Many parents initially seek comfort in finding a specific label for their child, hoping that it will help them understand exactly what is wrong, and perhaps serve as a springboard for planning an intervention program. Labels, however, tend to describe symptoms, rather than the underlying difficulties unique to each child.

One child may have difficulties because he is over-reactive to touch and sound; another because he is under-reactive. One child may have a problem with comprehending sound, another with visual perception. Ultimately, an intervention and treatment plan must be designed to treat the child's underlying difficulties and individual profile, not just the symptoms observed.

Labels can also have a powerful, negative impact on the parents’, and others’, outlook and expectations for the child. In fact, with early intervention, children can grow well beyond labels that may have seemed fitting at an earlier time.

Sometimes, having a label for the child may help secure services, or enable families to be reimbursed for expenses related to the child’s treatment. In these cases, parents should try not to become emotionally involved with the label, but rather to think of it as a tool to be discarded when it is no longer useful.