Ben's UNC Preschool Assesment Report

I got the full 12 page report finally and as always it was hard to read.  The evaluation team was comprised of two PhD psychologists, a SLP, and two doctoral psychology interns.

The behavioral observations noted:
-he had difficulty maintaining conversation outside of his interest range
-he lacked awareness of nonverbal cues
-his affect was exaggerated
Ben's eye contact was inconsistent and not integrated with speech

Cognitive functioning....He was given the Differential Abilities Scale, II.  His overall score was a 105, 63rd percentile, average range, but inside each domain, his scores seemed inconsistent to me.  In the nonverbal domain, there were two subtests--he was in the 73rd percentile on one (picture similarities)  and the 38th percentile on the other (matrices), which averages his scores in that domain to the 58th percentile.  The numbers were similar for the verbal domain.

Autism Assessment used the ADOS-II....Some notes from that bit....
--"Although Ben produced some relatively complex speech, recurrent grammatical errors were noted."
--voice was high in pitch
--utterances sounded stereotyped
--"it was hard to follow his reporting of previous events, as he tended to start with a true event and morph it into a make believe story."
--"it was difficult to build a conversation with Ben"
--frequent mislabeling of emotions in a book
--rigidity during tasks, having to organize blocks and puzzle pieces
--sensory seeking behavior, such as rubbing his arms and legs observed, sitting perched on his toes in his seat, and tensing his hands and fingers

Diagnosis--autism spectrum disorder in the mild range