Sorry it has taken me so long to post the results of Hannah's evaluations, but I've been in the midst of processing all that we learned-that and we traveled to Indiana for 9 days. Basically what we found out was that Hannah does not have enough clinical diagnostic criteria to receive a diagnosis of Asperger's anymore. She has simply grown out of it. She apparently still has many aspie traits and is "quirky", but not quirky enough to be technically on the spectrum anymore. Maybe I need to change the name of my blog again. Too bad. I really liked the title M came up with. I may just keep it anyway. She also does not have enough diagnostic criteria for ADHD or Bipolar, but she has too many red flags for each of them to rule either of them out at this point. Those two are on a watch and see status at the moment. She'll be reevaluated for them in a few years (or sooner if we have new issues crop up). Her behaviors are, however, abnormal. They are abnormal in intensity, frequency, and duration. They are abnormal enough they warrant a diagnosis, but don't fit any particular diagnosis. Therefore she gets Disruptive Behavior Disorder-NOS (not otherwise specified)
. You have to love that NOS catch all moniker. It was recommend that we work with a behavioural therapist to get her negative behaviours under control and to help teach her how to manage her strong emotions. The psychologist specifically mentioned that we should try 123 Magic (and The Active Alert Child) as a starting point while we are waiting to get in with a therapist. We've bought the book and implemented phase 1 of their program. Kyle thinks it is helping. I'm still up in the air about it. After all of our failures with other methods I can't help but be critical until proven otherwise. So, none of this that the psychologist told us surprised us too much, until she got to the final portion of Hannah's evaluations-the IQ test. Here's where we were in for the shock of our lives. Now, we knew Hannah was smart. We knew she was academically gifted in reading and had extremely precocious verbal language skills. What we did not anticipate was that Hannah would test as profoundly gifted, into the highest level of giftedness possible, that she would score higher than 99.7% of the population on her test! That threw us 
for a loop. How do we even process that kind of intelligence? We knew our local public school wasn't going to be right for her, but now we have to wonder if any of the private schools will be able to accommodate her long term even. The only gifted school even close to us is well over an hour away and charges over $25,000 a year for Kindergarten! We obviously don't have that kind of money. According to the psychologist, Hannah's extreme intelligence is currently working against her instead of for her with regards to her behavior. The Disruptive Behavior Disorder-NOS and her IQ have melded together to create the perfect storm. So, we are feeling out our options and having to learn an entirely new path. Anyone who has been down this road before us is encouraged to comment and help me out. Lord knows I could use the help.
. You have to love that NOS catch all moniker. It was recommend that we work with a behavioural therapist to get her negative behaviours under control and to help teach her how to manage her strong emotions. The psychologist specifically mentioned that we should try 123 Magic (and The Active Alert Child) as a starting point while we are waiting to get in with a therapist. We've bought the book and implemented phase 1 of their program. Kyle thinks it is helping. I'm still up in the air about it. After all of our failures with other methods I can't help but be critical until proven otherwise. So, none of this that the psychologist told us surprised us too much, until she got to the final portion of Hannah's evaluations-the IQ test. Here's where we were in for the shock of our lives. Now, we knew Hannah was smart. We knew she was academically gifted in reading and had extremely precocious verbal language skills. What we did not anticipate was that Hannah would test as profoundly gifted, into the highest level of giftedness possible, that she would score higher than 99.7% of the population on her test! That threw us 
for a loop. How do we even process that kind of intelligence? We knew our local public school wasn't going to be right for her, but now we have to wonder if any of the private schools will be able to accommodate her long term even. The only gifted school even close to us is well over an hour away and charges over $25,000 a year for Kindergarten! We obviously don't have that kind of money. According to the psychologist, Hannah's extreme intelligence is currently working against her instead of for her with regards to her behavior. The Disruptive Behavior Disorder-NOS and her IQ have melded together to create the perfect storm. So, we are feeling out our options and having to learn an entirely new path. Anyone who has been down this road before us is encouraged to comment and help me out. Lord knows I could use the help. Photo Notes: The first two photos are of Hannah trying out Daddy's mountain biking gear in the back seat of the car. It's one of her favorite car trip activities! The last photo is of her being silly while I tried to take a serious picture of her painting. She was concentrating so hard I wanted to capture the moment, but she has a tendency to get wild when the camera comes out so we have very few serious photos!
4 comments:
That must be a funny feeling... I would feel like after finally understanding the diagnosis and how it affected me/my child, now it's no longer the case. She could probably technically qualify for PDD-NOS, though, depending on who you ask and one what day, you know? So I guess all the stored autism spectrum info is still helpful. Still, I would feel funny.
Just out of curiosity, what strategies/interventions did you use that were so successful for her?
My IQ is probably pretty similar to Hannah's, depending on how I'm doing when they test it. Regardless, it's up there. I could read at 3 and was reading like she is at 4. I went to a regular public school because we couldn't afford private, was forbidden to skip grades, and was bored half to death until college. I was in the gifted program from kindergarten on, and special math and reading courses, but it was all really boring.
Have you thought about homeschooling...? That would have been ideal for me.
Hannah is so sweet. Loved the post. Thanks for sharing.
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Im not even going to spend any more time reading tonight (its very late here) I ran across this blog in the most odd fashion and I saw the 'hyperlexia' and the IQ part and I just have to say... PLEASE email me. I think my son is at least close in age... and MAN I bet we could tell some stories! He was reading at age 2. He's 4 now and fluently reads anything... i mean A N Y T H I N G.... he is also on that line, though diagnosed with 'autism' when he was almost 2, he is closer to asperger's now or somewhere on that point of the confusion spectrum.
scott and briana @ hotmail dot com
Our oldest son is now five, but we knew things were different with him since he was born: colic, never slept well, quirky and SMART! By two he mastered the alphabet, the phonetics of letters, shapes, colors, numbers....by three he was reading on his own, by four he knew every country in the world and just like your Hannah, he doesn't quite fit into any diagnosis. He shares some traits that cross over aspergers, ADHD, OCD...but nothing definitive. Also like Hannah, he is explosive, controlling, emotional, and just plain intense to deal with some days, well, I should say he WAS like this all the time, until we decided on a natural course of treatment called biomedicine. It takes time, it takes a lot of personal research, it takes trying a lot of different things to find the right pieces for your child and in many cases it's a LOT of pieces that require trial and error to figure out, but let me tell you, IT WORKS!! If you would like to see my blog, we are doing biomedicine with both of our children now and are AMAZED at the results. Our five year old is in a charter school and has been pretty bored with the stuff they are learning in Kindergarten, but emotionally, he doesn't belong ahead of his peers, so we are just doing what we can to make everything interesting. Luckily they do a LOT outside and hands on, so overall, he loves it, and we are thrilled with his progress there. If you would like to check out my blog to see our journey from start to finish, here is the link - http://grayson-youarewhatyoueat.blogspot.com/ Feel free to e-mail me directly with questions. I would HIGHLY recommend considering this route. Our children act the way they do, because their health is a mess. You can't see it from the outside, but there ARE tests that can confirm what you are dealing with. Unfortunately, it's not with mainstream doctors, because it's a natural way of healing them.
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