week 11.

This week was full of new information about Emmett and I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm trying to take deep breaths and take care of only what I have control with. It's hard for me to wait and take baby steps, in general. If there is an issue in my life I want it resolved NOW. That is impossible when raising a child who is newly diagnosed with autism. Making progress in baby steps is the only option. I think I am learning a new definition for the word patience.
Emmett had meltdowns in both speech and occupational therapy this week. It was the first time he's had one in therapy. Poor bud. He was getting frustrated in speech about putting together a puzzle and I believe that is what triggered the meltdown when he got frustrated a second time. He ended up kicking the game he and Zena were playing and it exploded, game pieces flying everywhere. He was pretty much done with his speech session at that point. He couldn't handle anymore.
In OT he got upset with Tianna when she tried sharing toys with him. He was batting her hand away and trying to tell her to move out of the way and stop touching the toys. Tianna continued to get him to share with her and it got a bit better. She mostly worked on oral motor skills with him. She is observing him doing different things with his mouth to see if he is using his tongue normally, like while eating his yogurt or a sucker. He tends to keep his tongue towards the back of his mouth instead of moving it from side to side or forward in a licking motion. She also worked with him on blowing with his mouth, which he liked. He isn't able to blow with his mouth well because he doesn't pucker his lips enough. They were blowing bubbles with straws in a bowl of soapy water. Emmett mostly wanted to splash with his hands.
Tianna also shared a lot of information on the vestibular system in the ears and how the brain processes how that works. This has to do with space, balance, and control of what is going on around you. Many times children with autism process this differently and can affect how controlled and safe they feel in their environment. Emmett seems to be particularly sensitive to this.
On Friday, we had another meeting with special education and the team informed us that Emmett has a spot for PreK at the Linwood Monroe school in St. Paul. This is good news! There are only two schools in the district that offer the special ed PreK program he needs, one of them being really ghetto and rough, and I was worried he wasn't going to get in to the nice one! But he did, and I am grateful.
The second half of the meeting was spent going through the evaluation report from Emmett's assessment with the special ed team. This was difficult for me to read through. Although I am very hopeful and have been told Emmett has a lot of potential, reading through his report verifies that he could have a long road ahead of him. His test scores are far below average and he is functioning 1 1/2-2 years below his age level. However, the special ed team told us not to focus on these numbers because Emmett is still so young and much can change in the next year.