aka R’acquel

Despite a very shaky beginning with the paediatrician upsetting us a few weeks ago, the progress of our son’s screening for Autism Spectrum Disorder has gone remarkably well.

Our first appointment with the Child Development team was in early January with the Social Worker, who spent a good hour collecting information from us about our history. It was fantastic, no trouble talking at all. I really appreciated how thorough it was.

We recently had our second appointment on Jan 16, where our son was reviewed by the psychologist & occupational therapist (OT). I was really impressed, it was just as thorough and they worked together with our son well. The initial feedback confirmed out thoughts. Our son is a very atypical case. While he has many qualities/skills that would rule out Autism, there are signs of ASD present. We had another early education specialist visit our home on the day to discuss strategies and has kindly offered to help us with the transition process if needed.

The psychologist made a home visit yesterday, and we went through another intensive autism screening questionnaire which was about 1.5hours long. The structure of the questions was really good in showing this pattern of illustrating our son’s strengths that would otherwise deem “obviously no problem there!” and the other instances of “yes – this is precisely one of the specific ‘quirks’ we’re dealing with.” The psychologist was really fantastic to talk to. She has a good sense of humour and is obviously very skilled in her field of work within this specialisation.

We also learnt that the school has already gone the extra mile with organising support for day one of school already, that they’ve got everything under control and are well prepared. This has taken a great burden off us due to the timing of this screening being so unnervingly close to the start of school. It has freed us from needing to refer to the former paediatrician we were not happy with to get things officially signed off. This means we can relax and take our time with having things followed up with another recommended paediatrician, Dr.Fletcher at Katoomba hospital – where we’re people have said that we’re likely to get along with him ok.

The incredible support we’ve received from so many to make sure that Aidan’s first day at school is as positive as possible has been overwhelming. I had so much trouble calming down yesterday because we’re not used to other people taking care of things like this. We’re not accustomed to others who pay as much attention to things as we do with the things in our lives. The treatment I had by hospital staff during pregnancy & childbirth was horrific so this has felt like a light at the end of a very long tunnel. Perhaps karma has begun to pay the hardly earnt dividends.

It’s been an extraordinary round of luck for us, but it’s sad that it’s reliant on ‘luck’ as opposed to critical services like these being in easy reach of anyone who needs them. The CDT is heavily under-resourced & under-funded. If my husband had not make a big stand and if we didn’t have the support of the school also pressing this matter for urgent attention as well – this review by the CDT would have never happened so soon for our son.

My son gets more closely reviewed by the OT next week and the speech pathologist after that.

Things are looking good. Counting our lucky stars, for now