In good conscience, I couldn't; because it wasn't true.
I had to seek outside the standard medical health care plan to protect my son and myself from the "state". It cost.
He was given the diagnosis of "aphasic" which is a subcategory of autism; and I agreed to use this phrasing because the Nanny state knew nothing about "aphasia"; and so could not force my son onto drugs, into a program, or me into jail or court.
Later, they tried again, this time trying to label him "autistic". He was placed in a pre-kindergarten class with other "autistic-ADD/ADH" little boys. Only boys. There were no little girls at that entire K-5, labelled "autistic" or "add/adh", then.
He was the only boy in that class who knew his name, could cite his phone number, and count to 20. And, they were at this point stirring him up in class to get him upset; and then telling me of his "obvious" autistic behavior. Yes, I did spy at the classroom windows, after my son telling me HIS side of the story. He wasn't lying. These special ed teachers had singled him out to stir him up.
I pulled him out, asap. Took only a month for the "set-up" to be revealed.
That little boy began college at age 11. He's extremely talented physically and musically, as well as academically.
I'm sorry to have contributed to the burgeoning "labelling business in the name of collecting dollars" for the state; but I truly had no other alternative, THEN, to keeping my son safe, and in my home with his family.
Republicans changed all this in following years, passing legislation in support of parents and their rights. I couldn't have been happier that they did this.
This little boy would play chess with me when he was 5. I shared this, about the chess and the late "speaking" morph to autism, in person with Dr. Sowell, about middle 90s. He knew. lol. He'd already gone through something similar with his own son being a "late talker". What he has seen is how the damned thing morphs. And it's always about the money, the taxpayer dollars, or the personal payments for parents to just go along with effectively pimping their kids.
The worst thing about these overdiagnoses? The real victims of autism and/or ADD/ADH get shuffled around and aside: The help and money doesn't go to where it would do the most good.
And because the numbers of "victims" just really wouldn't be that large enough sufficient to satisfy the demands of most teacher's unions and the politicians they support.
Thanks for relating that and I’m glad it worked out for you and especially your son.
I read a column of Dr. Sowell’s some time back on the over diagnosis of autism and the reasons that it’s being over diagnosed, they were a carbon copy of the reasons you stated. I briefly looked in my list of his columns and didn’t find it or I would have posted a link.
What an interesting story. Thanks for sharing it. Years ago my deaf daughter was also diagnosed as autistic, by people who were “observing” her. The whole write up by the teacher was contradictory. I had to go to Gallaudet and speak with a professor there, and found a specialist near my home then (So CA) who had worked with mentally disabled or criminally insane deaf individuals to get this “diagnoses” refuted.
Well damn.
Stories such as yours make me very grateful that we’ve managed to stay “under the radar” since our boys were born! It probably helped that we moved a lot. 4 out of 5 could be “diagnosed” as ADD or Autism Spectrum, based on the checklists that the public school use.