S-Teams and SPED Diagnoses

In honor of World Autism Month, I wanted to write a post about something interesting I never thought about until my second placement.  During my first week at Hickman, I noticed one of the students in my classroom acting differently than the others.  He often rocked back and forth with stilted movements, became overly anxious about simple things, struggled with loud noises, and more.  I started to wonder if he was autistic, but my teacher had only told me about two students in our class with IEPs--one with Down Syndrome and one with a speech impediment.  I assumed I must have been wrong.

A few days later, my mentor teacher told me about this child's situation.  He was an only child and his parents had not noticed that his behavior was abnormal.  All of the teachers suspected he might be autistic, but they couldn't recommend him for diagnosis/an IEP because he was not showing a discrepancy in his grades.  He was performing on grade level and therefore did not need special accommodations.  When my teacher explained that to me, I was initially shocked--how can someone suspected of a disability not be referred to SPED?  But then it began to make more sense; if you can achieve on grade level, why would you need supports to help you perform academically?

This year the kindergarten teachers met with this student's parents so as to prepare them for potential academic struggles he may have in the future.  They were not allowed to tell the parents that they believed the child might be autistic because that would be a fraudulent diagnosis and they could get sued.  Instead, they emphasized that while his behavior was not harming him now, it could become more extreme over time.  They just wanted to make his parents aware of the situation since they had no idea and none of his pre-K teachers had mentioned anything.  It still blows my mind that his parents do not realize how much their child struggles in basic social situations!  I learned from the entire situation that we as teachers can sometimes know more about our kids than even their parents!  I was also reminded of how careful we must be to phrase things appropriately and move through the proper channels.  Without deliberate care, we could get sued.

Have you experienced anything like this in your classrooms?  I did not have much experience with students with disabilities besides learning impediments until I came to Hickman.  Do you have more insight?