On March 24, 2014, Emmett went to Children's Hospital in Mpls for a 5-hour assessment. The assessment was recommended because he was showing signs of autistic behavior. It was broken into three parts.
The first was auditory and Emmett past perfectly. He had a standard hearing test and another test where he repeated words back to the doctor. I'll never forget how precious he looked and sounded while he was repeating the words back to the doctor. He did such a great job. :)
The second part was speech and he had difficulties in this area. He can comprehend more than he can say. He has troubles with following direction, describing what he sees, and proper use of pronouns. When he couldn't understand what he was suppose to do he either looked at the doctor blankly or started playing with toys.
The third part was behavioral. Dr. Amy asked us tons of questions and ran the CARS test (don't remember what it stands for), which consisted of 15 sections. On a scale from 1-100, 100 being severely autistic, Emmett scored 58. So according to that test he is moderately autistic. However, Dr. Amy believes he is more high functioning. The CARS test is not like a lab result, but more of a tool to use as a foundation for the diagnosis.
So Dr. Amy diagnosed Emmett with autism. Even though we were bracing ourselves for "bad news", at that moment it became real and was overwhelming. This is our new reality; our new journey.
Emmett is required to take speech therapy, occupational therapy, and possibly physical therapy down the road. He starts speech therapy April 9th once a week. There is a waiting list for OT so he can't start that yet. We need to see Dr. Amy again in 3 months.
*On the day of his diagnosis, these are the symptoms he has of autism (according to the American Academy of Pediatrics symptoms list):
social differences
- doesn't bring objects of personal interest to show to a parent
- doesn't often have appropriate facial expressions
- unable to perceive what others might be thinking or feeling by looking at their facial expressions
- doesn't show much concern (empathy) for others
- unable to make friends or uninterested in making friends
communication differences
- repeats exactly what others say without understanding the meaning
- doesn't respond to name being called, but does respond to other sounds (like a car horn or dog barking)
- refers to self as "you" and others as "I", mixes up pronouns
- doesn't start or can't continue a conversation
- doesn't use toys or other objects to represent people or real life in pretend play
- may have good rote memory, especially for numbers, letters, songs, or TV jingles
- may regress in language or other social milestones
behavioral differences
- rocks, spins, sways, twirls fingers, walks on toes for a long time, or flaps hands
- likes routines, order, and rituals; has difficult with change
- obsessed with a few or unusual activities, doing them repeatedly during the day
- plays with parts of toys instead of the whole toy
- may be very sensitive or not sensitive at all to smells, sounds, lights, textures, and touch
- unusual use of vision or gaze - looks at objects from unusual angles
