Jackson's Journey...4 Tests-1 Answer

To say that our journey will be a long bumpy road is an understatement. Once I catch everybody up to speed my posts will be shorter, I promise! Til then just hang in there with me! I have my feelings, opinions and guesses as to what I think Jackson is experiencing, but I'm not doctor so I'll keep my thoughts to myself on all the "things" I think we are going to ummm be working on to improve. :) All sugarcoating aside, we have some great days and we have some NOT so great days. I will tell you all, as any other Mom with any child, children teach you a whole new level of patience. Or they prove you have no patience. LOL As we have come to realize Jackson seems to have his own ideas about what "normal" means, I decided that Path 2 (from this post) was the way for us to go. 

Yes I have been scared. Yes I have been researching for a long time. Yes I need answers. Are you kidding, I needed answers yesterday. What is it they say? Good things come to those that wait?.... yeah that's for the birds. I have decided to take the early bird gets the worm approach instead. And by that I mean I have been a harassing, nagging, bugging and maybe even annoying parent to every doctor and person that I think we need on our side in order to get answers. After calling almost every single day for referrals and leaving more messages than I should ever admit to, I started getting called back. Ahhh Ha! Being really  extremely persistent can have it's benefits.  

So rewind to October 8. Our first appointment. Having been screened at school for speech and hearing and being told that Jackson had not passed, that came as no surprise. I was kinda relieved he didn't pass the screening to be really honest. It meant two things. One, everything we have been noticing for years is finally starting to surface with hard evidence. Two, I'm not totally crazy. So with those results, I decided we needed a second opinion and I was going to go armed and dangerous! I asked Jackson's teacher to take notes on things she noticed, habits, mannerisms, etc and being that ANGEL that she is, I had 4 handwritten pages of notes. YES! Ms. Beth you are awesome! I also took 12, yes 12 of the exact same drawing produced by my little artistic rockstar from the Lorax (love that movie). Now, I don't know about you but I can hardly remember what I did yesterday let alone days and days worth of things. But Jackson's drawings were of the same scene from the movie, same colors, same patterns and yes I have 12. One for every month I suppose! Ha. (more on his uhhh "obsessions" later) But we had waited so long to get an appointment, I was taking all the ammo I could get together for this. We went to the EDFTC (Exceptional Development Family Treatment Center) after getting a referral to be seen and we were scheduled for a hearing/speech/language evaluation.  Let me just also preface this with, every child that has any sort of special needs is never like the next child with special needs. One test for one child is not the same test for the next child. So for Jackson a Listening Comprehension Test, Oral Expression Test, Oral Composite Test, Hearing Test and Sounds in Words Test were performed. Ms. Courtney is our speech pathologist and Jackson was immediately connected to her. I have never seen a child be SO excited to see someone (that he just met). So I'll give that a checkmark and success for starters. 

After the testing was over, we left. I felt a sense of relief. A sense of success and even though we wouldn't have any answers just yet, I was happy. Skip to October 19. Test results are in and on a Friday night at 6pm, we headed in for some answers. FINALLY! So I won't go into the somewhat hairy fine line (somewhat foreign language) details, but we'll just talk simple "what does that mean in English" terms for now. 

Scores. So every child should be at a certain communication level for their age right? For Jackson (age 6) his scores came back and on the four tests he ranked: 4% for Listening Comprehension, 1% Oral Expression, 2% for Oral Composite and 11% for Sounds in Words.  (Yes, these tests are out of 100%) Diagnosis- Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder. The good news - He PASSED the hearing test! Whoo! What his disorder means is that for his age, he falls into the categories of needing intervention/has delays/language disorder, thus the diagnosis. So for the next year, we will have speech therapy sessions with Jackson to hopefully improve his communication and speech skills. After a year the goal is to have Jackson be in the 80% range for his age group. How awesome would that be?!?     

Also along with that initial evaluation came the recommendation (and me being slightly persistent) for additional testing. So following that we are on the road to becoming a speech superstar! 

The next steps would be to have Jackson scheduled for a OT (Occupational Therapy) evaluation for Sensory Processing Disorder. One down, lots to go. So our next test was scheduled immediately the same night of our first results. So excited for October 24th I couldn't hardly stand it. 

Eager and ready we'll be reporting on those results soon! Hugs your babies and be thankful that they have so much to offer and teach you everyday. How did I get so lucky to have this kid? 

  

~EM