After many sleepless nights worrying about the results of Elizabeth's psychological/educational assessment the results are back. I think we have both spent this past month bracing ourselves for the worst as we have been really worried that Elizabeth will be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Since she has started school she has been doing some pretty odd things (spinning things, constantly moving and I am finding her on her own most often when I pick her up from school). We of course have been very observant of 'symptoms' lately and I am sure we have been on Elizabeth when she does something a bit odd (sorry Elizabeth).
The results did not show Elizabeth is on the Autism spectrum at all (YIPEE). So now we can breathe a huge sigh of relief and know that we have a really quirky kid who now will be allowed to play with her dinosaurs again (I had them banned as she REALLY likes to play with them). She did show pretty typical features associated with ADHD which is not much of a shocker for us she is pretty distractable and still quite impulsive. Similar to previous testing she continues to have problems with visual spatial skills and ranged from the 9-28 %. Her fine motor skills were below the 9 % which we know; despite her best efforts printing is still difficult for her to do because of her shaky uncoordinated movements. Her language skills made us proud as they were ranked at 7 years 10 months for both receptive and expressive but her poor articulation of words still makes things difficult for her as not everyone understands her.
The recommendations for her include; an FM unit which we luckily have, a computer/assistive device for typing as printing is far too difficult and time consuming and close supervision to ensure her safety. The Psychologist said because of her advanced language skills Elizabeth hopefully can compensate for her visual spatial skills as she can understand through description of problems as opposed to looking at them. Her thoughts were Elizabeth should do fine with an academic program with the appropriate support.
We are pretty happy with the results of her testing, the things we had been warned about when she was born regarding ADD, visual processing were present so all in all she has a pretty 'typical' preemie brain.
4 comments:
i'm happy the news came out better than expected. i'm also happy she gets her dinos back! :)
Asperger kids are highly intelligent and very successful so if Elizabeth had been diagnosed with asperger it would not be that bad!!!Lot of moms I know are very proud of their asperger kids but it's obviously a relief for you because you wanted her test result differently and i am happy for you.
Good luck!!!
I enjoy reading your blog. As an individual with Asperger's, my family has always encouraged me to pursue my special interests. My interest in psychology is now leading to probably being admitted to a research-based graduate school program. As a child, special interests were used as motivators to help me learn. I wrote many cat stories and cats helped teach me the multiplication tables. I also have strong verbal skills at the expense of non-verbal skills. When I was your daughter's age, my performance IQ was in the 70s. I was able to bring it up by learning to talk aloud by doing visual-spatial tasks and even went on to pass university calculus. You have a bright little girl there with a lot of attention, however, as I know myself, it is a difficult road being gifted and disabled. She'll need lots of encouragment along the way to reach her full potential and likely more years than her typical peers to be fully independent. Dinosaurs may lead to a future researcher someday. Even though she doesn't have AS, quirky personalities like that are well-suited to research-based careers.
Excellent. What matters most is that the information is meaningful to you as parents. Barbara
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