Today I helped a family, the first one I've helped who I have never met before, on the road to getting their son an ASD assessment and possibly a diagnosis. It was pretty clear to me, given the characteristics the mum described, that there was enough there to warrant a full assessment. In the past she has been told he cannot be ASD because he uses eye-contact. A speech pathologist's observation was that he didn't have ASD because he had good language, although she noted that he talked excessively fast. A paediatrician said his motor clumsiness was due to a ligament disorder only. Another paediatrician said there was nothing to warrant a full investigation.
Thankfully, this boy's new special education teacher is a Uni pal/fellow parent friend of mine and being good at her job and knowing what she's doing, she sent this family my way to put them on the right track. They have a good GP who organised the speech and OT observations and who has tried to help them. They have since seen another paediatrician, my boys' paediatrician whom we've been seeing for nearly 6 years and we love. He couldn't understand that if the GP has questioned the possibility of ASD, why hasn't he been assessed. Unfortunately, he was seeing the boy for another issue and the family didn't know enough to ask him for help.
Naturally, I have told them to go back and see him once all the various assessments I have sent them for, get done. These are full assessments, not just observations. But my point about all of this is that, professionals, even those who work in the field of ASD, sometimes talk plop! I heard about another psychologist who refused to diagnose a child with ASD because they were too social! My boys are very social. Are they very good at it? No! They try, bless them, but they don't always get it right. And that is the essential quality of ASD. A child may try to communicate or socialise and may do it a lot. But if they can't do it well, then you have reason to be concerned. And the thought that a child only has ASD if they don't use eye-contact belongs in the ground with the fossil spouting such rubbish.
This young boy I saw, eyed me up and down, very wary of me. His Mum was trying to get him to come to me so I could check him out and I told her not to fret, he'd come over in his own time. When he did, it wasn't to talk to me but to show his Mum the books he wanted to borrow from the library we were in. I used a trick I've learned off Tony Attwood when he's bumped into Long Legs on various occasions. That is to see what the child is looking at and engage with them on it. This boy had books on Star Wars and war ships and I took on a member of Hi-5's persona and with over the top animation said Wow! Later on he came up behind me and handed me a crumpled up piece of paper which had his name and age on it. He finished the session off by telling his Mum 'can you hurry up and stop talking because she's (that's me!) annoying me now, she talks too much!' We were in the middle of a library. I didn't care. I still had his little note and I was feeling the love. Til tomorrow x
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