Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Diagnosis

He does not have:
ADD with or without the H
Bipolar Disorder
GAD
Aspergers
clinical depression


The dr claimed he has normal self esteem, which directly conflicts with the psychologist who knows him better. So we'll ignore that and focus for a moment on what he does have,

ODD

Lovely. But unsurprising. The articles I have read assure me that I'll feel better about this if I remember it is a disability and he isn't choosing to be like this.

Suuuuuure. That will help immensely. That and the 5 pm beer.



He also has dyslexia.

What? BUT he is a great reader! How can that be?

I'll tell you how. When you read at a 9th grade level and spell at a 2nd grade level? That is called lack of phonemic awareness.

How has he made up for the lack of phonemic awareness? Because he has an outrageous memory. He has stored thousands of words in his pea brained little head for easy recall.

This helps explain why reading is tiring for him and he prefers books on tape. (He does read, because who can wait for books like Harry Potter 7 to be available on audio?)

All in all I feel like crap about the whole thing. It was really expensive. The insurance company has already denied about 800$ worth of claims on it. And worst of all, there isn't a pill for ODD. Though I think valium may be pretty effective actually. I'll let you know if it helps me deal. *snort*

Some people hear ODD and think, eh that is just shitty parenting.

When in fact, its just a crappy personality trait (argumentative) which my kid has got to learn how to regulate. And because there is a maturity deficit in kids with ODD he'll take longer to figure out how to regulate. But the neuropsych thought he was both smart enough and open enough to the idea of his behavior being disruptive that he would benefit from counselling.

There goes the college fund.

1 comment:

Jen said...

Wow. Well, I'm glad it's a "better" (in terms of lifelong medication) diagnosis than bipolar or depression or something. And that he's so amazingly brilliant.

Doesn't it make you proud of yourself and him that he's doing so well despite all this? And you have taught him! I think that's incredible.

I'm so relieved for both of you, really, although I bet ODD was a punch in the gut.