The Diagnosis

Lately this cute little boy does not want to be upstaged by his big sister. These are just a couple of the shots in which Evan didn't want me to take pictures of Emma with out being included. He loves to run in front of the shot. As is saying "what about me?".

These last few months have been very difficult for our family. Evan's behavior has been even more challenging. We have had several doctor's appointments in the last few weeks and all the doctor's agree. Evan is AUTISTIC! He now has a diagnosis. While it is very upsetting, it is nice that it is finally out there and almost three years of stepping around that diagnosis is over. Four doctor's have agreed. Yesterday we went to Shriner's for a behavioral exam and IQ test. The doctor thinks that Evan is a mild to moderate Autistic and has a borderline mental retarded IQ. She also mentioned that she thought if we could get him to sit longer to work on the IQ test that he would have scored higher. He just struggled to keep focused for the two hour exam.

This is still good news. Last week at Evan's parent teach conference I was told that Evan will be tested at school and would most likely be labeled as severely mentally retarded since a good portion of the testing is verbal. As you can imagine, I was DEVISTATED! Now I am only mad at the schools inability to administer a test for a non-verbal child that doesn't take that into consideration. UGH! This information will determine his Kindergarten placement. Again I was told that he would most likely be put into a Life Skills class since he won't probably be a functional adult so it was more important to teach him daily skills. What do they think that I am working on everyday at home.

I am hoping that U46 will now look at the testing that Shriner's took yesterday and at least consider it for Evan's placement next fall. I am now looking into other options even if that means moving into a better school district. Not the option I want to consider monetarily but if needed we will seriously consider it.

I will keep you updated as more information comes our way.

Sue