We see both, we have a developmental pediatrician, and a pediatric neurologist at Children's. We also see a pediatric psychologist there too. We see each at least twice a year. I definitely feel all of his bases are covered.

A developmental Pediatrician is just like an average pediatrician except they specialize in children with developmental disabilities. You can kind of think of it this way, when you are in college studying education you can pick from different branches but you still get a degree in education.

Now a Neurologist is a Dr that studies the brain, and they are specific to any kind of disability that would affect brain development. This is why when you try to get a diagnosis they are the ones to go to because they are the best at figuring out what exactly is going on.

This is why a lot of children that should have the ASD diagnosis get labeled with PDD-NOS because the Dr is not sure what is going on because they do not have the experience to figure it out. If this happens you will not get all the services your child needs because in most states the ASD diagnosis will give far more services that the PDD-NOS.

We have seen both. The developmental pediatrician has such a long waiting list that all she does is the initial diagnosis. For ongoing care we see a pediatric neurologist and an integrative neurodevelopmental pediatrician. The former helps with things like getting insurance approval for OT, speech, and PT. The latter treats ASD from a biomedical standpoint and follows much of the DAN protocol.

Thanks for your input. It sounds like I should probably get a Dev Ped even though we've seen the neurologist at MGH since my son was 1 1/2 (he just turned 5). Where do you live now?

Thanks for those websites.
How long does the Dev. Ped spend with you and your son? Do you feel the doctor really knows your whole child? We see a Pediatric Neurologist at the Lurie Autism Ctr @ Mass General but I feel that she doesn't REALLY know my son enough to truly offer useful information. She always offers information or suggestions in a more general way. Was this your experience with a neurologist?