Assessment at Melmed

Jayen had an appointment at Dr. Melmed's office again today. I wasn't sure I knew exactly what this appointment was about. I quickly learned that today was the day they were doing the autism "testing" to see if Jayen was on the spectrum. I thought he already was, but I guess formal testing was required. The testing was fun to sit in on. I was informed I had to be a silent participant. I really wasn't allowed to do anything. I answered questions when asked of me but otherwise just observed Jayen playing with a complete stranger. There were lots of things I knew were markers for autism, but never really thought about Jayen doing them. Dr. ***** sat in front of Jayen and smiled at him with no response or reaction to her. She did it multiple times to see if he would respond, but he didn't. She brought out a toy car and made it drive on the table then asked Jayen to do the same. He repeated the action. Then she brought out a toy bunny and made it hop across the table. Jayen again repeated the action. She then brought out a toy block and told Jayen is was a car and drove it across the table as if it were a car. Jayen did not drive it across the table. She did the same thing but said the block was a bunny and made it hop. There was no pretending with Jayen. He quickly picked up the block and handed it back to her. I think he thought she was nuts. They continued to play with more toys. There was minimal eye contact from Jayen. After the assessment we were asked to wait in the lobby again until Dr. Jessani was ready to talk to us.

 

 



 

Dr. Jessani was so nice. She apologized for having to give me this information since she had just met us, but Jayen has moderate autism. I laughed a little and said, "I thought Dr. Melmed gave him that diagnosis three months ago. Don't be sorry!" Well, Dr. Melmed suggested it three months ago, but this test confirmed it. I don't know that it really hit me until the ride home. We had talked about giving Jayen an autism diagnosis to help with services but not really thinking that he 100% was. I always knew there were little Jayen quirks, but wasn't convince he was autistic. I now have to understand that this isn't just something we gave him, he really does have autism. Ouch! I don't know why this is all of the sudden hurting more than I thought it would. It really was a hard blow to take. It really was something I needed more time understanding and coming to terms with.