TPP 036: A Conversation with 12-year-old Asher About Diagnoses, Labels, and Stigmas
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
27 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 4 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why does Asher think labels like ADHD are important to talk about?
The reason I believe that labels are important in this case is because if we don't talk about them and we don't use the labels, then those labels can continue to be stigmatized, right? Yeah, exactly. If we think ADHD is a bad word...
If you think you should cover up ADHD, then you're making it seem bad.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Reber, and today's episode is a special Kids POV episode with my 12-year-old child, Asher. Today, we're talking about diagnoses, labels, and stigmas. I know that Asher has strong feelings about all of these topics, and I wanted to share his perspective on things like why he believes kids should know about their diagnoses and why he's fine for other people to know what's unique about him. I've been wanting to put together this episode for a while now, so I'm happy to be sharing it with you today. I hope you like it. And before we get to the show, for this month, I've decided to take a quick minute at the beginning of every episode to bring attention to an organization doing great work in the world and who is very supportive of differently wired kids.
So this week, that organization is the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum. The Gifted Homeschoolers Forum supports, educates and advocates for gifted and twice exceptional children, their families and the professionals who serve them as they pursue alternative lifelong educational paths. They emphasize understanding and acceptance of neurodiversity and seek to normalize and celebrate the ways each individual can contribute to the learning environment or the workplace. If you have a gifted or twice exceptional child, definitely check them out, even if you're not homeschooling. They're almost an entirely volunteer run nonprofit that serves up to a million people on six continents. I'll include links to the gifted homeschoolers forum on the show notes page for this episode too.
And now I'll get on with the show. Hey Asher. Hello.
Hello.
So today, as you know, we are doing a special Kids POV episode, and we're doing one that you and I have talked about doing for a really long time.
Yeah.
Because today we're going to talk about labels, diagnoses, and stigmas.
Cool.
Cool.
The first time that we learned about what was happening with you or kind of got some clues, you were five years old. And actually, I didn't bring this up before we started recording. I was wondering, do you actually remember going to this place called the care clinic and having them meet with you a couple times and ask you a bunch of questions and maybe play games with you? No, not really. Not really. Okay. So just jumping in here, I had planned to talk with Asher about the different assessments he'd had over the years because I was curious to get his take on why he thought he was doing those in the first place. But as I asked him if he remembered both the testing he had done when he was five and the spring before he turned nine, he said he didn't really recall that much about it.
So just for reference, I'll fill you in. We initially did an assessment with Asher with an OT when he was five, where we learned about his sensory processing issues. We thought that connected all the dots for us, but then at the recommendation of a friend, we did a more formal assessment later that year where he received provisional diagnoses of ADHD and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, with the recommendation that we reassess him in three years. Oh, and he'd also done an IQ test that year as well, as it was required for some of the schools we were looking at, and we knew that giftedness was another piece of the puzzle. Three years later, a few months before the end of his second grade year, we had him reassessed at the University of Washington's Autism Center, where he received diagnoses of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder, or as they told us, Asperger's.
During these three years, he'd also had to be assessed for an IEP and services in school, so it seemed to me that he was constantly being evaluated.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does Asher think labels like ADHD are important to talk about?
0:00–4:36
2
How did Asher’s early assessments shape his understanding of his diagnoses?
4:36–7:49
3
What did Asher learn from the social‑skills club and OT sessions?
7:49–11:12
4
How does Asher describe the difference between his ADHD and autism labels?
11:12–15:39
5
Why does Asher feel comfortable sharing his diagnoses with friends?
15:39–19:55
6
What advice does Asher give parents about telling kids their diagnosis?
19:55–23:20
7
How does Asher stay confident despite negative stigma around neurodiversity?
23:20–26:36
8
Would Asher change anything about being ‘wired’ and why?
26:36–27:45
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids