Comprehensive Evaluation

Little Handsome and his beloved White Car

The present: Schmoopy (5 months) is kicking our butts lately with his out of whack schedule. I am so tired of talking about it. Shout out to the best former pediatrician in THE WORLD (and now a dear friend) for trying to help us through it. My body was not made to function on this little sleep. I think its a combo of teething and being so distracted by our crazy lives right now that have me stalled in the schedule department. Its a constant mommy-guilt fest. And I have decided that I no longer care about the different uses of its and it's. Embrace it with me. There are more important things in this world.

A couple of weeks ago my sis and her fam came to visit and it was so good for Little Handsome to hang out with his cousins. He loved every single minute as did the rest of the kiddos. I wish my sister was always in town cause while loving on him, she pushed Little Handsome as much as we do!

We had a fantastic visit with my dad and stepmom last week. They sponsor Little Handsome's therapy and were super impressed at his amazing progress. My heart breaks for those who don't have the means to pay for therapy, we are so very blessed. It is so encouraging to hear from your family that they see a difference after starting therapy. When you are in the thick of things, you can see improvement, but you wonder if others do. Heck I want to jump up and down sometimes when Little Handsome looks me in the eyes. Can I just say that has to be one of the hardest aspects of our therapy? The eye contact issue beats me down and wears me out!

My Sweetheart and I got to see Temple Grandin speak on Saturday. So good. She is quirky, opinionated and knowledgeable. I highly recommend seeing her speak if you are a parent, therapist or an educator. She left me feeling encouraged and ready to implement her suggestions! Little Handsome just needs to get a little older...

The past: Its taken me awhile to want to sit and write this down because the emotions of it all are overwhelming and that time in our lives was difficult. I think about all of the schedule shuffling I had to do and ask for help with - if you can't tell, we're a little schedule obsessed at our house. I was this way before our diagnosis, but now I understand why it was always so important to Little Handsome. Having to ask for help all of the time adds another layer of guilt that I should not allow to creep into my life. Again, we are so thankful that we are close to my mom and Jason's parents. I would be curled up in a corner crying if it weren't for God's Great Providence - moving my mom here when I thought it was crazy, keeping my Sweetheart's new job close to home, etc.

To keep it shorter - I could write/talk all day about this day - I kept notes on my phone and I will share those brass tax thoughts. Before I do that, at MP, this is their eval program: 1) Me and Sweetheart met with one of their psychologists for 75 minutes.

2) The next week Little Handsome is evaluated by their Speech Therapist, Occupational Therapist and the psychologist we met with - 3 hours. When you're deciding where to go for your kid's diagnosis, ask them if they do comprehensive evaluations. If they say no, ask if they know a place that does. I didn't just know this, our Speech Therapist told me exactly what to ask for. I was as lost as a goose - I didn't even (and still don't) know the "proper terms" for things. I feel like getting this comprehensive eval is essential in getting an accurate snapshot of your kiddo as well as saving your sanity by keeping everything at one location. After their separate evals, the ST, OT and psychologists all work together to come up with a diagnosis. Oh and one other point, ask for every piece of paper that they have on your kid that they can give you. You're gonna need those evals from the OT and ST later if you want to save time and money.

Finally, 3) The results meeting the week after that with My Sweetheart and me.

Here's what I wrote on my phone afterwards. The facts: diagnosis: autistic disorder with mixed receptive-expressive language disorder.  

Sidenote: under the new DSM-V criteria (may 2013), autistic disorder will be "melted" into Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis. We won't lose our diagnosis, fortunately. There are other changes that are totally polarizing for peeps on the spectrum versus government funding. Not gonna touch that with a ten foot pole right now.

Emotions: emotional, excited, ready, privileged, blessed, overwhelmed.

When [Little Handsome] was born my mom got a word for The Lord (as she does with each grandchild). His is adventure. So here we go!

His verse on his wall: Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. (1 Timothy 4:12 NIV emphasis mine)

It is not lost on me that Little Handsome's verse is so perfectly tailored to him. Shocking huh?