The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS)

[Guest guest]

Hey All:

We just got back the official report from taking Isaac to an autism

specialist/psychologist in April. One of the Assessment tools was the CARS.

Isaac scored a 38.5. The report says that scores below a 30 mean the child

does not have autism. Scores in the autism range are between 30 and 60.

She named Isaac as having severe autism even though his score was 38.5. Did

she mean severe PDD - the official label she reaffirmed? Logically it seems

that severe would be between 50 and 60 but then we were wondering if the

assessment has an inverted scale. Anyone know?

As always there were some other sentences from clear out of the blue. For

example she wrote that Isaac once touched himself inappropriately in school

in front of female peers but this isn't anywhere in the file we saw. In

fact, I didn't give permission for them to contact the school, I just took

in a copy of the IEP which was all they asked. We are trying to figure out

if she got reports mixed up or something. And whether we should have her

fix the report.

She also diagnosed him as having ADHD. Other professionals have done ADHD

screenings before and he has never come close to having enough symptoms to

quality. And I think he is getting much better as he gets older so this is

a bit of a surprise as well.

There are paragraphs that are correct and helpful.

Thanks,

Lori