introduction

[Guest guest]

hello, i'm ashley. my husband and i have one child, gene, and another on

the way. gene is 32 mo, and last month his language skills were

evaluated to be at the 17mo level by ECI. he has no dx, but my BIL has a

PDD-NOS dx (by however dutch standards may differ) and is in some sort

of assisted living environment for autistic people, and my husband is

likely on the spectrum as well. we live in grayson county (just north of

collin county, which is just north of dallas county).

we're annoyed with both ECI and the ARD people in that they are vague

and just seem to think that a school program will suddenly get him

talking. they're not willing to give even informal hints as to any dx

for gene, nor any direction in how we could go about getting one (i

suppose if gene had some dx then that would put controls on how they

treat him, i.e. more of a headache for them). we aren't saying it is

autism, but we don't know what else it would be, and he's at a much

higher risk than the average child. he's social, though not in a typical

way, and so from that standpoint he doesn't seem like typical toddlers

with ASDs, but he can also be completely self-entertained for hours on

end at times. we'd really like some sort of dx, because in addition to

his speech delay, he just is far from typical in many ways, and all the

evaluators and therapists seem suprised and confused by the abilities he

does have compared to what he's lacking, which tells us they aren't used

to kids like him (and they admittedly aren't experienced with autistic

kids). they're used to kids who when they are behind in speech they are

also behind in just about everything else, whereas gene is quite

advanced in many areas. we have no insurance, and not really and money

for expensive doctors, for getting gene tested elsewhere, either, but we

really really want someone experienced with ASDs to evaluate gene and

tell us whether or not he has an ASD, and if not what then -- because

the county just seems to be telling us that school will be magic. the

ARD people also assume that we're the assumingly typical ignorant couple

who deals with ECI (yes, we're poor, but my husband is in school to

become a librarian and we've both have had several college psych classes

- he even had a behavioral analysis class last semester) and are only

aware that something is wrong with our son because someone else told us

so, and therefore we haven't done anything special on our own to help

our son progress, hence when he enters school it will be like magic

because he's getting some special attention he never ever got at home

since his parents didn't know anything was wrong. (wow, quite a

sentence!)

we've planned from the start on homeschooling our kids, but currently

we've been considering a PPCD class for gene. unfortunately, the program

they offered is 20-25 miles away, and an all-day class (we aren't

morning people -- we're asleep then, so that would be a radical

adjustment to our schedule, plus my husband often has evening classes

far away in denton). they would provide transportation for this. there

is also another PPCD class in another city which is a half-day and

available in the afternoon, but it's equally far and they would provide

no transportation. our local school does not have a PPCD program, and

so their pre-k starts at 4 instead of at 3. however, gene had is ARD

meeting there monday and seemed to do fine in the class with the older

kids and their activities, so i don't know if fighting for that would be

a good thing or not. plus, his hair is against dress code at our local

school district! something to fight about -- remember taylor pugh in

mesquite earlier this year? the next closest school to our local school

is only 0.3 miles further, but it's in another county, and i don't know

what they offer because their website is lacking.

anyway, we're not sure what to do, but we'd really like to get some

sort of professional evaluation for gene, and traveling to dallas is

no big deal. heck, we'd travel anywhere if the eval was free!

maybe i should describe gene more. recently he's typically spent most of

his time on the computer, either at sites designed for toddlers and

pre-k, or playing facebook games like petville, or drawing on the

computer; though he's hardly touched the computer in the last few days.

he recently taught himself to type the command " gimp " to start the

program on the computer, instead of clicking on the icon! and types his

own computer password. he was lining up the tangram pieces on the board

*perfectly* at the school - much better than the 4 and 5 yos - to the

shock of the teachers. his language, though, seems to often degenerate,

both in what he says and how clearly he says it. at it's best, it's

still incredibly behind. he also loves lining things up, but doesn't get

upset about them being messed with (speaking of lining things up, he

just typed " lining " directly underneath my use of it! which also shows

he knows the relation between upper and lower case. not that he can

even say part of the alphabet or count from 1 to 10). anyway, i suppose

that's enough for now.

-ashley

--

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt