So it's been pretty hectic around here since school started at the end of August. I started a new job, working for a non-profit assisted living facility for adults with developmental disabilities. It's been a learning experience, that's for sure, but I am enjoying myself a great deal. Even with the fairly consistent overtime, I don't have near the same level of stress that I had been experiencing for the first part of this year. It's good to be serving people and making a difference.
Aleric is making massive progress this year! His vocabulary continues to grow, he is engaging more and more in short conversation (2-3 exchanges) before going off to do his thing. He has stopped fighting us on doing his homework; in fact, this week has been the best week yet for homework! He usually has to write a certain letter each week, and this week was "I." He also had to fill in the missing capital and lowercase letters in the alphabet. Typically, we have to fight with him to get him to write his letters at all, and doing anything in alphabetical order has been a nightmare. This week, he was excited, and kept telling me "the letter I." We got through one line of lowercase Is and started the second line when he turned to the alphabet page. Since he wanted to do that part, we started going through the alphabet, with him giving me the next letter in line and writing the capital version. The phone rang, so I had to answer it, and while I was talking, Olivia stepped in to help him out! Totally unasked for! :D She was giving him the sound of the letter, and he would say the name and write it. They finished all of the capital letters together. When they finished that, I told him he had done enough homework for the day, so he was done. He looked at me, then at her, and said "Olivia, you help me?!" and they started the lowercase letters. It was so freaking amazing!! They only got a few of the lowercase letters done before she got frustrated with him and asked me if she could just do it for him. Figured it was time to stop for the night. The next night, he got his homework out and finished all of the lowercase letters AND 6 lines of I writing, without any prompting at all! I even tried to get him to take a break, worrying he'd be overstimulated, but he was just fine. He did it all without any help, too. I'm so proud of him.
I sent in a request before school started to have them evaluate Olivia. They agreed to do observations for a month to get a feel for her and see where we needed to go from there. We were also referred to a pediatric neurologist because she was eating plastic and rubber; we were concerned about pica issues. I spoke to her teacher a few times informally, and she said she had some tendencies of autism (her teacher used to teach PPCD, so she's very familiar with autism), but didn't seem to have too many issues right now. The speech teacher, as well, said she noticed some quirky things about her.
When we went to see the neurologist, she observed Olivia for an hour and a half while talking to me and Ian, and determined that there was sufficient cause for concern on a possible autism diagnosis, if not an anxiety disorder of some kind. She noticed Olivia was very fidgety and anxious. She wanted to see what the school said about testing before deciding what to do from there. We met with the school the next week, and all of a sudden, there were absolutely no concerns about Olivia, she was a perfectly normal 1st grader, and testing was being denied. One of their examples of her "normal behavior" was in P.E. when they were playing an alphabet game. While the rest of the kids (three classes of 1st graders) were running around the gym in chaos, my daughter had taken control of her group and delegated which letter was next, who was going to get it, where it went, etc etc. While that's wonderful and I'm excited she was able to do that, THAT IS NOT NORMAL 1ST GRADE BEHAVIOR!! What the hell?!? I went back to the neurologist, who referred us to a child psychologist for further testing.
Now, to back up a bit, when we met with the neurologist, I got the whole "you don't look like you have Asperger's" speech. I had to spend almost as much time trying to explain to her how and why I got diagnosed as I did explaining my concerns about Olivia. I ended up taking her a copy of my diagnosis report to end the discussion. I went to do the parent interview with the psychologist this week; the exact same thing happened! She didn't want to talk about Olivia, she wanted to talk about me! It was like being back in Dr Hoke's office, trying to convince him to just do the testing because I already knew that was the issue. She even told me when I came back with Olivia in JANUARY (?!?!?) for testing, she wanted me to bring her a list of examples of what made me think I have Asperger's, because she just didn't buy it. She also wanted to see the diagnosis report from Dr. Hoke. Can do.
I'm tired of having to justify myself and explain to other people how I experience life, and have them doubt and question me the whole time. I may not be classic Asperger's, but I do have a diagnosis, and it is RIGHT. In fact, since I've received my diagnosis, such a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I'm not nearly as anxious as I used to be because I know WHY I react to things like I do. I have a better understanding of myself, and I'm not constantly trying to pretend I'm someone else so I "fit in," even though I never do. I have a job where my bosses completely understand the variables of autism, and when I say there's a limit to what I can handle in certain situations (like being unable to handle the social stress and lack of downtime in an 8-4 shift, which is why I won't work them), there's no arguing or questioning about it. They get it, and they work with me. I know I don't present typically, but most females, as I understand it, don't. We get written off with social anxiety, ADD or OCD. This psychologist even suggested that I really don't have Asperger's, I have ADD and a little OCD, even though I told her we did the Brown testing for ADD and OCD, and they came back negative.
It's incredibly frustrating and painful to have to constantly defend yourself from people who look at you with preconceived beliefs about your "perceived" issues and think they know better than you do how your mind works and how you feel. I already went through all of this crap with Dr Hoke, just trying to get diagnosed. He did the same thing, and I had to argue with him to do the tests. They came back as a surprise to him, but not to me. I knew I was right as soon as I started looking at Asperger's. I'll bring her the report, but that's going to be the end of the discussion about me with her. I'm worried about Olivia; my focus is on making sure we are aware of any issues that may be there. She was also very critical of the school diagnosis process, and I wonder if I bring Ricky to her, if she'll question his diagnosis and insist on doing testing all over again on her own. She can do it at her own expense. I have his scores and everything, and that's good enough for me.
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