Dr. Stephanie Ellen Eischen-Lee, PhD

After interacting with our son for approximately 30 minutes, I became increasingly concerned about this provider’s response to his sensory-seeking behaviors. During the appointment, my son displayed several sensory-seeking behaviors. Rather than approaching these behaviors with curiosity and an understanding of sensory needs, she repeatedly characterized some of them as inappropriate. At one point, my son went out into the hallway, and during our relatively short conversation afterward, she brought up that incident multiple times. Her repeated emphasis on his behaviors gave me the strong impression that she was extremely uncomfortable with them. This was particularly concerning to me because this is a pediatric psychology setting. Children with sensory-processing differences, developmental concerns, or behavioral challenges are exactly the children I would expect a pediatric psychologist to encounter. Sensory-seeking children may touch, mouth, or even lick objects and surfaces. These… behaviors certainly may need to be redirected for safety and hygiene, but I expected them to be understood within the context of the child's sensory needs rather than simply labeled as inappropriate behavior. What concerned me even more was how quickly autism was raised as a diagnosis after such a limited interaction with my child. I understand that an experienced clinician may recognize signs of autism during a short observation and that an evaluation can include information beyond direct observation. However, as a parent, I was not comfortable with such a significant conclusion being reached after what appeared to be approximately half an hour of direct interaction. Afterward, I also noticed reviews from other families describing receiving an autism diagnosis very quickly. That made me even more concerned about the evaluation process. Other comprehensive developmental evaluations we have encountered or researched can involve several hours of assessment, parent interviews, developmental history, standardized measures, and observation before a diagnosis is reached. My concern is not with autism as a diagnosis. If my child is autistic, I absolutely want to know so that we can understand and support him appropriately. My concern is with the thoroughness of the assessment and with whether sensory-seeking behaviors were being interpreted with sufficient understanding and objectivity. For something as consequential as a developmental diagnosis, parents deserve a careful, comprehensive evaluation and a clinician who can distinguish between sensory-seeking behavior, behavioral concerns, and symptoms that may support a particular diagnosis. Based on our experience, I did not feel confident that we received that level of evaluation.

My then 3 year old was barely putting two words together and I was extremely concerned. After being denied speech therapy from Kaiser I asked for a referral to the John Richards development center. They were nice and all, easy to schedule with but during my preliminary phone interview with this doctor she gave me her honest opinion. Severe to moderate autism. Over the phone. It sent me into a month of anxiety. I feel like I don't even remember my other son at that special age of 6 months because I was so busy trying to figure out how we were going o support such a severe diagnosis. The doctor that saw him in person didn't really see autism. After talking with his preschool teacher, his therapists and the school district I realized the only person suggesting autism was this woman and it was over the phone! It's been a year and a half. My son is social, almost caught up from his speech delay (that may or may not have had some motor planning element like apraxia). He is… extremely intelligent, popular, imaginative and creative has so many friends it's hard to keep up. He's mature and does chores around the house, takes care or his brother etc. Amazing kid. I get so angry thinking about that time in my life where I believed she might be right because of her degree. If you want a diagnosis and can't get one this is great but if you're a mom trying to figure out why your child isn't talking this is not helpful. This all said, I've done a lot of reading about autism and I understand people that are autistic can be amazing, brilliant, caring, imaginative, all the things I just said, but hearing severe to moderate before meeting them just seems so extreme.

My four year old son was brought to her for Autism testing. I was hoping he didn't have Autism, but within five minutes of observing my son, she said, "I am comfortable giving you a diagnosis of Autism." She pointed out several Autistic traits that at that time I was unaware of, but have since come to understand. She continued her testing, told me we could have more days of testing with other doctors, or get started getting him treatment. She got us hooked up that day with ABA therapy and she contacted the school district to get an IEP set up for him right away. Every now and then you run into someone that knows their stuff. She obviously does.