- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Special Needs
new2011mommy
member
Evaluation Question
new2011mommy
member
I am new to this board and was looking for some advice. At my son's 3 year appointment last spring, his pediatrician was concerned with his speech. She felt his expressive language was poor and he shows signs of echolalia. She recommended an evaluation through the school system. The evaluation started in May and ended in June. The school told me he was borderline to average on expressive language and below average on receptive. They said his echolalia was due to the receptive delay and was his way of communicating when he does not understand a question. They would not offer services and said call back in the fall if you are concerned. I luckily have speech coverage through our insurance so I brought him for a speech evaluation through a private therapist. She had the same findings as the school in terms of his expressive and receptive delay and recommended weekly appointments for an hour. He has been going since July and the therapist felt he was very busy and cannot focus on small tasks. She recommended an OT evaluation.
The OT said he is a sensory seeker. He likes to flip light switches. They noticed he is calmer after playing in the ball pit, on the swing, or in the sand table. For the past month, he has been seeing an OT and speech therapist weekly. Yesterday the OT and speech therapist came to me with concerns. I have been reading about autism and had concerns of my own that I wanted to talk to them about to see if they agreed or if I was reading too much online and making myself nervous. DS does not show any of the early signs of autism, but he is showing some of the later signs.
He just recently began to flap his arms when crying.
The therapists say when they give him a more difficult task, he has been drooling. He does not do this at home.
He seeks sensory input.
He spins wheels on toys and is obsessed with cars.
The therapists say he always plays with toys the same way and never in a new way. They feel he does not know how to play. He does have some imaginative play at home and will pretend Mickey Mouse is over and will have a conversation. He also likes to play with his sister's picnic basket and make a picnic for us to have.
He can be inflexible with new routines and throws temper tantrums.
He likes to line up his toys and gets very upset if his little sister messes up the line.
He is does not listen and can be hard to control unless we are doing an activity he wants to do.
He has a large vocabulary, but the speech therapist feels he is not applying the speech and knows and is instead copying words or phrases he has heard.
He makes eye contact, but will lower his eyes away from me.
He gets too close to kids, especially those we do not know. He is making kids nervous by getting in their faces to talk. The other day he yelled in a boy's face because the boy shied away and he yelled "say hi: to the boy. I tell him he needs to stand back and some kids are shy and may not want to say hi, but I feel he does not understand me. It is hard to know if it is because of the receptive delay or another issue. He will also go up to strangers in a store and start a conversation. I am tell him he cannot do this and to stay with mommy and daddy, but he is not listening.
I spoke to our pedi last night, who suggested a full evaluation and gave me the names to two hospitals in our area who handle them. I am waiting for the packets to come to fill out and they said it will take 6-12 months for a call. I also do not have insurance coverage for behavioral therapy or behavioral analogy per my insurance company. I do have coverage for OT and speech with a $30 week copay. I also just called the public school again to request another evaluation and am waiting for a call back. Are there any other recommendations for what I can do now instead of waiting so long for the private evaluation? I want to have him check for autism and a sensory processing disorder. He is currently in preschool twice a week and they also have a hard time getting him to sit for activities.
Thank you for reading this and for any advice. I am just brand new at this and want to get my son any help he needs as quickly as possible.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Evaluation Question
Thank you everyone for your advice. I do not know anyone with a diagnosis for Autism so it is nice to talk to people to have gone through this process. I am just feeling overwhelmed and nervous. I also hate waiting and want to know now so we can get him any additional help he needs.
@hopecounts- I am going to check into the ABA or RDI providers. I did find an ABA about an hour away so I am going to keep looking to see if I can find one closer. I also called the school system and am waiting for them to call to schedule the evaluation. The last time I did this, it took about a month to get everything started.
@kitchencolors- thank you. We have open enrollment next month at my DH's company so we are waiting to find out the differences between the plans being offered to see if we upgrade our plan, if the services DS may need will be covered.
@AA0417- The stranger danger sense really worries me because he will go up to anyone. He also has no fear and will run from us in a store. He tried to let go of my hand and run into the street the other day. DH and I explain the dangers of going into the street, but he will ask if he can go into the street.I feel that he does not understand the dangers. The OT also noticed how in the big OT room, if he is engrossed in an activity, he does not respond to his name. Now that you mention his imaginitive play, I am wondering if it is because he has copied how I play with him or what he has seen his friends do. Now that I am aware of this, I am going to watch him more closely with how he plays and document all these concerns for when I finally have the evaluation.
-auntie- Thank you for the advice. I am going to schedule with both and hope to get on a waiting list and will go with the quickest date.
I am so confused on the school evaluation. When I did contact them last spring and mentioned autism, they said they do not screen for that, but would let me know if they see any red flags. The results were that DS was fine congnitively. I did have a mom tell me her son was denied services and she had to request a full evaluation and then he qualified. I am going to request the full evaluation, but I am still not sure if it will cover autism. My insurance company also said to contact my school department when I was asking about coverage this morning so I am wondering if the school should screen for autism?
Thank you for letting me know about the waiver and scholarship. If he does get an autism diagnosis, I will definately check into this.
It may be just semantics. What you're asking the school district to evaluate is for any behavioral or developmental delays. They cannot diagnose "autism" per se, as that is a medical diagnosis. When DS was screened (when he was 19 months) the official reason for him qualifying for services was a number of social and pragmatic delays, speech delays, sensory delays. He was put under the umbrella of "at-risk for autism" so that he could be serviced by the district's autism program. I'm in a large district that has a robust autism program; yours may be set up differently.
When DS was first "diagnosed" by the school district, they recommended we look into private services. I called our insurance company and asked if they covered services for children with autism. The written reply was "no, we do not." Nothing more. Like a dummy, I believed them. It took me six months to realize I had to ask differently. I asked again, "what is my coverage for speech delay or occupational therapy"- turns out they cover 3 hours a week for this. They just don't cover services that are strictly "autism" related like ABA. DS has autism, primarily, but it boils down to speech, OT, social skills, and as he got older, psych services. At age 3 I had him eval'ed privately by a developmental pedi (covered by insurance) where we got our official ASD diagnosis. For us, it didn't change anything, because our school district was already on board.
MirandaHobbes Thank you for clarifying for me. Your explanation was a huge help. My current insurance is currently covering DS's weekly speech and OT. I will becareful with the wording I use when I speak with the school. I am thinking I will need both evalutations, the shool board so he can get services while in school and the medical one for his offical diagnosis.
Just wanted to offer a high five to you. You really seems to have your ducks in a row and are doing all the right things to get your kiddo help. Good job Momma!