Two posts in one day, yes I know, I'm on a roll. I need to write or I just might eat more chocolate!
Once we knew what therapy Liam needed, we were assigned a developmental therapist through our state’s Early Intervention Program. Since the wait lists were long in the speech and occupational therapies, she was going to kind of cover all areas until we were assigned one. S (I’ll just call her that, for privacy reasons) began with Liam right away. He was apprehensive at first, but he warmed up to her soon. And still to this day, every week, he’s usually happy to see her. Liam didn’t (and still really doesn’t) know how to engage in age appropriate play. He doesn’t know how to stack blocks, put together a puzzle, simple things that you might take for granted in your children. He has poor hand grasp which can affect his ability to hold things, such as a spoon or a writing utensil. These are all skills she works on with him. When she began with him, he was incredibly unorganized. He was unable to sit on her lap, he was unable to hold a puzzle piece, simply because he could not and did not want to focus on it. He’d often run in circles or spin after she had him perform an activity, and fight her to finish one. Although we have seen A LOT of improvement on this, this is still one of Liam’s biggest challenges. Liam’s only true skill is movement, anything else is a challenge, one he generally avoids.
We were soon assigned an occupational therapist, M. She spent most of her session swinging Liam, throwing him, spinning him. She called him her “vestibular boy.” If you have no idea what the word vestibular means, I sure didn’t, click here. To sum it up as briefly and as simple as possible, in order for Liam to have the ability to focus on skills that he needs to learn, (like stacking blocks, ect) he needs to have the proper “input” Without it, he is unorganized, and cannot focus, because he is too busy trying to find the “input.” He is very easily overwhelmed, and unlike most of us who can organize ourselves, Liam cannot. His system is in chaos. Think of how you feel in Walmart on Black Friday. Can you imagine being asked to learn a new skill in the middle of the store on Black Friday? You’d want to, quit bluntly, get the hell out! Confusing? Yes. I still get confused when trying to explain it to people, and please, if I don’t make sense, ask me anything! I’m kind of getting ahead of myself, but these are the kinds of things an occupational therapist works on with Liam. Trying to help him learn to reach a happy level, where he isn’t underwhelmed or overwhelmed, so that he can learn how to play appropriately and learn life skills he should have at this point. This could even include speaking.
In the spring of 2013, we were still without a speech therapist. Keep in mind, we also still thought Liam could not hear. He still didn’t respond to loud noises, or his name when called. He had failed 3 sound booth tests here, and we were soon referred to Madison for an ABR, which is basically a sedated hearing test where the measure the brain waves in response to sounds while he sleeps. This is the most accurate way to learn if a child can hear. I started doing my research on hearing aides, and how to get a little boy to keep them in. Somewhere in my heart, I knew Liam could hear. But I was still praying he couldn’t. If he couldn’t hear, we could “fix” that. We could give him the ability to hear better in something possibly as simple as a hearing aide. Seeing him sedated for the test was very difficult, and we were given our results right away. Liam could hear. I was devastated. In fact, I went to the bathroom and cried. Because I knew what it meant, I knew it meant the alternative, autism. I have a background in education, I know what autism can look like. We were then told we should probably schedule an evaluation with a child psychologist for exploration of sensory disorders.
For the record, I know that I might write as if autism is a death sentence. And let me tell you, at the time, that’s what it felt like. My feelings on Liam’s diagnosis have changed over time. I still struggle with this disorder, I still grieve. Grieve over the struggles Liam will face, that we will face as a family. But I also know that autism can lead to extraordinary things. And I think my boy will lead an extraordinary life, and that might even be partly because of his autism. Liam can’t talk now, but I truly believe he does have a lot to say, and when he says it, watch out because it’s going to be amazing! I do believe he can see things different than I can, and I do believe that he is probably smarter than me.. and maybe even all of us...
To be continued..
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