On Wednesday morning we took Ethan for his first child assessment observation. This consisted of Ethan just playing in a nursery environment whilst being watched by the nursery staff and on this occasion the speech therapist was also there. There were also two other boys being observed and there will be another boy joining them next Wednesday.
I wasn’t expecting to be invited into this session but we stayed there for the full two hours. They asked us questions about Ethan, how he plays, what he eats, how he sleeps etc. As you are aware from my previous post ‘Sleep We Don’t Need Sleep’ we have some sleep issues in our house so they have asked us to keep a sleep diary for the next couple of weeks so they have a complete picture of Ethan’s sleep patterns.
The speech therapist also spent some time with us and advised us that from her observations that morning Ethan needs speech therapy and after these assessments, Ethan will be put on the waiting list to be seen ASAP.
Ethan as usual made us out to be liars in the observation as he didn’t act the way I was expecting him to act when he went into the room he sat for ages and played with ‘Bob The Builder’ toys. He did show how he gets frustrated with the shape sorter toys and how he can’t work out how to put the shapes into the correct places and how he wants the person playing with him to always do it for him.
Not one of the ladies observing him mentioned autism to us in any way. Still, when we brought up our concerns they looked a little relieved and openly talked to us about it and how these sessions are used to collect information for the paediatrician.
I come out of the observation feeling very positive about the process. My main concern was that because Ethan has good eye contact and loves people, they may make us return in six months because he is so young but after seeing the questionnaire they have to fill in, I know that our concerns about Ethan will show up.
So one down, three more to go…
