Where do I start… I guess from the beginning.
Back when Owen was 18 months old, his behavior was just awful and very uncharacteristic for a child his age. We took him to the doctor and were told he was hitting his terrible twos early. OK – we can deal with that.
As the months and years went on we saw more evidence that there might be something wrong with Owen, but again, we just chalked it up to a phase he was going through.
Once he entered preschool when Mike went back to work, he had a hard time in the classroom. At first we thought it might be a transition from home to school issue, but we gave him enough time to become assimilated and the problems got worse, not better.
Back in the summer of 2010, we had a conference with Owen’s teacher and told her our thoughts/observations and she had the same concerns. In fact, she was going to talk to us about it during that meeting, we just beat her to the punch. She put us in touch with the local IU and we started the evaluation process on Owen (well, we wanted to start then, but do to their back log he wasn’t seen until Feb 2011).
Right away the professionals at the IU saw what we were seeing. It was reassuring to know that we weren’t imagining this and that indeed our son needed help. They identified the areas he needed support in, mostly with social integration, sensory issues and pragmatic language. The IU wasn’t authorized to make an official diagnosis, but they developed an IEP and started their services with Owen over the summer.
Then, Kindergarten started. Owen was so excited to be going to real school. We got him re-evaluated through the district, updated his IEP and he stared to receive services through the school – OT, Sensory Room breaks, and speech therapy for help with his pragmatic language. His IEP is good through December of 2012, but to make sure he gets the more focused attention he needed, Mike and I would have to get him an official diagnosis to put him in the “priority” case load.
The first half of the school year went fairly well. A few bumps in the road, but overall, better than I anticipated. After Christmas break though, his world at school took a 180. In his class they have a color coded behavior system: Green, Yellow and Red. He started coming home with more yellows than greens and he even had his first red day. I don’t know what triggered it, but his behavior and his inability to follow directions were huge distractions and problems for him, his teacher, and his classmates. We were getting weekly emails from his teacher, frequent behavioral incident reports from the principal, etc. School was getting to be very hard for Owen emotionally. He lost his love and gusto for reading, he lost his excitement about going to school, and he was overall just really down on himself.
As soon as we saw the drastic changes happening at home too, we knew we had to get a therapist involved sooner rather than later. We scheduled an appointment with a very highly recommended psychologist and got the ball rolling. Miss Melinda has been a god send and after spending a good deal of time with Owen over multiple visits, we were FINALLY able to get the official diagnosis we had been waiting years for. Owen is a classic case of Asperger’s – an Autism Spectrum Disorder. To some parents, this would be devastating, but to us, it was like a weight had been lifted off our shoulders. We now had a starting point. We finally knew what we were dealing with.
With all disorders like this, there is no quick fix. It will take time, a lot of time, but we are seeing baby step improvements. He is back to having more green days than yellow and the support his is getting from his teacher and support specialist in the sensory room is helping. It really is.
Proof of that was last Thursday night when his school had their Open House. All the kids in the school put on a performance, “Seussical the Musical”. To see him up on the risers signing the songs he was taught in music class and doing the little hand motions that went along with it was awesome. He was also very eager to take us to his classroom to show us all the projects he has worked on all year long. He was enjoying himself. He was proud of himself. And most importantly, he looked HAPPY to be at school for once. My eyes welled up with tears. It was such a proud Mommy moment and it gave me hope that we can help Owen overcome and manage the effects of Asperger’s.
Now, he still has his bad days, but that is expected. There are some days when I feel like Asperger’s is going to get the best of me too because it can be a lot to deal with from the perspective of a parent. But, on those bad days, I now have this happy moment to look back on and to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel – that we are doing the right thing. We just gotta keep doing what we’re doing, take it one day at a time, and continue to love and support our Owen with all we have.









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