Continuing the story

So after the diagnosis of both kids, we took their diagnosis to school for their IEP meetings. If you are unfamiliar with IEP meetings you meet with the teacher and the team that works with your child and come up with a personalized plan for your child. The goal is to set goals for your child that will help them to progress and also identify what services (therapies) your child might need. The great thing about their school is that they were already doing everything that was prescribed for the school to do in the diagnosis.

Since then David moved from preschool to kindergarten and is now in 1st-grade. Kindergarten was pretty good for David. He had his specials (art, gym, music) with his kindergarten class, then had reading with a reading group that was at his reading level. Math he had with a 1st-grade class. This year he has done the same thing just moved things up, so math is with a 2nd-grade class. We are trying to see if he can be taught more science stuff since he likes science so much.

The one thing we are having issues with is that David has been having meltdowns at school. Lately, the meltdowns have been turning violent. Both his teacher and Kevin and I have been trying to figure out what to do about it. We have talked extensively with David about his behavior, we have tried consequences, we have done sticker charts, etc. Recently I went to an informational meeting through Easter Seals on ABA therapy, what it is and what it does for those who receive it.

ABA therapy works with people (children and adults) who have social behaviors that need to be worked on. For David this would mean we could get a therapy for him that would help him work through his meltdowns and develop skills that would allow him to avoid having meltdowns. The only problem is that we would need insurance that would cover the therapy.

Updates and hopefully starting again

I decided that I wanted to start writing again. Mostly because I need to start journaling again. So I figure I will play a little catch up since the last time I wrote. My last post was in 2015, since then a lot has happened. When Evangeline aged out of her therapists they suggested that we get her tested for an official diagnosis. We took her to the Advocate Illinois Masonic Pediatric Developmental Center in Chicago, during the first testing they told us that they were looking at ruling out autism but wanted to test her again in a year to see what they thought. During that year David received an educational diagnosis of autism and I decided it might be a good idea to see about getting him an official diagnosis too. So I called the Advocate Illinois Masonic Pediatric Developmental Center and made an appointment for him at the same time that Evangeline's appointment was as well. The testing took an entire day and was about a 6-hour long process. Both children were tested on different things, I had a lot of paperwork to fill out. Then they looked at the test results and had us come back after a week or so. When they went over the paperwork with us they told us that both children had autism. Both are high functioning. but David has some sensory avoidance issues and Evangeline has sensory seeking issues.