First we want to thank everyone for their prayers so far! We also want to thank the ones who has since asked about how Nathan is doing! It means the world to us that we have so many people who care about our sweet boy!
So things have moved pretty fast since my last post on what we were facing with Nathan. We got in touch with Children's Developmental Service Agency (CDSA) of Rocky Mount. Nathan has his own case worker who is his/our advocate! Most everything is done in our home which is a blessing for all of us! So on Monday Janice (our caseworker) and a Terri (psychologist) came to the house to do Nathan's evaluation. I was nervous as you can imagine. I knew Nathan wouldn't fully cooperate and so therefore I would be the one that would have to best answer questions about Nathan's development.
The results are Nathan is developmentally delayed and they want to do further evaluations to determine if he is in fact Autistic. They felt it would be best to send us to an agency that specializes in everything Autistic. The CDSA thinks we could be looking at possible Aspergers or Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD). Nathan is such a hard one to figure out. He has SO many high functioning skills(which kept Nick and I from contacting CDSA) which is a blessing! We know he has a lot of potential no matter the diagnosis!
The agency we are trying to get him evaluated with is TEACCH in Greenville! The paper work is already adding up. They ask to describe a typical day with Nathan and we only have one page to write on but I could write a book, lol! We have had a lot of people ask us, "Do you think there is something really wrong with Nathan (which by the way it is very insulting to ask us this. It makes us feel that you don't think we know our own child)?" Our response is YES! Nathan is a very sweet and affectionate kid and laughs a lot and enjoys life! That's what most people see on the outside looking in. Nathan is stuck on routines and the way things are suppose to look (in his mind) and if anything changes he completely loses it. We walked into the gym at our church the other night and there were tables set up for people to eat. Nathan not expecting to see all those tables and all those people just stopped at the entrance and would not go any further. It was like he couldn't cross an imaginary line. He walked back and forth during the whole meal without crossing over his imaginary line. He has limited communication skills and food has always been a battle. He can learn a new song in a day or two (full length Christian contemporary music) and would be happy if that's all life offered! He is almost 3 years old and can spell his name out loud but can not answer the question, "what is your name?" He can say "I love you" and "mommy" but can not say "I love you mommy" without it sounding like a foreign language and all you can understand is the "mommy" part. Nathan demonstrates mostly jargon and echolalia language. He only says phrases that he has heard multiple times and repeats only the known words in sentences. There has been NO initiation on his part to come up with his own sentences.
Like I said I can write a book on Nathan. There are SO many other things that has us worried about him but we will maybe save those for another day! Nathan means the world to Nick and I and we only want the best for him. If we go through all this and they tell us that he only has a communication problem then we will be over the moon. We highly doubt that's going to be the outcome. Be in prayer that we get in at TEACCH and we won't have to be put on a waiting list. Pray that once his therapies start that we will start seeing progress instantly! Pray for guidance for Nick and I with all the decisions we now face. We know we are not taking this path alone: God made Nathan exactly the way he wanted Nathan to be! God makes no mistakes! We couldn't love that little boy anymore if we tried!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment