I think we're getting somewhere!! !

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I've been absorbing as much information as I possibly can to help my efforts in helping my son, today we had our intake interview with UNC's TEACCH program, it went VERY well. She told me to keep reading as much as I can on ASDs and to keep doing what I'm doing to help my son. She said that he definitely qualifies for evaluation, and that it definitely sounds like he's on the spectrum. This is the first time a medical/educational professional has been willing to listen to me fully in nearly 7 years about my concerns for my son. I have never been happier than I am right now, because this means that he will get much needed services. They do have a contract with our school district, so as soon as I can get the Special Education director on the phone and have her send them the referral, Kyle will also be put at the top of the waiting list for evaluation. Things are finally looking up. Because our school district has a contract with this program, it also means that they use their recommendations for services on the IEP. Kyle will get a REAL education, and services that will greatly help him get past the worst of the hurdles in school and in life.

Woot!

I can hear the excitement - and relief - in your post. I am so glad you are now on a solid road and feeling good about it!

My excitement was very quickly turned into disappointment when I talked to the Special Education director, she won't even consider it, I have to request assessment from the school in writing, at the end of August, then wait 9 weeks for them to do their assessment before they will even consider if he qualifies for the real evaluation. Since the school has consistently told me that they don't see a "problem", and have been trying to get out of giving him any services at all for 4 years, I do believe we will be waiting the entire 18 months of waitlist time to get him evaluated. There is a definite light at the end of the tunnel, but it is a VERY long tunnel, again...

Sorry to hear that, but just keep up the good work with your son! Good luck with it all!

Ohhhh, grrrrr.

Being a parent is so insanely full of ups and downs it's amazing we still have any minds left.

I hope it gets settled out soon. Don't give up.

I am so sorry!! !! !! !

I'm frustrated for you.

What the ......?

Is your son doing OK? Do you have a homeschool resource center in your district? Any chance of using that, homeschooling while your district
gets it together?

For it being summer vacation, and us spending the first 3 weeks of it visiting family, Kyle has been doing exceptionally well, he only had 2 tantrums in the 3 weeks we were gone, and he was easily redirected with his DS. We've been home 3 days, and it's been 3 days of tantrums, he's actually in the ER with his dad right now, because when he decided that he was going to "run away" earlier, he climbed on his little sister's tricycle to get to the chain on the door and fell and hurt himself. I don't think it's a very serious injury, but he was saying that his heart hurt, which means that he did some kind of damage to his chest, and we don't take any chances, I'm fairly certain it's just some bad bruising.

As for homeschooling resources, we live on a military base and don't have many options for help in that area, and I don't know that he would do very well with it, he needs the structure that the school has to offer. I'm not very good at keeping things structured, so he spends a lot of his time at home worried about what we're doing every minute of the day. During summer break, we spend a lot of time swimming and playing at the playground, as well as letting him play his video games, so that he feels that there is some structure to his days, but he completely dictates the schedule, he just has to know what we are doing every day, so that he can plan how the day will go. He's only 6 years old, and I used to worry about this trait, but I've learned to love it, because as disorganized and unstructured as I am, he helps me stay organized and structured.

it may be worth looking into other avenues for diagnosis if they are trying to play those games with you. we waited for 5 months for the school eval we requested, then got fed up and had it done through the medical community. for us, it was covered by insurance and all we had to do was call around and find a psychologist who accepted our insurance and could do the evaulation for autism. the eval can be done by some psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, or neurologists and a lot of insurances will cover it. in our case, within 4 weeks of starting to call psych clinics, we had a report and an official diagnosis of aspergers for our son.

once you have that medical diagnosis, it may help push through services at the school level.

Tri-Care will pay for a Psychologist to do a full workup. I don't think we even had a co-pay and she did a very thorough assessment (we may have hit our max for the year when it was done). They have also paid for a psychiatrist to treat co-moribund conditions and are currently paying for Eldest son's stay in a psych hospital, but there may be a hefty co-pay. Call your primary care person and get a referral. They may have you come in to the clinic for a pediatrician to see him and do the referral but they should do it.

Tricare does pay for psych on a self referral basis, we are seeing a neurologist already for the epilepsy, and we are already on the wait list for UNC's autism eval program, as well as on the wait list for our hospital's developmental pediatrics. Asking the school for help with eval, was just to shorten the wait for UNC's eval, because they have the best program around here, and there are no fights with Tricare, because it is a free program. I have to call the evaluator back and ask her about the contract they have with the school, because the school is trying to tell me it's about funding, and I was under the impression that it was free even through the contract with the schools. I do have a psychiatrist that I have to call and set up an appointment with, but she has called me and told me before that if I ever need help to call her, and her questions when we were seeing her a year ago were geared toward an autism eval. I will be calling her tomorrow, I have been trying to call her all week, but I have had Kyle at appointments all day every day, even tomorrow, then my NT 4 year old has to go in for immunizations and school registration on Thursday, so as I say I'm making that call tomorrow, I may not be able to until Friday, but I will get that call made.