Our first appointment was at the clinic. We had a chat and our son played while the therapist monitored and tried to engage with him. Future appointments would be at home in his own environment.
We were referred for a hearing test, which was all ok.
We had 3 speech and language therapists over a period of around 18 months.
The first therapist was with us for 6 weeks, an hour a week, which she then reports on and determines whether further help is needed.
I brought up what the paediatrician had said about autism, and she made a face as if to say possibly. The first week he wouldn’t do anything with her. He wanted her to go upstairs, I was mortified as upstairs was a mess. I had tidied up downstairs and put everything upstairs!! Once upstairs he wasn’t doing anything with her at all. Weeks 2 and 3 she brought different things in a bag and he sat a little, but got bored quickly. Weeks 4 – 6 she followed him and tried to connect with what he was doing. Not much happened here either.
We were referred for further help, but it took a long time for us to be allocated someone for additional help. By the time she arrived with us, all I was thinking about was autism constantly. This girl was great. She was good for us. Though to be honest, she was more help for me than our son as I would vent each week to her. She was a great support for me.
The first visit our son was in the garden eating dirt! We had a chat about sensory needs and this was the first time I learned about it all. I thought he was just being a boy! She spoke about doing the Hanen Project with us which is a programme for parents with children with autism, but it can be used for developmental delays. So we planned to start that the following week. My husband took the day off to join us.
After going through this for a few hours, we all realised that what it was teaching us, we were doing already. We went through some of the videos and had a chat about it all, but realised it wasn’t something we needed to go through.
It was good to hear we were doing something right!
My notes read – give chances to encourage speech, speak in short sentences, say the word as we pick up an object then start to expand words to sentences.
She told me to keep a diary of anything new he said or done. I was focusing on what he wasn’t doing and I had to look at what he was. This lifted my spirits a great deal. When he said a new word and I wrote it down, it made me feel positive.
We had this girl for 5 weeks, then she got a new job and left. It was a very long time before we were allocated someone new.
We finally got a girl who had returned from maternity leave, and I realised very quickly what a difference it was having a therapist who was a mum too. For example, our son was 3 when we had our first therapist and he still used his dummy. Not all day but he did have it for bed time and occasionally if he got grumpy during the day he got it. Now, I know the therapist is thinking ‘how can he talk with a dummy in his mouth?’ so of course we got talked to about no dummy. We stopped giving it to him during the day and he was great, he didn’t need it. But it took us a long time to break the night time dummy. This therapist basically said if a dummy at night time gets you all a good sleep letting him be fresh for nursery and us be fresh for work, then who cares. I liked this girl!
We went through the assessment process while seeing this girl and she was part of the process. Getting the diagnosis was very hard on us, and she said something that to this day I am sure stopped me from having a breakdown:
There is nothing he can’t do, he just needs to learn how to do it
This statement has had a massive impact on how I have dealt with things and how I continue to view things.
Once we had the diagnosis, the lack of speech was put down to autism and we were discharged from speech & language therapy. We were told his speech will come in time. The autism has caused a developmental delay in this area.
I recently met this therapist when I was at a parent focus group in school and she was part of the team visiting to assess the school for improvements that could be made. I told her she stopped me from having a breakdown and thanked her and gave her a big cuddle while holding back the tears! She said we were going through alot and she was there at the right time to help. I don’t think she realises quite how much she helped or how huge an impact she had on me.
Super Autism Mum 