Daddio and I had a long meeting with the pediatrician this morning. We brought Little Man under the instruction of an administrator in the office, but turns out Dr. didn't need to see him so he hung out with a nurse and ate his lunch the whole time.
Dr. said that after reviewing all the materials we sent her, including the report from the psychologist in Roanoke, she would not medicate him at this time. She said that ADHD is not our biggest problem. It may wind up being a factor for him as he gets older, but the outbursts that he has aren't typical of a child with ADHD. It's a separate problem.
She also figuratively patted us on the back a few times saying she feels that discipline isn't the problem in this case.
She said that after reading the documentation we sent, she is leaning towards 2 things. One is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I said, "I've heard of that, but I understood that it's usually present with another thing like ADHD or an Autism Spectrum Disorder. She said, "Well, not necessarily, but you've hit on the second thing I was thinking, which is Autism Spectrum Disorder." We're a bit skeptical of that one, but she was saying how a high functioning individual on the Spectrum may be social and enjoy people and not have the typical autism stim, etc. He may just be socially awkward, getting people's attention in inappropriate ways.
The long and the short of it is that we left the pediatrician's office with a referral to a speech therapist re. the Nonverbal Learning Disorder that was previously diagnosed. Dr. is also going to have her front desk work on getting us in to a pediatric psychiatrist; they're going to try someone local and someone in Roanoke. She warned us, however, that the average wait in this area is 6 months. And even then, the required first step is to meet with their psychOLOGIST before they'll make a referral to the psychIATRIST. And we'll get a referral to a counselor for the behavioral therapy part of the equation.
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