Today has been an emotionally exhausting day. Today was B's re-evaluation at Kaiser's Autism Spectrum Disorder Center. Today's experience was the complete opposite from our initial visit. One of the members of the evaluation team was the director of the center and she apologized profusely for the fact that the initial evaluation was not thorough and thanked me for realizing that and insisting on a re-evaluation.
I never thought that I would be happy to hear "Your child has an autism spectrum disorder...Asperger's Syndrome." I guess I wouldn't classify my feeling as happiness, but more of relief. Relief that someone finally took the time to do a complete evaluation and found what I have suspected/known for quite a while. I feel like they took the time to listen to my concerns and now there is some validation.
They gave me an evaluation summary to take to the school and their complete report with recommendations for services will be ready in 2-3 weeks. The director seems to think that it will make a difference and that the school district will finally provide the services I have been seeking. Unfortunately, based on prior meetings, I don't think it will make a difference. I think I will still have to fight to get B the services he needs/deserves, but at least now I have some better ammunition.
I'm proud of you for not giving up. It can be frustrating when communicating to doctors for ourselves but when it comes to our kids it's downright infuriating. Keep up the good work! I hope the school does help him out.
ReplyDeleteThanks girl! Yes, it is quite infuriating. I'm just glad they finally did the right thing. I just wish the school district would do the right thing. Unfortunately, so far, they aren't & I will be meeting with the parent advocate on 4/5/12. He was booked solid until then, so that tells you how bad things are in the schools here in CA. Ugh!
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