Our daughter Maddie is nine and was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder when she was 4. She is what you would consider “high functioning Autistic” She can learn but not the typical way people learn in school. Her weakest areas are in her speech and social interactions with peers. She is in 3rd grade in a mainstream classroom being pulled out about 30% of her day into a special education room where she gets a lot of support and help with math, reading, speech, language, and adaptive physical education. She is very accepted at school and loves the routines and interactions there. She is still somewhat unaware of her disorder.
The past 5 years we have learned so much about the Autism Spectrum and all the things associated with it. 5 years ago I wish I could have met or known someone like myself who has experienced things that could give me insight on what to expect and where to go to get the best help. I spent a lot of time and money on seminars and classes that were not much help, I also found some things that really helped. I would like to share things that have worked for us.
My husband and I found a child psychologist right off the bat that we liked (we got lucky with this) He has been good for parenting tips like when we struggled with toileting issues in the beginning. The psychologist also helped us get through the initial feelings we had about the diagnosis and the process of moving on to productive things to help her. I highly recommend finding a good family/child psychologist most are familiar with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
There were several therapies that were suggested by the organization that diagnosed Maddie I just started with the organizations that were as close to us as possible. Again we got lucky and have loved St David’s Child and Family Development Center, the organization we have been with for the last 5 years. We started with occupational therapy (OT) at first. Our therapist was very supportive and flexible as well as informative. We took Maddie to OT for 1 hour sessions twice a week for two years. I was working full time in a sales career at the time, it was a lot of work but luckily it was flexible so I could be to work later if need be.
What really helped us at St David’s was learning what they did with Maddie during her OT sessions. I would carry over the techniques and strategies at home, which I feel has been a big part of our success. (These therapies are not always coved by insurance companies I had to go though an appeal process with our insurance provider that I will detail in another entry later.) This process gave us something to work on I have always had the mentality that we can cure this ( I now know that we can’t but we are always looking at ways to improve our and Maddie’s quality of life) and working with therapists gives you the feeling like you are overcoming it.
