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macchiatto
member
Back from devel. pedi eval
macchiatto
member
We finally had my son's long-awaited devel. pedi appt yesterday. It was a 5-hr eval with a devel. pedi and a school
psychologist. DH, Alex's EI, and I were all there too for the clinical interviews. The eval was good, I
think ... Alex was really cooperative through 4 straight hrs of assessments (which I'd been worried about!). We really didn't get much feedback yesterday, other than his Battell and Wechsler scores were fairly within the normal range ... though she commented even though his gross motor score was 3y1m--an 8-month delay--that there are issues with the quality of his movements. They want us to come back for an ADOS on 11/30 and they're also going to get the rest of
his medical records (the dev. pedi especially wanted more info on his seizure and EEG from when he was 22m) and go over those and score the rest of the assessments
they did today before giving us more feedback and results. I'm not sure
what other diagnoses (if any) they're considering. Short summary of the back story, he's
been in EI/therapies for a year and his issues have been with gross
motor, fine motor, oral motor, sensory processing, anxiety, hypotonia
and some mild social issues/quirks/obsessions plus he's had one tonic-clonic seizure and possible absence seizures. He has graduated from feeding therapy and mostly from OT but is still in PT, EI and SN itinerant preschool services through the school district.
They said his ADOS
might come back within the normal range but even if it does, they'll
want to do yearly follow-ups because his characteristics can sometimes
become an issue as he gets older and expectations increase. Like they commented he seemed very social but he has enough quirks (like currently, he can't stop talking about the color purple) ... the ADOS will help tease
out exactly what the issues are with the social stuff.
The appt ended a little abruptly and there wasn't really a chance to ask questions at the end. How would you interpret that last paragraph? How common is it for kids to get diagnosed when they're older even if they didn't meet the criteria at preschool age? Does that sound more like Asperger's? Or like he might be a kid who may not meet the criteria but might still need extra help with specific issues, say, social skills training or dealing with an obsessive interest? And I know I need to read up on the changes with the DSM-V and how that will affect kids getting diagnosed now. Thanks to anyone who made it through this novella! 
fraternal twin boys born january 2009
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Back from devel. pedi eval
Thank you so much, auntie! I really appreciate your response and insights. We've been kind of bounced around with mentions of the spectrum over the past year with EI and feeding therapist suggesting he might have it--milder end, higher functioning--but others like his PT and a child psyc friend saying they really don't think he does, so I hadn't looked into it much yet other than reading through the diagnostic criteria. I don't know that he fully meets them yet but I know he has some red flags. I have an MA in counseling but my program focused on adults; I'm auditing Assessment and Tx of Childhood D/O this semester which has been really helpful (though we haven't gotten to ASD yet
).
I think--but not positive--that she did the full Batelle. The dev. ped. did that with Alex in another room while the school psychologist was asking DH, EI and me a bunch more questions. The dev. pedi said he almost seemed disappointed when she said she was all done.
He is definitely a child who, as you put it, thrives on the one on one attention of an indulgent adult ... whereas most adults who try to interact with him will get, "No! Don't talk to me!" followed by him trying to hide behind me.
That's very interesting about the VIQ versus PIQ. You're right, it was the WPPSI. She showed us the form briefly after scoring and I believe his VIQ was at the 68th percentile and PIQ (Performance, right?) was at the 12th percentile.
The purple obsession ... it started when he watched Tangled about a year ago. He became obsessed with the movie, Rapunzel, long blond hair, and the color purple. He seems to go through lengthy phases where one or 2 of those 3 predominates. He likes to put a shoelace, yarn, superhero cape or anything long and drapey around his neck and say it's his long hair. He's constantly talking about people's hair color and length, and says "long hair girls are nice people. They're my friends." He also tells me at preschool that he only wants to play with Daphne, b/c she has long blond hair, and Ellen and Rebecca can't be his friends b/c they have short hair.
The last few months the purple obsession has gotten more intense where he wants all his clothes, cups, etc., to be purple (we moderate this), and is constantly pointing out purple things he sees. If you read him a book, it's "Purple! Purple! She's wearing a purple dress! Look, there's purple! I want to read another purple page!" as you're going through the book, no matter what it's about ... unless it's about lions, which are his other obsession.
That's interesting about synesthesia! I might have to ask him sometime what color certain numbers or letters are just to see what he says. 