Last December I posted a 12-day long live blog about my younger daughter’s sensory integration therapy. Some of you have asked for an update, and I thank you for your concern.

After some extensive evaluation Miss “S” has been diagnosed with autism. She’s less impaired than a lot of patients, but there nonetheless. There are things she is almost normal at, such as large motor skills. There are some things that would tip off a person experienced with autism sufferers.

Autism to me at this point is like a highway marker. It carries none of the shock that “cancer” or “paralysis” might. We’ve known just in comparison with her sister that something was different, and now we have a reference point that we can use in deciding what we can do to improve things.

We took our daughter this morning to her speech evaluation, diagnosis in hand, and we got some good news. Since her last evaluation 7 months ago, she has progressed in one area an amount equal to 7 months development in an average child, and in another area she has progressed the equivalent of 9 months. Despite having no autism treatment, she hasn’t fallen any further behind.

We are anxious to see how she might progress with autism-specialized speech therapy and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) practices. Time Magazine’s May 15 article has a cover story on autism that’s a good read. ABA is mentioned along with another school of thought.

There is so much hope for our kid, but there’s a lot of work to do. The speech therapist said that while she didn’t have a crystal ball, S might see kindergarten class in two years (she’s three now). We got more good news in that we won’t have to drive halfway across Columbus to get some of the therapy she needs. Less driving means less time off work for Mom (and myself when I’m home).


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