evans story

evan is 6 years old.  he was such a happy child until the age of 3.  thats when it all went down hill quickly:( 

i started noticing how antsy he was all the time....he worried about food constantly, as if we were about to go into a famine and he was going to starve to death.  at breakfast, he would ask what was for dinner the NEXT night,  worry about when and what he was going to have for a snack and so on and so forth.  he started hiding and hoarding food on a regular basis.  he got around every cabinet lock i had installed; and the locks on the fridge i could find back then were very weak! he had an easier time than i did undoing them!

then came the lining up of cars....we had hundreds of matchbox cars.  still do.  he started lining them up by color and size and when i went to clean them up, he would either throw a fit or move his lines to a new area in the living room.  and if you tried to play around with him by moving just ONE, he would get really anxious and have to redo the entire thing! not just the car you moved, the WHOLE thing....

he was in head start for 2 years in a row.  he was unlearning just as quickly as he was learning things.  i thought it was just the oppositional defiance disorder he was diagnosed with making him not want to show us what he had learned.  so, he has his therapy to learn how to manage that.  little did i know he really WASN'T retaining information at all....i went to the public school where i am around march of last year to start an IEP for him.  a little early BUT i didnt want him starting kindergarten like this.  academically he was a hot mess.  he couldnt even write his own name by the end of 2 years of head start.  it was concerning to me.  so, we went through all the bells and whistles of the testing.  he scored well below average on most of his testing; the only thing he didnt need was speech services.  he has them now to help manage his tone and volume of his voice.

i brought him into a neuropsychologist for a complete workup.  well, what i thought was complete. he was diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder, AT RISK for a mood disorder, and relative microsephaly.  he now needs a psych exam for his mood disorder but this too will be done.  evan was placed in CBAT (community based acute therapy) for about 16 days; he came home 2 days before he turned 6.  he has hidden a butcher knife in his bedroom under his dresser and saw nothing wrong with that at all.....i was worried.  so, i told his therapist what had happened and thats when we got the ball rolling on that one.  it broke my heart; but it was a nice break for us AND we are receiving services that we needed! we would probably still be on a waiting list for his therapeutic mentor, in home therapy and all of the other services we now receive on a daily basis. he is doing better now that we have revised his IEP with the school and he is now on the proper meds.

about a month ago, he finally came home from school and had written his own name! without having to trace over the teachers writing of it! i was so proud of him!  acedemically he is doing so much better; but behaviorally he is still struggling with his sensory processing disorder at lunch and recess.  when there is no structure to fill his time, he has a very hard time transitioning.  and the noise level of the cafeteria gets to him every day.  we are trying ear plugs for lunch time after school vacation so we will see what happens with that. 

we still have our 'moments" but i am glad we have come so far in the past year. 

i will post jameses story later; i have to go do my volunteer work in a little while and the babysitter just got here:)