Newbie - 11 year old son only just diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome

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Hi there. My 11 year old son was diagnosed with ADHD/ODD when he was 5 years

old. He has been unmedicated in that time although this has been very difficult

as his tantrums and rages have been incredibly difficult to manage.

With him starting secondary school next year, we thought it prudent to get him

reassessed in order to identify any special considerations he may need in terms

of his learning. He has difficulty socialising, writing, has speech problems

and a few other things that worried us (mainly behavioural). We attended our

local children's hospital (in Melbourne, Australia) where he underwent a full

days testing of IQ tests, personality tests, depression tests, ADHD stuff etc.

He was interviewed and we were also interviewed extensively about his infant,

toddler, younger and current years in terms of developmental milestones,

behaviours, etc. It was exhausting and extremely thorough and intensive (far

more so than when he got orginally diagnosed six years ago).

At the end of the day, the psychologist took us aside and asked if we had ever

been offered any other diagnosis other than ADHD/ODD. We said we hadn't but we

had been worried that he might have Bipolar since my sister had recently been

diagnosed with Bipolar and he did fly into such rages. She said that he

definintely didn't have Bipolar and in fact did not have ADHD/ODD either. She

said that whilst they had to scrutinise the results and furnish us with a report

and official diagnosis, she was convinced he had Asperger Syndrome. This came

as a total shock to us, although in fairness, my husband has always said that he

felt our son was on the autistic spectrum because as a young child, he was very

ritualistic and went ballistic if things weren't done in a certain way, and he

has multiple sensory sensitivities which still affect him today.

What is worrying me about the diagnosis is this. Everything of the seven or

eight DMV-IV criteria for Aspergers fits except for the special interest thing.

It is true that Jordan is obsessed with playstation, computer games and Nintendo

DSI and will oscillate between the three, opting to forgo all else to play them

(including food), if allowed to. But does that constitute a special interest?

Currently, his obsession is racing and wrestling games, but he will play others

if nothing else is available (usually after a tantrum when he can't get one of

his favourites to work). He collects crystals, but doesn't have an obsessive

interest in them i.e. he doesn't know the names of all his crystals, how they

are made, etc., but will always gravitate towards the crystal section of a shop,

if they have one. He will always browse the playstation area of a shop too - to

the point I can leave him there, go off and do a bit of my own browsing and know

that he won't have moved. He is not interested in anything else, other than

those things.

My worry is that they have jumped the gun with the diagnosis because he scores

so highly in the other areas - eye contact aversion, social isolation, social

skills problems, etc. But he doesnt have this innate ability to collect facts

on his special area of interest. For example, he can cream anyone at the games

that he loves, and he can tell you which cars are the fastest, but he doesn't

rattle off endless facts about each of the cars. He just plays the game

incessantly, simple as that.

Is there varying degrees of aspergers, because the term 'little professor'

really doesn't fit my son. I have watched you tube videos of children with

Aspergers and they all seem to be super intelligent and rattle off these endless

facts about stuff. Jordan scored average on the IQ scale and really isn't

'geeky' at all (sorry for the use of term but I couldn't think of anything else

- don't mean to offend).

Can anyone shed any light on this for me.

Thanks

S in Melbourne.