spectrum by a school when they are school-age. My suggestion is that a neurodevelopmental pediatrician be consulted by the parent( yes, sorry, on your own money or insurance program and it is costly!)if a school or EI labels a child as autistic spectrum. Then check that diagnosis out again at least every 2 years because frequently the diagnosis will change. They may start with PDD-NOS, then Asdpergers, bipolar, etc. There are a lot of different conditions that are hard to determine which one or ones are affectign a child, especially when a child is very young. The children are new to language and some of them are probably a mix of speech delay and social skills delays, or other things like Non-Verbal Learning Disorder. I have seen friends whose kids got the services and by the time the child was school age , the child no longer exhibited enough signs to be classified. Others, like mine are still classified.
The interesting thing however is, is that these labels are in the autism rates nation-wide. Most times at grade school level, many still do not have a medical diagnosis and I know many parents who have never obtained one. Some states regardless if you have a medical DX of autism, they school will still term the IEP Developmentally Delayed until the age of 9.
We do medical evals every 3 years to compare with the school findings- it just cost my insurance $90.00
The importance of a medical diagnosis is that a child often progresses, as my child did and who could most resemble aspergers however due to his severe speech delay and on going speech issues, he could never truly be aspergers. It is just as important not to let a label or diagnosis be a ‘miss’. Just because a child isn’t displaying full blown out symptoms doesn’t mean it’s another DX, it may mean a child can contain themselves in a different environment.
My son who upon site could resemble aspergers howevr upon accurte testing, he has autism.
I also live in MN and was furious when I saw the piece on the local news. It came off as seeing that the schools are using this label just to get more $ for spec ed services. Why would they need to do that, when there is a whole myriad of kids waiting to receive services of every type, not just ASD. I’m so very happy to live in this state where there are teachers who care enough to bring up the topic of asd to us, then waiting on us to finally come to terms on our own with it and proceed with the educational assessment, which they stated time and time again, was NOT a medical diagnosis. It allowed for us to receive great services for our son while sitting on the waiting lists of 3 different services for 6 months before getting a medical diagnosis. By the way, getting a medical diagnosis by a psychologist is $600 just for the office visit, and more for the follow up consults. For people who don’t have insurance to cover what is considered a ‘mental or behavioural’ issue, that would be cost prohibitive, and they wouldn’t be able to participate in the early intervention that is so critical for our kids. As with all things, you should always get multiple opinions on things, but it certainly isn’t a bad thing to have more people in our schools aware of ASD and the signs, and discuss with parents the possibility and open the doors for the evaluation. FYI - to most people my son seemed like a normal kid, just a bit delayed with speech. If the teacher hadn’t mentioned anything to us, we wouldn’t have been aware of some of the other glaring signs that as parents we so often don’t want to see in our perfect angels.
PS - thanks for this great discussion board. I appreciate all the topics you bring to our attention.
I live in MN and my daughter is currently in Early Childhood Special Education through the school district for ASD. She was labeled/diagnosed by the school district in Feb. of 2007 and we are still working on a medical diagnosis. I just tried to make an appointment to see a developmental pediatrician we saw last year and had to schedule it 4 months out. From what I can tell, we have few specialists in the area (Twin Cities) compaired to other cities and it is very difficult to get your child medical help. I feel as though my daughter will be one that “grows out” of the label, but as a parent I don’t feel that is a reason not to get her as much help as possible. It is so frustrating to go though the maze as a parent. When I saw my Devel. Ped. he didn’t run a single test on her (except a Fragile X blood test), played with her for 15 minutes and said “yep, it’s autism.” That is not a medical diagnosis and it sure didn’t help her any! I have found speech therapists and occupational therapists and teachers are the goldmine of information. By why are the doctors not giving parents more direction?
The district’s are lying about something. I have never found a school district that did anything unless forced when it comes to autism. In ID Medicaid pays for Lovaas type services in the schools and pay or SLP and OT and PT. The schools who collect Medicaid can make alot. Not manyh states like Idaho have Medicaid spending for Lovaas services, compared to our nieghbor Washington, they basically leave the kids in the cold. Another writer thought the school was using the ability to show cures later on, probably so. I would however take advantage as much as one could, but please keep us informed on the true reason.
Actually, the Twin Cities area has many specialties in the private sector, in St. Paul/ MPLS and surrounding suburbs. An actually medical diagnosis consists of a report pages long- I now have 3 private diagnosis and they all are at least 8 pages. Maybe the Dev. Peds did not have the experience to diagnose. Hard to say, but they certainly didn’t look into each criteria to know the deficits in each area and a private is suppose to do that. The first doctor we seen refused to make any DX without first having tests, Fragile X was one but so was a whole chromosome test, they tested for cystic fibrosis too (not sure what that had to do with ruling out autism) an MRI and EEG and all this was standard. Probably why some don’t require it is due to insurances wont always cover these tests due to them being very expensive. Our private insurance had no issue covering any of the tests.
As for the Label, I suppose each school district is different and ours certainly did not say it was only a label but that aside, why not label them DD? The kids would still get the same services and the issue is the states which allow the educational departments to label a medical disorder which in turn ups those autism rates to make them quite inaccurate. Early Intervention does not require a child to have a diagnosis either, they will provide intervention regardless based on their own finding via that Label. I also got the worst information from those in Early Intervention. They did not agree with private therapies, and once we started EI would not work with the privates either. I did have to fight for things to be in the IEP, and closer to grade school age it even got worse than it already was.
The best place of any state to gain info about doctors, the private sector is County Children’s Developmental Delay Social Workers and the Autism Society. They both have listings and resources.
Plano, TX ISD is one mong them who labels kids without medical diagnosis. This is really not helping the kid. If we consider any disability like ADD/ADHD, AUTISM, Dyslexia etc etc the basic symptoms are the same. without medical diagnosis if the educational board is going to label your kids without proper medical diagnosis, the kids will not get the right help at the right age. Many kids like mine are affected much because of such assessments. A SHY child who has speech delay or a child with no social skills due no peer interaction could easily be mistaken for KIDS ith APD. So the kid may be put along with kids with behaviour issues, so these kids could easily be affected by seeing the behaviour of the other kids. So many kids growth and personality could be easily affected. So the educational Institute should stop labelling the kids without the word from the MEDICAL Doctors. Please consider.
PISD - Plano, TX school district is one among them who labels kids without medical diagnosis. This is really not helping the kid. If we consider any disability like ADD/ADHD, AUTISM etc etc the basic symptoms are the same. without medical diagnosis if the educational board is going to label your kids without proper medical diagnosis, the kids will not get the right help at the right age. Many kids like mine are affected much because of such assessments. A SHY child who has speech delay or a child with no social skills due to, no peer interaction could easily be mistaken as KIDS in the Autism Spectrum. Also the kids may be put along with kids with behaviour issues in the PPCD program rather with the peer rolemodels which could be of great help to these kids, but that doesn’t happen in kids as said, so these kids could easily be affected by seeing the behaviour of the other kids. So many kids growth and personality could be easily affected. So the educational Institute should STOP labelling the kids without the word from the MEDICAL Doctors. Please consider.
I feel compelled to comment on this as we have had a very frustrating and opposite experience in the Mpls school district. Our son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS at age 3 by a highly respected medical professional. At age 5, the school district stated they didn’t observe any marks of autism spectrumd disorder in our son. As a result and against the advice of the medical professionals, we agreed to put our son in an EBD classroom….big mistake. Needless to say, we are no longer in the school district and he currently receives ASD support with great results. The best move we ever made!
I live in Hutchinson, MN. One of my good friends 11 year old son had been diagnosed with Asphbergers. I have been reading all the articals here. In this school district they seem to just dismiss his educational needs. They do not stimulat him. They want to “argue” over what the teacher wants, what the school counsler wants” Never on what her son needs to thrive. She has resorted to home schooling this year. The school called her today to ask why he was not in school? She advised him that he was in home schooling due to the lack of consern they have for him and the bullying that goes on. They said there has never been bullying at this school. My own kids say thats a lie. She needs help for her and her son. I have searched online but have yet to find a school in Minnesota that can help him. He is currenly reading college level health, math and doing the work. In this school dist. he is labled as 6th grade. They refuse to move him up to a mbetter grade level , he needs to be challenged not passed over. His IQ when tested a few years ago was 5 points away from genius. Does anyone know any one that can help my friend and her son? Please email me.
Why can’t people act more than slightly intelligent without it being called “Asperger’s”? Gifted introverts are going to make a few flubs at least when young and are going to sound grown-up for their age. Can’t you see how an extremely intelligent young person would be bored with the activities and conversations of his or her age group? Now people with a high level of intelligence are going to think they’re socially inferior, especially if they’ve made dumb moves. We don’t expect people of average intelligence to socialize like people with mental retardation, so why expect people bordering on being geniuses to socialize like people of average intelligence? Of course these gifted people are going to encounter rudeness. There are jealous people and people who just don’t understand. Unfortunately, these days adults don’t understand either and many gifted people are played off as having a social disability.
Let’s not be negative and tell students they’re deficient in some subjective thing.
Who cares what the rates are? We are looking for INDIVIDUAL needs. If for some reason the rates are higher we don’t need to punish anyone? The author wants to take the issue into the woods. We don’t need to match the rates to the national average. IF you do - you hurt the kids. The kids need IEP? Great, school provides it. They have good schools. Dare you call it “labeling”. I would like to see your child not getting services because of someone does not want to “label” him or her.