The Real Doctor

After several eligibility meetings and evaluations from ITC, they concluded that Tucker qualified for in-home speech therapy until the age of three (at that time, the public schools take over, which he also qualified for). While jumping the hurdles to get our son “in the system,” we made an appointment with a developmental pediatrician (the real doctor) for further analysis. Basically, we wanted to know if he has autism. He does exhibit a few of the symptoms on the gigantic autism spectrum, most pronounced being his delay in using language, but the most concerning ones (lack of affection, seizures, digestive issues and poor immune systems) do not apply to him. Here is the diagnosis we received:

Developmental Assessment: Tucker made very good eye contact with his parents. Eye contact with the examiner was diminished. However, Tucker’s attention span was diminished in general.

Impressions: Tucker is a delightful 2-9/12-year-old boy with developmental delays including delayed speech and language skills and possibly mildly delayed social skills.

So, not autism. This particular doctor believes that autism is over-diagnosed these days, a bit like ADHD was in the 90’s and plain old hyperactivity in the 70’s. We go back in November for a follow-up exam. My hope is that now that Tucker’s in school, and working so hard to improve his language, that the doctor will see marked improvement from what will then be six months ago. Wish us luck!

Were you looking for the story behind why we began to seek help for Tucker? If so, a lot of it can be found here.

by Kristi Campbell

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Rebecca - Hi!

I relate so well to your story. The part where you said that you wish you would have not listened to others and listened to your instinct. I got severe early onset preeclampsia which turned into HELLP. The thing was, most people with preeclampsia feel well. I started feeling horrible and symptoms at twenty weeks. It was my first pregnancy so I listened when other people told me that it is normal to feel lousy while pregnant. I was hospitalized at twenty four weeks and delivered at twenty six. My baby did amazing in the NICU. She just needed to finish growing and developing. The doctors reassured me that she would “catch up by the age of two”. I had met a local mother (I delivered at INOVA Fairfax) who had a similar case as me. Her 26 weeker had caught up already at the age of one. No one told me that anything else was even a possibility. After three months, she was discharged from the NICU. We were going to get on with our lives and forget about the preemie hiccup. Then my baby started missing all of her developmental milestones… she even went backwards in some cases.
This time, I didn’t wait. I didn’t let people talk me out of being proactive. I pushed. Through ITC, she started PT, OT, and Speech. The waiting list for her to be seen by specialists at Children’s was a year long. We decided to take her to UVA. She turned one a couple weeks ago. Last month she learned to sit independently. We will see what happens from here.

Your blog is excellent. KeepJune 13, 2013 – 10:09 pmReplyCancel