He did put a lot of energy into trying to convince people he doesn't know that he was the best in the world at a video game he doesn't play. He may be autistic.

Hi! I work in a Public school.

First and foremost it is ILLEGAL for a school to diagnose a child. They have behavioral tests and they can point out similar symptoms to certain diagnosis but they are absolutely unable to say “He/She has this”. If your child’s school has diagnosed them you need to contact your state board of education immediately. These “tests” school’s do are just to get a baseline and then they can “suggest” you go to a neuropsychologist/psychologist for more definitive results. They can’t even offer spec Ed accommodation or a 504 without first hearing from a Doctor on such things.

I can’t stress this enough. If your kids school has done this you need to call your state board of education immediately.

Furthermore if your child has been diagnosed and the school “suggests” medicine they also need to be reported. A public school can not suggest such things the most they can tell you without crossing a line and getting in hot water is “Have you considered seeing the doctor or his pcp?”.

As for over diagnosis of these things. I highly attribute it to education and knowledge of what to look for. When I was a child most of these kids were just labeled “bad kids” and people gave up on them. The numbers haven’t really increased, the knowledge of what to look for has.

This post was edited by MadMan87 on Feb 10 2025 09:46pm

Okay well, when I was in school 20 years ago they gave me an assessment, and said I had assburgers, to which it was up to my parents who left it for me to deny because I didn't want to be labeled with anything.
This may vary from State to State.
But this was indeed the wrong diagnosis.

Yes 20 years ago probably why it’s illegal now after the millions of lawsuits. They still have assessments and they can say “The assessment shows you have these symptoms” but they can NOT say “We diagnose your child with this.”. It’s absolutely illegal unless your school has a Doctor on staff with the ability to diagnose such things.(Never heard of a public school having a Child Psychologist on staff.)

PS… other than seeming narcissistic most people with Asperger’s would seem pretty normal. It’s usually very high functioning.

This post was edited by MadMan87 on Feb 10 2025 09:51pm

The school doesn't, the district does have someone, and I'm not sure if that person is exclusive to the district.
They mainly get called in for IEP students every few years at most to do assessments.
I didn't have aspergers I had Formal Thought Disorder

The district usually has a Behavior Specialist which conducts assessments for IEP, 504 and Spec Ed accommodations . They aren’t legally certified to diagnose just give results on a system that gives baselines on different conditions.

Maybe your parents misunderstood what a Diagnosis is and that the assessment is simply to give to a REAL doctor so they have a baseline in where to start with their own assessment? Although 20 years ago is a long time I dunno maybe it was legal back then but nowadays with the ADA and everything they’d get in big trouble. Although I thought the ADA was in the 90’s so it should of existed and been followed back then also.

I'm interested in this and google won't tell me what it means. Will you tell me more about your formal thought disorder?

From what I read It's a schizoaffective disorder like schizophrenia only without the Impulsive decision making, and the criteria for delusions was more broad to more or less unusual thinking.
It didn't matter if what I was saying was true, it still met the criteria of delusions.
The speech mannerisms sound exactly like schizophrenia, just the way I'd phrase search terms on online had gotten to the point where google in 2017 without prompt would tell me to go see a doctor for schizophrenia.
The treatment is exactly the same drugs.
As for the experience of Formal Thought Disorder it was racing thoughts jumping around all the time, I'd try to read or think about one thing, and soon end up all over the place on bunch of other things.
Someones would talk to me and I was never there because my thoughts were racing all over the place, I didn't like music because I about never once listened to a song and could understand what was being sang about because the thoughts were all over the place.
Reading works of fiction was impossible.

This post was edited by PapaPsych on Feb 10 2025 10:58pm

Thanks for the detailed response man, I appreciate it.

Do you know why you had trouble with fiction specifically?

Some of it may of been a focus of attention thing, I have made good efforts after adulthood to read some fiction and I recall details but not really a grasp on the whole story of events.
In school it was too abstract of thing to reflect on, and answer questions.