throwaway988371

For ASD diagnosis in particular, Australia mostly uses DSM-5 rather than ICD-10. Most professionals are now diagnosing just ASD (per DSM-5), rather than the DSM-IV-TR/ICD-10 diagnoses of autism, Aspergers, PDD-NOS, CDD, etc.

Talking about medicine in general, Australia uses ICD-10-AM, which is the Australian national modification of ICD-10. By comparison, the US uses ICD-10-CM, which is the US national modification of ICD-10. Not sure exactly what the differences are – while the ICD-10 and ICD-10-CM code lists are freely available, you have to pay $$$ to even see the ICD-10-AM code list online (or go find a printed copy in a medical school library)

He's 5. He's just started kindergarten.

We haven't told him about either the ADHD or the ASD diagnosis. We will tell him the full story when he is older (both what he was diagnosed with, and why we are sceptical about the diagnoses.)

Since we haven't told the school about any of his diagnoses, he obviously doesn't get any special consideration for them. But he enjoys school, he reports no problems and neither does his teacher.

From a parent's perspective, it would have been nice if she'd asked us first "Would you like the most accurate possible diagnosis, or would you like an 'overcooked' one which maximises the odds of you getting approved for government disability funding?" She just assumed we wanted the second without even asking us.

(same person, new throwaway, forgot password to the previous one)

> if you doubt the diagnosis, fine - get a second opinion

We actually tried to get a second opinion. We went to another psychologist for one, she booked us in, but then her superiors cancelled it. They said if a child has been diagnosed as having ASD Level 2, they didn't want to repeat the assessment since there was a risk they might get undiagnosed or only diagnosed as Level 1, which would remove his eligibility for government disability funding (NDIS). (Which we still haven't applied for, because we aren't convinced he needs it, and don't know what to spend it on anyway.) They wanted us to go to see some paediatrician they like, who is actually a colleague of our son's existing one.

Instead we took him back to his existing paediatrician. He said he too was a bit sceptical about the diagnosis, but that psychological diagnosis isn't an entirely objective process, and it doesn't really matter whether he has ASD or not, and it would be a waste of time to repeat the assessment, so we should just do nothing about it for 6-12 months, and see how he goes, and consider repeating the assessment in another 2-3 years.