For those of you who have had your child evaluated, who does the evaluation? A pediatric psychiatrist? A neurologist? I believe my pediatrician is referring us to a psychiatrist, but one of the ladies from babies can't wait told me one of her clients was diagnosed through a pediatric neurologist. I am just wondering which is correct or best?
Thank you for all the responses! :) We have an appointment next Tuesday with the pediatric psychiatrist. He did have Autism listed under his specialties. Unfortunately I do not live near a Children's Hospital and do not have access to a team of any sort. We may be moving for school so hopefully we will move somewhere with more access to that sort of thing.
My son saw a developmental pediatrician and a behavioral psychologist. They both could have diagnosed him, but he ended up seeing the psychologist more b/c of where we were located, so she diagnosed him.
Good luck with your little guy.. Autism can be a beautiful thing :-)
I had asked this often & found out that It's usually a team but then a developemental pediatrician usually does the initial eval , before it was the neurologist who did it but nowadays dev ped & pysch r better equipped wth testing. Keep in mind there's always a long wait list to see the dev ped but they do give preference to kids less than 3 yrs old.
Best if u can see an autism team but I guess not all insurance covers that but most insurance will if it's a dev ped. Make sure the dev ped is experienced with autism since for kids wth mild issues u will get different answers from diff docs.
We saw a team - the dr's office was behavioral psychatrist, however the team included an occupational therapist, speech therapist, counselor. I did hear a friend of mine who's son's neurologist diagnosed him but that didn't seem right to me - I thought it was a team of professionals, all experts in their certain area and come to a conclusion together........that's how my sons worked at least = and thought everyone else's as well.
Andy saw both a neurologist and a psychiatrist. It was the psychiatrist that made the actual diagnosis. Neurologist is the structure of the brain, psychiatrist is the functioning of the brain, well sorta.
My son's diagnostic team included a developmental pediatrician, a pediatric speech pathologist, and a child psychologist. We later saw a pediatric neurologist to rule out seizures and to discuss sleep issues.
Hi. Even though my child was evaluated for autism by our pediatrician, for official diagnoses I was referred to a developmental pediatrician. When we applied for Med Waiver we had to have 2 corroborating reports of his autism. I submitted evals from a neurologist and a ped. psychologist. Hope this helps. Good luck.
Any of these can diagnose Autism, but they should have Autism and Behavioral Disorders included in their specialties: Pediatric Psychologist, Pediatric Psychiatrist, Pediatric Neurologist, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician.
If you call your local Children's Hospital and asked for "whichever department handles Autisms" they would most likely direct you to their Developmental-Behavioral Pediatric Department. We got our initial diagnosis from a Pediatric Psychiatrist. That diagnosis was agreed upon by our first Pediatric Neurologist, and again by our current one (who "tightened up and clarified" the diagnosis). Our pediatrician has been on board with all of it. The P. Neurologist also confirmed ADD and finally helped us treat it. She's been all around wonderful for us, as she's familiar with all of the issues we have to deal with and is also familiar with all of the professionals in the area that can help us (if only our insurance would stop dicking us around).
So, as to which one is best, it depends. It depends on who you find and how specialized they are Autism Disorders. They are all correct, but it's not fair to say which one is "best."
