Child Assessment Observation 3

Yesterday was Ethan’s third appointment and this one I found very hard as we saw the pediatrician which meant we had to go over all of our concerns with her and she asked about how he acts etc. I just feel like I’m basically picking my son to pieces and I go through such a conflict of emotions. 

My heart is screaming at me that I don’t want my son to be autistic and I feel like I’m telling tales on him  when I should be protecting him but my head knows that we are doing the right thing and we have to do this to get Ethan the help he needs. It’s such an emotional roller coaster and I wouldn’t wish these feelings on anyone.  

I came home feeling very low about it all but I know that this is really because of two things. The first being that she observed that Ethan doesn’t have good eye contact. This knocked the wind totally out of my sails as I thought and do believe that Ethan has good eye contact. The pediatrician said that he basically just looked at us for reassurance and gives us his winning smile. I’m not totally convinced about this observation, call it denial on my part if you will, but I do believe that Ethan was thrown into an unknown environment yesterday which then makes him want to get used to his surroundings so in an hour long interview he isn’t going to perform to the tasks you set him. 

The second is because we now know what the pediatrician is thinking. She agrees that Ethan is showing sings of autism but wants him to go for a further ADOS test for another opinion. I totally understand that with children as young as Ethan they want to be 100% sure they are making the right diagnosis but from my understanding this test is designed for older children so I therefore think Ethan will struggle to complete it. So basically what this means for us is we will be in limbo again whilst we wait on the waiting list for this test and this does not help Ethan because having a diagnosis will start the ball rolling for Ethan to obtain the required help he needs and we have no idea how long the wait will now be. 

We have a few weeks until we have the pediatrician’s final say but I really don’t hold out much hope.