I've mentioned it several times in other contexts, so there's not much more to it. The preliminary diagnosis was PDD-NOS. I had never heard of it and the only thing I knew about autism was that Dan Marino had an autistic son, Rainman, and the odd behavior of a number of adult autistics I had minimal contact with while photographing them with their families (it seems that families with live-in adult autistics are keen on hiring location photographers for a family portrait in their homes). At that time, about five years ago, I did not know that she had already put me in that shelf, too, but she gave me lots of reading homework before we went farther. It was in the first two weeks of assessing my son and that was as far as she would go, without further testing. He was only three, after all. It sounded smart to me after learning that his symptoms could continue to present themselves more clearly until he hit puberty, at least.
We agreed to yearly visits, along with weekly for about four months, and they have since changed his (most recent) diagnosis to Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD, but last year they were calling him HFA, ADD/ADHD and still reminding me there wasn't much difference in the words, but instead we should concentrate our efforts to learning to help him HIS way, rather than spending energy trying to split hairs. As I mentioned, I was extremely disappointed to have "NOS" on anything, medical, because insurance coverage was limited by that general term, whether it was chest pains NOS or ankle swelling NOS, it was a fucked up thing for us. It meant more out of pocket expense and less insurance coverage, so I developed a bit of an attitude and wanted EVERYTHING specified. I was even more ignorant then, than now. Those early months were an education to say the least. However, I became aware of myself and tried to hide from her team after that. It took some adjustment to accept.
That is when we were presented the option to "go all the way" and become one of her test cases or what ever. Part of that included all of us being interviewed individually, in the office and our home, and having a closer look at my daughter, almost a year later, who had turned two by then and was still not speaking more than a few words. Her latest is HFA, ADHD.
If I'm off on a tangent and have misunderstood your question, I'll try again to answer, if you want. Feel free to ask a specific question, but honestly, there's not much more to tell. It was at our last meeting that she revealed that she had me diagnosed PDD-NOS from the beginning (I was asking about myself more than my son, for shame). Unfortunately, these little meetings have become a grueling chore to my son (they always have been for me).
