Well, we have been getting deKyn evaluated since September and we finally went in for our final consultaion. PDD-NOS is his official diagnosis. What it stands for: Pervasive Developmental Disorder- Not Otherwise Specified.
What it means? It is a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. Let me clarify though, deKyn is not autistic, however he has enough tendencies that make him walk the line of autism and that is why he is on the spectrum.
We learned a lot of things about deKyn through this evaluation that we pretty much already knew but they just clarified it for us. For instance, deKyn is behind in social behaviors and in language. They explained that for deKyn, he is not understanding verbal communication the way that other kids his age do. Meaning, if we tell him to go pick the toys up in his room, he doesn't understand what we are actually asking him to do. We were told that it would be best if we did "role playing" and did picture based learning with him to try and help him "see" what we are trying to tell him to do.
For those of you that didn't know, deKyn had his adenoids out when he was three because that is what was initially imparing his learning and speech in the begining. What we don't know is how much of his problem with language and speech has to do with this fact of another underlying problem. They seem to think that it's because of his adenoids that he's behind but aren't 100% sure. However, me and Cory feel that they were removed over a year ago and that he would have caught up more by now. We feel it is something else other then JUST his adenoids.
We were also told that he is behind socially. He doesn't quite understand the social ques given by peers, teachers, adults, and even us as parents. For instance, he doesn't understand that someone telling him that they don't want to play means just that. Or if one of his friends gets hurt it doesn't cross his mind to ask them if they are okay and try to help them. He doesn't quite understand why giving turns and sharing is important. They gave us some suggestions on how to teach him the social norms for him to thrive in a social setting. Again we were told that "cartoon-y" type movies, pictures, or shows that dipict how you would act in social situtaions would really help him with this, as well as doing and seeing "role-playing".
We were also told that he has ADHD tendencies but that he is still too young to tell if that is just because of his age or if it's an actual problem.
We will continue him with his Special-ed pre-school where he gets a speech therapist, and where they also are helping him with his social behaviors and language skills.
Even though we feel good about his diagnosis, we feel that they are missing something. The times where he was getting evaluated he was one-on-one with the evaluator in a quiet room. They didn't see what happens to deKyn when there is change or when deKyn has one of his meltdowns over nothing and the fact there is no pulling him out of his meltdown. There is just other little things that are a little concerning that they didn't get to see in the hour and a half once a week that they saw him. We brought up some of these concerns at our meeting and they said that we should see some improvment with deKyn within the next year and if not, a year later take him back for more testing.
So that is where we are at right now. Where will we go from here? We will try to do their suggestions and pray that we will find something that will work great for deKyn.
