Cale B.

We got an official/written ASD dianosis!

That exclamation point isn't there for excitement, it's relief.
Even though two child psychologists, our pediatrician, two special educators and a child development specialist all refer to him as having autism, it's been a bit of a fight without a written dx. This is going to make everything much easier when it comes to school, services, insurance, etc.

Plus, can I just say that I finally feel validated. There are obviously some things that Cale does really well (his verbal skills, for example), but there are other things he/we REALLY struggle with. It's been a bit of a rough road, from a judgement standpoint, to fight for him. Because he is high functioning in certain areas, we've had many comments suggesting that we are "pushing" this label on him (PLEASE tell me WHO would ever WANT that for their child?!) or that he just needs a few good spankings (I assure you, that will not work). For some reason, having the "official" dx makes me care much less about what others think is/isn't going on with my child.

Not only do the "experts" have our backs, they are going to do something about it.
We are basically getting a prescription for a behaviorist to come to our home and work with him/us regularly. We are knee-deep into the sleep study, and it's going well. After the sleep data from the next 10 days have been recorded and evaluated, we will meet with a sleep educator to address those issues.

This is all good progress!

ETA: The lead autism specialist we are working with at Vanderbilt is not an advocate for medicating children. However, she has asked us to consider medicating Cale to control his aggression/mood swings. I am typically not a proponent of medication for children, but I also know what I deal with physically every day and we could both use some relief from that. I would love to hear from other autism families who chose to medicate or chose not to.