Aspergers/Autism/Sensory Integration Chatter #4

[Freya]

but the OT can help witht the sensory side of things, and also teach him ways to cope when he is wigging out. It's not just physical therapy - tell her to put that in her pipe and smoke it!

Thats what I thought. We've decided to continue with the OT avenue for now and see what they say after an assessment.

I must say I thanked my lucky stars he was his normal self as opposed to his my-mother-is-crazy-Im-an-angel self he was for his other paed appt. He played with 3 animal figurines and they spent the entire time we talked trying to kill each other with guns and knives. Pleasant listening Not to mention his usual 10000000 decibel volume. They could hear him out in the corridor.

[Lulu]

Hahahaha! Mitch threatened to cut the psychs head off on the second appt. They tend to show off at the first one...

[christy]

YEah.... OT's who specialise in Sensory Integration Disorder are more equipped than others. I have a friend who is an OT and who has said that she is no where near able to do what Matilda's OT does because she's not been trained in it and has no understanding of it, so I suppose different OT's have different understandings of things?

Yael, I have done the intensive weeks at swimming and they have been great. Not geared towards ASD kids, but great for holidays and having a routine.

Psych, Matilda refused to talk to the psych during her assessment. She just never spoke to her, had to have her assistant help her because M would go with her.

I need more wine....

[maz]

I think we've only seen the Psych once and he told her how to do her job and asked her VERY personal quesitons

I understand were your pead is comign from Anna but you know what shiats me about it..you now have to fork out the $$$$ and find the help when he could put it down and you could get the careers allowance to help fund the help and a healthcard card for R so you can get reduced fee's.

We've had the 'services' here who dont agree with our Pead that M is on the spectrum but they havent seen him in 4 months and he's getting worse. One of them rang me the other day and she couldnt believe it was him...yep he was screaming loud as hell and saying NO NO NO over and over whilst flappign his hands.
Ive gone from a tame W (in comparison) to a violent little monster....he headbutted me that hard yesterday a bite through my tongue ..*sigh* and then this morning he stands infront of me, tap's his bum and grunts whilst going red and goes''''ahhhhhhhh'''''. So Anna hun, I hear you and it drives me friggen batty!!

Thank go for sewing is all Ive gotta say...W just stayed up and watched Amazing medical stories on GEM becuase it had the young English man who Austic sophonet and draw's those fantastic buildings aroudn the world....he was totally captued by it. Our Pead has said that W is one but it was amazing to actually see someone who is.

[Early Kids]

We are trying to keep as much normality as possible until school starts, I personally wouldn't be enrolling in new things so soon before school.

We don't get carers for Brendan. Because he was prem his assessments are all based on corrected age, so even though he's delayed he's not *that* delayed when his age is corrected. (overall he fell just above the cut-off for a GDD diagnosis, if they had used his birth age he would have been diagnosed GDD then) It's so stupid and it really pees me off. We were told they wouldn't correct past 2, yet he's nearly 4. The whole prem crap is really starting to get to me now. I'm sick of hearing it, why should he be treated differently now. Sorry still angry with how things have gone down over the past few months.... good news is that if the school can't get funding for an aide they will fund one themselves for the first term. Being kindy he will only go for 2hr45min 4 times a week, so they shouldn't have too many issues *touch wood* once he has transitioned into it. We will be working on a plan for Brendan before school starts.

My main thing right now is getting Brendan in to an ENT to get his grommets done (and probably adenoids and tonsils too) he's been waiting 12 months already and is unlikely to be seen before June next year, despite having a mild/moderate hearing loss ion his left ear and a moderate/severe loss in the right, his overall permanent hearing loss is between 3-5% The system stinks all round and we simply cannot afford to go private

Best go to bed I suppose, have to try and get into the spirit of Christmas!!

[Freya]

We've already applied for carers allowance for his global speech delay but they knocked it back the first time, then the CL chick rang me and said she dodgied it to look like I forgot to submit forms so I could redo them. She basically said to tick all the worse boxes because he *just* missed out on the minimum points used to decide yay or nay and she felt we deserved to have it. That was 3wks ago and I havent heard anything since but my online CL says we receive it. We also got a health care card but apparently only certain providers apply the discount rates (and the paed and speechie arent one of them) so we are still out of pocket $$$. Ive got to ring them after christmas and light a fire under their butts. If they knock it back again Im going to scream. We're already noticing the tightness of our budget now we pay $130 a fortnight for the speech therapy and we're supposed to fork out more $$$ for a private OT *sigh* I wish the public wait list wasnt so long but even then we move so much we would have to start again in each state and he doesnt have that kind of time to wait.

Better go and dress, we have speech at 9am today. Its looking to be an awesome day (note: sarcasm) the kids are already walking the fine line between the naughty and nice list............

[christy]

Freya the assessment centre at the Royal Childrens @ Randwick have all the areas publically, you can ask for a referral to them? There is a wait, I'd imagine, but they do all the assessments, and will place him where he needs to go afterwards in the public system. HTH!

Mmmmmmm I woke up sick of course.... why not? Its been a fan-bloody-tastic week anyway *borrows Freya's sarcasm because I'm too cranky to get my own*