Aiden had his assessment with the behavioral psychologist yesterday. The doctor went through our own personal history, Aiden's health history, daycare history, etc. Then Russ and E went into the waiting room, while I observed Aiden interact with the doctor. He used Connect Four to get him engaged and get him talking. Aiden quickly lost interest and the doctor took out a playhouse for them to play with. Again, Aiden quickly lost interest when he saw a Sesame Street game. This went on like this with every activity. which didn't surprise me.
Russ and I still have more assessment forms to fill out and mail back. The doctor is going to call my mother since she is the daycare provider, and then we have a call next Thursday evening to hear his report.
His initial feelings- he feels Aiden is very speech delayed and he is concerned about him going into preschool without anyone giving him one-on-one time.
My mind is swimming with thoughts, and I already feel drained. What does this all mean??? I know we are doing the right thing so I am not questioning that---just wondering what else will be determined and how we go from here.
It was interesting because the doctor asked us what we wanted out of this evaluation. We told him we were not sure what we could get out of it but we wanted to know why our child isn't motivated to learn how to talk, why he isn't motivated by any stimuli to change his behavior using both negative reinforcements or positive reinforcements. Why does our child not like to play?
I am anxious to hear his thoughts...
4 comments:
Hopefully, the doctor will have some answers for you!
taking a deep breath for you....
I will be interested what the reports/results say...
And just so you know... Stephen was 4 when he started preschool -- only had one year of it, and only 3 mornings a week, and it has made a big difference. Don't feel like you HAVE to send him next year...
It is a pretty stressful process, and the not knowing was the worst part for me. No matter what you question everything and that is just natural, because you are caring and involved parents. Taking things one step at a time. I'm not sure if a developmental eval is in the works but that can give you an overall sense of where to go from there. My piece of advice with those awful questionnaires is read them before you fill them out to find out what they are asking you. I had no clue if Eden initiated conversations and playing with peers along with a bunch of other things. I just assumed she did because I hadn't had her around peers. I know a bunch of other questions I didn't know the answer too either and knowing the answers probably would have saved us a lot of headache. You are doing the best you can as parents. I questioned my self all the time before and after Edens diagnosis. Most of the times delays have nothing to do with your parenting or "lack of" doing something. And if these results don't give you the answers you need make sure you know that it isn't the end all. Evals are a snapshot in a rigid "test" environment with a person that doesn't know your child from the next one. If you need anything just ask I can give advice to help you through the process. Just don't give up.
It sounds like you are in the process of getting a diagnosis. This is so scary but I promise there is life after that, whatever it is.
I sent my son to preschool as soon as he was potty trained, at 2.5 years. He was still pretty much non-verbal then, had yet to learn how to wave/say hi or goodbye and even come to us when we called his name, but somehow managed to swim along quite well.
Often the best help for a speech delayed child are other regularly developing peers.
It took about 9 months before results but they slowly started to come in, and while it's been an uphill battle ever since I'm very glad we made that move.
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