Abbreviations

So this journey of abbreviations of ours started just before the kids broke for Summer 2017 holidays. It is now Autumn 2018 as I compose this.

Sometime in Spring 2018, an acquaintance of mine, a fellow mother at The Big School, posted a video on her Facebook wall about parents who missed the early diagnosis of their children for autism and the video contained this uncanny flapping of the hands (stimming) which is one of the red flags or indicators of children with autism. It goes on to conclude that not all stimming is autism but it is better to screen and introduce early intervention, than not.

Something in me reactivated. 

I was supposed to follow up with Baby & Beyond for a screening appointment for Bean sometime in 2018. I had made that request in Summer 2017. We got on the wait list soon after Bean's class teachers at The Playschool had dropped the bomb on us during our exit meeting after we had served notice of leaving back in 2017 that they suspect he may be autistic. It was the wrong message at the wrong time with the wrong people and deserves its own post. They had him enrolled for 30 months and never once hinted or indicated to us that he may be on the spectrum so to funnel us to another business entity with common directors for occupational therapy sounded really sinister to us.

What happened after that exit meeting was instead of serving out the notice period of one term before Bean joined The Big School, we took him out immediately and had our deposit forfeited for short notice. I can tell you it was worth every cent forfeited.

When he joined The Big School, it was a smaller class with better teacher:student ratio. In fact, he improved so much that I decided it was fine for me to return to workforce.

Boy, was I wrong.

In the 6 months I was a working mum, Bean regressed, symptoms-wise. He started to stutter (something new), slept irregularly (something new), became more rigid (no one else is allowed to press the lift button including strangers), became more fixated (cars, superheroes) and became a picky eater (hard, crunchy food only, often leaving out fruits and vegetables).

I was in a fix. 

Coming back to the point of that random video on Facebook: I contacted the clinic again and was given a slot to bring Bean in and at that point, we had answered a few questionnaires, his primary carer and teacher at The Big School had given her input/observation and I had pretty much decided to quit my comeback career to give him my time and devotion.

The Summer of 2018 was the summer Bean did 3 rounds of assessments (1 for speech, 1 for child wellness and 1 child IQ/Puzzle/Cognitive). I put in hours to answer more questions and online global tests. Finally, all of these assessments were completed and a cohesive report for initial findings was published.

Bean is likely to be on the spectrum. "Mild ASD, HFA likely" may seem like abbreviations to you but oh it has opened up a world of new discoveries for us a family who loves Bean and working on our way to re-engage with him. 

To be honest, our plans and parenting styles had been Girl-centric before this. These abbreviations has been a game-changer as we seek to close the gaps, help Bean form neurons in social and behavioral aspects, seek out better schooling options and other early intervention measures. It has been a journey that brought new routines into our lives that included hippotherapy, social and play therapies and such.

Quite often, I recognize points of what had seemed so difficult in the past when dealing with Bean, now makes sense and I consciously put in more effort and empathy in being a better person to Bean.

I am so thankful for that video because it prompted me to act. 

So it is true, always trust your gut instincts as a mother.