Posted by thuso on July 5, 2005, at 18:15:38
I don't even know how to begin explaining this without writing a novel, but I'm going to try for your sake. hahaha!
I'm currently a student, so I decided to take advantage of that and get a full battery of tests done for some LD's I suspected myself of having. A graduate student did all the testing and wrote the report with several dx's. I was working for a child psychiatrist and he sat down with me to go over the report. He looked at the results and knew right away that it was a grad student who wrote it. He then goes on to tell me she should have added a few other dx's based on my numbers. But two of his added dx's were based soley on his observations of me over the 2 years I worked for him. One of those dx's was GAD which doesn't require any testing, but the other dx was Asperger's. From what I understand from other people who have been dxed AS, there was testing involved and plenty of interviews about their childhood. Granted the Dr. did learn some of my history from general employer/employee conversations, but no real interview like would normally happen for a dx. On the other hand, one of his specialties is autism, so he knows what he's looking for in terms of behavior and thinking patterns. He ended up writing me a letter on his letterhead with his opinion of my dx's. I'm just not sure if I should take that letter as an "official" dx or just as a suggestion of what I might have. His letter basically says that in his opinion I fit the category for disorder x, y, and z. Would that be considered "official" even though we didn't have a patient/doctor relationship and I did no testing?
Phew! I actually managed to compress that to a readable amount. I'm so proud of myself! hahaha!
poster:thuso
thread:523892
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/523892.html