I got a paper home in Michael's book bag today telling me there is going to be the creation of a support group for parents of children diagnosed with Austism Spectrum Disorders. The first meeting to sort of set everything up will be the end of January.
Michael has an appointment for his updated evaluation with the Child Specialty Clinic on Friday (weather permitting I am sure) and I am going to wait until after it. It took me bringing up PDD for her to admit that Michael could fall under than category. So hopefully she elaborated on it with the evals the school and I have sent in. It has been a 15 months of appointments, evaluations, and therapy and I wonder if I am any closer to a diagnosis.
I am going to email the woman in charge of the support group after Michael's appointment and ask if there has to be an official diagnosis to participate. But I am going to keep my fingers crossed that maybe they will finally pick a label to slap on him and just keep us going on as we have. Without that diagnosis I have been told there is not much more I can get set up for Michael.
I don't know if I would go
I don't know if I would go if they said you have to have an official diagnosis to attend! More than likely, the group organizers will be thrilled to have lots of people show up, rather than just two or three parents or no one at all. Besides, I think you and Michael are fully qualified--after all Michael did have delays enough to cause you to seek a state evaluation, plus you are an active member here in our Autism Blog community. That makes you more than qualified to contribute to an autism spectrum support group.
Well if I end up denied, I
Well if I end up denied, I will print out that comment and mail it to them :) It is through the Area Education Agency, which Michael has been seen by several workers and our support worker is through, they all seem rather decend, so I hope this will be as good as their other programs.