What do you do if you think your child may have Aspergers?

By Mark Hutten, M.A.
Question

What do you do if you think your child may have Aspergers? Should I schedule an appt. with his pediatrician or is there someone more specialized that we should see? I have suspected this with him for some time, but he is only three years old and I am nervous about putting something on him that may not apply. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

It is unlikely that Aspergers will be diagnosed before school age. Some diagnosticians are clearly of the view that Aspergers cannot be diagnosed before a child starts school. The reason for this is that it is thought that social skills may not have been fully developed at this point due to the lack of exposure to social settings prior to starting school.

Get as much information as you can. Make notes and correlate what you know of your child’s behavior with the information you have gathered. This is a good step for empowering yourself before you visit your doctor, and it will show him/her that you have been concerned enough to have done your homework. Once you have convinced the doctor, request a referral to an Aspergers specialist. This might be a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist. A team on your side can help. If you still have problems, take the private option and pay for a “comprehensive psychiatric evaluation” from a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist.

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