Primary 2

T1 entered his Primary 2 year with all of the other boys and girls in his class.  There were 15 of them in total.  They are a close knit class so it was lovely for them to be on their own as opposed to being in a composite class.  T1's P2 teacher was a really lovely lady who was due to retire after T1's P2 year.  This year at school went really well for T1.  He really achieved a lot.  Some of his achievements in this year were:

• Making closer friendships with his peers both in and out of the classroom
• Coping much better with school Sports Day
• Beginning to self regulate his emotions e.g. taking himself off for some quiet time in the book corner in class if he needed to (his teacher was very supportive of this and would encourage it as required but would also help to re-integrate T1 back into the class goings on once he had had a bit of space)
• The small class size allowed T1 to play games etc. with his peers and get some honest feedback from them which helped him modify his behaviour e.g. his friends said that he was laughing too loud so they didn't want him to play anymore.  This sounds harsh but he actually needed to hear that to think 'Mmmm perhaps I need to tone down the volume of my laughing so I can keep playing'.

After his first term in P2 we had another meeting with the Educational Psychologist, his class teacher and the Head Teacher.  The feedback was that T1 was doing really well and was making closer friendships.  They knew this because he joined in with others more in class and spent time playing with others in the playground.  His handwriting was improving and he was doing well at concentrating on his work when he knew what was going to come next.  At the end of this meeting we all decided that T1 didn't need formal Educational Psychology input anymore as there did not appear to be any issues in school that couldn't be worked out between DP and I and school staff. 

Also during this year, T1's friends expressed an interest in learning about ASD as T1 was beginning to say that that is why he finds some things difficult and why he is good at remembering things that he is interested in.  I got a hold of some books that I let others borrow for their children to read if they wanted to know more.  Particular favourites are:'Friends Learn About Tobin' and 'Tobin Learns To Make Friends', both by Diane Murrell.  I think these books are pitched well for ages 4-6.

At the end of his P2 year, T1 let me know that he didn't want to use his pencil grip anymore.  I could have insisted but I believe that it's his choice unless I think he is going to harm himself.  He was still happy to use his sloping board for writing and his disc-o-mat.  T1 was also discharged from the Child and Family Mental Health Service where he recieved his diagnosis.  We didn't have any concerns/difficulties that required such a specialist service.  We knew that we could be re-referred to be seen again via our GP if T1 needed it.

All in all T1 had a very happy year in P2.  I believe a lot of this was down to being in a small class with the children he has always known and having a very caring, compassionate teacher with oodles of experience :-)  I found this quote somewhere online and it sums up how I feel about my chats with  T1's P2 teacher...

'I may forget your name but I will recall in detail the way in which you spoke to me about my child - and most of all I will remember the compassion and realism you exhibited'.

 

The Birth

What can I say besides it was difficult... one of the most difficult experiences of my life.  I feel sad saying so given that most people regard the birth of their first child as the best day of their life.  It was a very long labour ending in lots of intervention because I was very unwell.  Turns out that T1 had an infection too.  My waters broke on a Tuesday night and T1 was born mid morning on the Friday.  Adding to that, there were several medical bits and pieces that went a bit wrong (or rather the small percentage of medical risk happened to me).  For example, I had too much spinal anaesthesia which paralysed me from my nose downwards which meant that whilst I was vomiting, I actually thought that I was going to choke and die.  I was so traumatised by this that I actually refused contact with T1 when he was born for about an hour or so.  Obviously I feel awful about this now.  I have no beautiful memories of his first cry or the first time that I looked into my baby boys eyes.  In fact, I had very little contact with T1 on his first day because I was so unwell and required lots of morphine and antibiotics.  T1 was taken to the Neonatal Unit about 12 hours after he was born.  I tried to go and see him but I haemorrhaged so had to stay in bed.  In the days that followed, I went down to the Neonatal Unit to feed him when called to do so.  I never just sat with him, spending time with him.  Was I bonding with him?  I'm not really sure.  He had to have lots of needles inserted into various parts of his body and about 5am one morning, a Doctor said 'you can stay to comfort him whilst we find a site for the cannula if you like'.  I politely declined and removed myself to sit outside whilst they did their job.  I think T1 was about 5 days old.  I remember sitting there listening to him crying.  And then something inside me clicked.  I must answer my baby boys cries and I got up and went in to be with T1.  I put my hand through the hole in the incubator and took hold of my baby boys little hand and stroked it gently.  He turned his head towards me, stopped crying and studied me with his beautiful blue eyes.  It was then and there that I became T1's mummy, there for him, no matter what. 

T1 had various tests including brains scans and lumbar punctures.  It was a difficult time.  He had various courses of antibiotics intravenously.  It has crossed my mind, very fleetingly, about what effect the medication could have had on his little brain.  Could this have made him more susceptible to having ASD?  But I know that there is no good evidence to support this idea.  I have also wondered whether a lack of a bond in the first few days of his life would have affected him having ASD.  But again, the sensible part of me knows that I did what I needed to do for survival at the time, albeit selfishly.  The main thing was that I did bond with T1 - my special blue-eyed boy :-)

Occupational Therapy Assessment

T1 had his Occupational Therapy (OT) assessment appointment a few weeks ago.  He recognised the hospital as the same place where he was told that he had Aspergers but I explained that we were there this time to see about his 'flexible joints'.  This is what T1 has chosen to call his difficulties with movement and low muscle tone.  We met a lovely OT who carried out her assessment over an hour and a half.  She did various standardised tests and then summarised by saying that T1 has hypermobility, low muscle tone and therefore will find writing, balance and other tasks very tiring.  She also recommended a few aids for us to try:

• Disc-o-mat - a rubbery, knobbly air filled cushion for T1 to sit on his chair at school or when he is sitting on the floor at school - the point of this being that it will give T1 sensory feedback as to where his body is in space without him having to wriggle about so much which will hopefully then help him to focus better on his work
• Wider handled cutlery - moulded plastic handles with finger holes so that T1's fingers don't slip off the cutlery when he is trying to grip them - he rarely uses a knife and fork just now so hopefully these will help
• Pencil grips - really knobbly ones with precise places for T1 to put his fingers with less chance of them slipping
• A writing slope (Posture Pack) - to encourage better posture when writing - at the moment, T1 is slouching over his workbook to have a close look at what he is writing because he has to put a lot of effort into it

The OT also did great work at getting key information from T1's teacher about how he is at school.  She also contacted the teacher directly following T1's assessment and informed her of her findings and how to use the recommended equipment correctly.  We now have most of the equipment that we need and it is going great.  T1 has now been discharged from the OT service.

The OT assessment really confirmed what I have known about T1's motor skills.  It was important to have the OT assessment though as he has accepted his Asperger's diagnosis without much difficulty but it is his difficulties with motor skills that affects his self-esteem because he can see so clearly that he is different from his peers.  For example, he was crying one night and when I asked what was the matter he said that he was the only person in his class who couldnt do a roly poly.  He seemed half upset and half frustrated that this was the case.  I am hoping that learning more about his 'flexibility' will help him to take ownership of it like he has the Aspergers diagnosis so that he knows that it is just another quirk of who he is.