Hi guys. I've been offline for a while. In the past few weeks the ball has started rolling though.
Bri had her OT assessment done 2 weeks ago. I go in on Monday for the findings of the assessment & what she thinks will be helpful. After the appointment she said there were no signs she could see of aspergers (I suggested it after reading a few things & just thought some of it might fit, expecting it to be wrong anyway). But she said that Bri has a lot of sensory issues going on, definite ADD & possible ADHD.
She referred us to the mental health unit for helping us deal with all the kids & also redflagged Jesse (DS - 3) for early childhood intervention, just from seeing him while we were in the waiting room.
We had an optometrist appointment, to get the visual processing assessment done. She was prescribed glasses for longsightedness (just temporary to help her process things that little bit quicker) & when she has them we'll have the assessment.
Her Auditory assessment is on Thursday next week.
I've spoken to the MCHN since & she's told me about the Enhanced Primary care program we could be put on, so we don't have to pay for Bri's assessments & gave us more info on early childhood intervention. (My MCHN is a LEGEND!!) She's also referred us to the Brighter Futures program through DoCS which is also to help us learn to deal with the issues we have every day.
Sorry I have no idea whats happening, but I will catch up when I have the time. House inspection this arvo & trying to keep up with the kids til then is just loads of fun.
I'm a mixed bag of emotions when it comes to all this. Relief & guilt at the same time. Glad I'm onto all this now though & can get the kids help early on
Promise I'll come back to see how things are with everyone.
ETA - my DH thinks its all a load of bull too. But he's not here, so I don't care. He's not dealing with Jesse's tantrum after tantrum all day long.
Ugh, Im lurking but Dh is overseas, we just moved interstate and I am frazzled.
We're having a massive drama with the FAHCSIA funding so Ds2 has been out of Speech for 4 weeks and Im def noticing a change. Luckily the therapy service Autism QLD put me onto has worked out a way to treat him while the funding is getting sorted so I dont have to pay oodles out of pocket. He has his OT assessment tomorrow for 2 hours then the speechie will pop in to say hello and sort out a time to see him.
Im starting to wonder if they misdiagnosed him, and he should be HFA instead of Aspergers. Will see what the OT thinks tomorrow. Either way I suppose it doesnt matter in the end.
Sorry you are having such a bad time of it lately Freya.
For those who might be interested, I've made up a folder on my mobile me to store and share autism and sensory information. It can be found here: https://public.me.com/starbuns
Hi, I am not sure that I should be posting here yet but I have a question ...
I have been concerned about DS1's behaviour for a while, he's only just turned three, so I have really just been waiting to see if he grows out of it. He actually seems to be growing into a lot of his behaviours if that makes sense - the older he is getting, the more melt downs he is having, the more he seems to be ignoring me, the more noises he seems to be getting distressed by etc.
I think I need to take him to see a GP. His behaviours have become so stressful that I am not coping very well and I think I need some support or at least some strategies because I don't feel like I am doing a great job at the moment. Is that where I start ... by taking him to a GP?
Also, I want to write down everything - my current concerns and a bit of a timeline of his behaviours and milestones so that I don't forget anything because I never remember half of what I want to say to the doctor when I get there and as soon as he looks at me like I am overreacting, I back down for fear of sounding like an unreasonable over the top parent. If I write it down and know what my concerns are before I go, I think I have a better chance of getting further help. Besides writing the timeline of his milestones and other behaviours, and a list of my current concerns, is there anything else that would be useful for me to write down?
I spent yesterday afternoon looking at Youtube videos of other toddlers diagnosed with Apsergers. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but I was shocked to realise how many of DS1's behaviours, that I just put down to him being excited, were actually self stimulating. Some of the videos I looked at were like carbon copies of my DS ... I can't believe how similar all of their movements were. That, on top of the other behaviours makes me think he needs some extra assistance and so do I.
He starts pre-prep next year and I am worried that if he doesn't get the support and there are not specific strategies that we are using, he will have some really bad experiences when he starts. He is with me all of the time and I have worked out how to work with him and work him through his meltdowns, but I am worried that other people will push his buttons or ignore him which doesn't fix anything. It just makes him fly into a rage where he can hurt himself or other people.
So any suggestions about who I should see and what I should write down before I go, would be appreciated. Thanks
My son has regressive autism too and we noticed him getting worse and worse. We've moved him to a GFCF diet and we've seen improvement. We've started seeing a naturopath to guide us with blood tests and supplements for the moment but we plan to start the GAPS diet within the next few months. I'm pretty convinced by everything I read that his regressive autism has been caused by a biochemical imbalance in his dietary system. This might seem a bit off course for what you're looking at now but I'd start reading into it if I were you.
We've been doing the diagnosis/treatment thing in the states so I can't help you there. But generally you'll want to get into speech and OT asap.
I hope that helps. All the best for you and your son
I had come across a little bit of info on the dietary stuff while I was looking into behaviours associated with Aspergers. Thanks for that info, I think I might go and have a look at some of the dietary stuff. Have you done dietary stuff with him? Did you follow a plan? Did you find any links between diet and behaviour?
We went GFCF with no real prep or knowledge and after 2 weeks of him barely eating anything and us not really noticing anything we gave him all his gluten and dairy foods again. Then, woah! He was terrible. It felt like he was looking with blurry eyes. You could tell he was disconnected and dazed. He didn't talk, he head butted more and by the end of a couple of weeks he was really sick and constipated.
We went back to GFCF. Had a couple of awful, awful days of die off and then he started to clear up. He had a language explosion at that point and over the the following month he learnt heaps. He started calling us Mummy and Daddy for the first time ever.
Since then he's slowly learnt more but mostly plateaued and had some periods of regression. The recent regressions I have learnt are because he's tired as we just found out he has glandular fever (terrible timing- he's got learning to do!).
I've been learning more and I now understand the chemistry of why GFCF helps some children, and why healing the gut is important. So we're going to get into the GAPS diet. I'll be doing more prep for that as it involves a complete overhaul of our diet and we can't have one off day while his gut is healing or it'll ruin what we've started so I need to be ready to cook all that food. I just bought the book so I'm working through that, will start trying the recipes and making the necessary things from scratch. I hope it works!!
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