Posted Friday, February 22, 2008 - 23:16 by Anonymous
This past Tuesday’s meeting at school was disappointing. Not because of what anybody said, but because I really didn’t need to be there. The upshot was that there will be some additional testing and we’ll re-convene in May. Uh…that’s pretty much what was said at the conference late last month, but whatever. I’m glad I didn’t go to the trouble of finding someone to take care of Hayley while I went into school for this. The form-letter that they sent home said “childcare won’t be provided,” and I should “make other arrangements for my children.” If I had actually done that, I would have been steamed. I brought Hayley with and she was fine. She sat nicely in a little chair for the entire ten-minute duration of this thing.
Okay, a few other things were mentioned during this meeting…the schoolnurse was there, the speech and occupational therapists and Thomas’ teacher. The psychologist and assorted others who were supposed to attend didn’t show. The nurse said that Thomas wouldn’t allow her to test his hearing or vision last year, but he did fine with it this year and passed both tests satisfactorily. That saved me a difficult trip to the pediatric opthamologist and ear testing facility.
Something interesting that Thomas’ teacher does with him to get him to sit still during circle time (still his biggest challenge at school) is give him a bit of lotion to rub into his hands. His teacher has “magic lotion” (that’s what she called it until one of the other kids in class recognized it as the same lotion his mother keeps at home and pronounced that it is indeed “not magic” – the emperor that is their teacher has no clothes, so to speak) that smells like lavender which, for normal kids, is supposed to be a soothing scent. Nothing soothes Thomas much, except for the Clonidine. But this lotion seems to keep him occupied enough to sit still. The occupational therapist doesn’t even need to use the weighted vest that she had me sign a consent form for a couple weeks ago. Lotion is cool…much more socially acceptable. I’m excited about that.
I don’t want to seem like I’m reading too much into this meeting (which, as it turns out, included much more than I originally stated above), but the way that the schoolnurse was talking about the need for additional testing, it almost seemed like the school staff might be experiencing a bit of disagreement with the autism diagnosis. She asked several questions that led me to think about that. She wanted to know who diagnosed him, when he was diagnosed, if his current neurologist was actually the doctor who originally diagnosed him, if she could get a report from this doctor (good luck!), etc. The need for “new” testing came up, too. They want him to be re-tested by the psychologist in particular. Despite my amazing ability to jump to the best-case scenario, I didn’t make statements like, “Gee, by the way you’re talking, it almost seems like you don’t think Thomas is autistic! He’s healed! Halellujah! Thank you so much, and of course we’ll be suing the school district for emotional distress if you’re wrong!” I didn’t ask questions, either. I know they can’t answer anything about medical diagnoses. I’m just going to play it cool and see what happens. Even if they don’t think he’s “autistic,” he’s still definitely got issues.
Everyone at school has been telling us how much Thomas has improved with social interaction. He still has to work on using language appropriately, but he is definitely communicative and shows compassion toward others. When Thomas’ cousin was here two weeks ago, he brushed against her and accidentally knocked her on her little bottom. She was fine, but Thomas was very upset about it. He was sad and cried for a few minutes. When he was with the occupational therapist a couple weeks ago, he broke something in her office (which was very small and not important, she assured me) and cried about it. His ability to show compassion for others and regret for his actions – especially those that were accidental – is a very encouraging thing.
Of course, due to our frequent use of the word “accident” at home, we’ve had to help the kids understand the difference between that and “on purpose.” Unfortunately, both Thomas and Hayley have realized that if anybody says that something was an accident, that means that nobody gets mad and a disinterested and apathetic apology will make everything okay. Hmpf. I have a hard time not laughing when I see Thomas willfully whack Hayley on her arm or yank a toy away from her and then tell me that it was an “accident.”
An amusing anecdote before I close: Last week, Thomas was riding his tricycle around the living room at break-neck speed and crashing into the ottoman. I had spoken to him about this a moment before so I was getting frustrated. I said, “Thomas, if you can’t ride your tricycle nicely, I’m going to put it in the garage and only let you ride it outside.” His reply: “Don’t say that to me, old lady!” I had to hide in the pantry so he wouldn’t see me laughing. It took me several minutes to re-gain my composure and by then, Thomas had moved on to destroying something else. I decided to let it go for the time being. I was in no state to dispense discipline. Thomas, 1; Mom, 0. I guess I’ve really got to watch what I say in the car to less-astute drivers when the kids are with me. It must be divine retribution.
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This past Tuesday’s meeting at school was disappointing. Not because of what anybody said, but because I really didn’t need to be there. The upshot was that there will be some additional testing and we’ll re-convene in May. Uh…that’s pretty much what was said at the conference late last month, but whatever. I’m glad I didn’t go to the trouble of finding someone to take care of Hayley while I went into school for this. The form-letter that they sent home said “childcare won’t be provided,” and I should “make other arrangements for my children.” If I had actually done that, I would have been steamed. I brought Hayley with and she was fine. She sat nicely in a little chair for the entire ten-minute duration of this thing.
Okay, a few other things were mentioned during this meeting…the school nurse was there, the speech and occupational therapists and Thomas’ teacher. The psychologist and assorted others who were supposed to attend didn’t show. The nurse said that Thomas wouldn’t allow her to test his hearing or vision last year, but he did fine with it this year and passed both tests satisfactorily. That saved me a difficult trip to the pediatric opthamologist and ear testing facility.
Something interesting that Thomas’ teacher does with him to get him to sit still during circle time (still his biggest challenge at school) is give him a bit of lotion to rub into his hands. His teacher has “magic lotion” (that’s what she called it until one of the other kids in class recognized it as the same lotion his mother keeps at home and pronounced that it is indeed “not magic” – the emperor that is their teacher has no clothes, so to speak) that smells like lavender which, for normal kids, is supposed to be a soothing scent. Nothing soothes Thomas much, except for the Clonidine. But this lotion seems to keep him occupied enough to sit still. The occupational therapist doesn’t even need to use the weighted vest that she had me sign a consent form for a couple weeks ago. Lotion is cool…much more socially acceptable. I’m excited about that.
I don’t want to seem like I’m reading too much into this meeting (which, as it turns out, included much more than I originally stated above), but the way that the school nurse was talking about the need for additional testing, it almost seemed like the school staff might be experiencing a bit of disagreement with the autism diagnosis. She asked several questions that led me to think about that. She wanted to know who diagnosed him, when he was diagnosed, if his current neurologist was actually the doctor who originally diagnosed him, if she could get a report from this doctor (good luck!), etc. The need for “new” testing came up, too. They want him to be re-tested by the psychologist in particular. Despite my amazing ability to jump to the best-case scenario, I didn’t make statements like, “Gee, by the way you’re talking, it almost seems like you don’t think Thomas is autistic! He’s healed! Halellujah! Thank you so much, and of course we’ll be suing the school district for emotional distress if you’re wrong!” I didn’t ask questions, either. I know they can’t answer anything about medical diagnoses. I’m just going to play it cool and see what happens. Even if they don’t think he’s “autistic,” he’s still definitely got issues.
Everyone at school has been telling us how much Thomas has improved with social interaction. He still has to work on using language appropriately, but he is definitely communicative and shows compassion toward others. When Thomas’ cousin was here two weeks ago, he brushed against her and accidentally knocked her on her little bottom. She was fine, but Thomas was very upset about it. He was sad and cried for a few minutes. When he was with the occupational therapist a couple weeks ago, he broke something in her office (which was very small and not important, she assured me) and cried about it. His ability to show compassion for others and regret for his actions – especially those that were accidental – is a very encouraging thing.
Of course, due to our frequent use of the word “accident” at home, we’ve had to help the kids understand the difference between that and “on purpose.” Unfortunately, both Thomas and Hayley have realized that if anybody says that something was an accident, that means that nobody gets mad and a disinterested and apathetic apology will make everything okay. Hmpf. I have a hard time not laughing when I see Thomas willfully whack Hayley on her arm or yank a toy away from her and then tell me that it was an “accident.”
An amusing anecdote before I close: Last week, Thomas was riding his tricycle around the living room at break-neck speed and crashing into the ottoman. I had spoken to him about this a moment before so I was getting frustrated. I said, “Thomas, if you can’t ride your tricycle nicely, I’m going to put it in the garage and only let you ride it outside.” His reply: “Don’t say that to me, old lady!” I had to hide in the pantry so he wouldn’t see me laughing. It took me several minutes to re-gain my composure and by then, Thomas had moved on to destroying something else. I decided to let it go for the time being. I was in no state to dispense discipline. Thomas, 1; Mom, 0. I guess I’ve really got to watch what I say in the car to less-astute drivers when the kids are with me. It must be divine retribution.