@lostandtired  @ConfusedConcerned  Rob - instead of thinking of censoring, you should listen to the opinions of some of the less conventional supportive posters here.  Not everyone may post cheerleader-style messages, but you can still draw information or perspective from them.

While confused concerned could have been a bit more tactful, you should be able to see that your family has more medical diagnoses and doctors than ANYONE.  Everyone is constantly going to doctors, emergency rooms, specialists, and even geneticists.  Why?  Granted, you are dealing with some complex medical issues.  But if you look in from the outside, your family seems desperate to put a diagnosis on EVERYTHING.  Now, you have a young child that's afraid of something at school.  Could that be typical child behavior in response to something ANYONE would find uncomfortable? Do ALL children occasionally freak out about school?  No...in your house, it must be PTSD.

What I think you are failing to realize is that you may be needlessly stigmitizing Elliot.  When you continually insist that he has a mental disorder, that's going to be documented in medical records (and maybe even school records)...whether its real or not.  If your little guy decides when he's older to join the military, become a police officer,  or get some other type of civil service job (or say he wants to follow in your footsteps and become a paramedic or fireman), he's going to have TREMENDOUS problems.  Just let him be a kid, with some normal kid-type issues that he will learn to work through.

@meaghangood Sorry for your past, and I'm glad to see you've grown stronger from the experience.  But you cannot compare what you went through (25+ years of personal abuse throughout your formative years) to some meltdowns that a small child may have witnessed as a bystander.  That's not even remotely in the same ballpark.

I agree with SarahChierico on having the teacher giving him a safe place and to were he knows he has a safe place to go. Also I agree with the wearing ear protection. I know if I was in that position I would probably have a meltdown to.  

while i wouldn't completely rule out PTSD i would first look at SPD and how it may be playing a role in his anxiety about the other child at school. Is he allowed to wear ear defenders in school, could you ask the teacher to give him a safe place to go to when the other child is having difficulties

I know you keep saying Eliot suffer from PTSD as a result of Gavin's meltdowns, but I don't think you truly appreciate what type of life-changing event it takes to generate PTSD in a person.

The cause for PTSD is commonly defined as: "an event that may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or violent assault on one's own or someone else's physical or sexual integrity, overwhelming the ability of that individual to cope".  While I'm sure Gavin's meltdowns were severe (as evidenced by your numerous videos) I don't recall you ever mentioning that your other children were physically assaulted or hurt by him during them, I'm also certain that you and your wife also took whatever steps you could to insulate your other children from the spectacle, thus limiting the damage.  You've said in the past that you were able to confine gavin, so I would bet that while hearing your older brother scream, yell and bang around in another part of the house was scary, it's hardly the stuff PTSD is made of.

I think your little guy may be having a normal child reaction to what he feels is a scary or uncomfortable situation in his class.  It's not unusual for children to avoid difficult situation specific events, but that doesn't mean it needs to be explained with a diagnosis.  Let the kid be a kid and he'll work through it, just like all the other children in this world that freak out because of an upcoming test, the school yard bully, separation anxiety, or the millions of other life events that affect children.  

My daughter didn't want to go to preshool for a month...tears and panic every morning and night for weeks.  Wanna know the reason (we got it out of her after a few weeks)?  She saw one of her classmates use the bathroom, not wash her hands, and then engaged in "snack time".  This is a normal, average 3 year old, who broke our ball$ for weeks over not wanting to go to school.  I doubt she has PTSD as a result of poor toilet habits.