Michael’s diagnosis. I wish that I knew back then what I know today. I wish I had the strength back then of what I have today and I wish that someone would have guided me through – step by step – of what I needed to do on a very basic level. Then life would have been a whole lot easier and less stressful, but unfortunately that was just not the case. Having English as my second language and learning everything about autism was very challenging and difficult. There were words I had never heard before such as “occupational therapy”, “early intervention”, “PECS” and “sensory issues”……where in the dictionary could I find that? But it made me a lot stronger and I learned to ask a lot of questions – relevant or not! I just kept asking and asking and asking! And I still do After we had our meeting with our new paediatrician, Dr. H, I went home a googled about autism for days. I knew a bit already as I had worked with autistic children in my younger days, but it was nowhere near enough to get me anywhere seriously. I read for days and googled everything I thought would be helpful for him as well as us. I had been told that to receive an autism diagnosis I had to meet with a psychologist, speech pathologist and a paediatrician. All 3 professions had to write separate reports and come to the same conclusion separately which had to state that Michael was autistic. The paediatrician had already done his testing by questioning us and scoring Michael on CARS test. He scored 32, just above the cut-off point at 30, which we were quiet surprising to hear as we thought he was a lot worse. This scoring was based on a few general questions and it only took him 10 min to do. Not really a hard test to pass, if you wanted to, as the child was not included in it. It was purely based on parent information from everyday life. It didn’t take me long to find a speech pathologist and a psychologist. I was informed that if I was to go through the public system we would be waiting up to 1 year to receive any appointments with these professions. There was no way that I would wait that long, so I went on line a googled for private providers. I picked up the phone and rang whoever was first on the list. Michael got a spot with a speech pathologist almost immediately by luck, but it took quite a while to find a psychologist who was available as well as willing to do an autism diagnostic assessment. Eventually I found one and got us booked in. Michael was almost 2 by the time we started to see the speech therapist and over the next couple of months I filled out forms and questionnaires like never before. We had several meetings with the speech therapist who conducted Michael speech assessment and after 4 or 5 appointments she finally had gathered enough evidence through tests and assessments to write up a proper report costing us around $600. Her report concluded that Michael was on the spectrum. The psychologist we meet only twice. Our first meeting was at our home as she wanted to conduct some of the assessment in his natural environment to get the best picture of him as possible. The other meeting was at her office and she was able to write up a report fairly quickly as she felt the evidence was strong. She concluded he was on the severe side of the autism spectrum which was quiet a difference from the paediatrician’s conclusion. However, all we needed to get the diagnosis was 3 yes’s from them and we did. We could now meet with the paediatrician for the last time, so e could sign off all the right paper work. It was just before Christmas that we meet with the paediatrician again and finally got Michael’s diagnosis on paper. It was with mixed emotions that we walked out of his office. It was not a surprise to us at all. We knew in our hearts what the letter would say, but to actually get handed the note and reading it made it ALL so real. It took a while to adjust to the news, but life went on, so we had to as well.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:31:28 +0000
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