Tae Kwon Do - Green Belt!!!!

Jonathan took a Tae Kwon Do test last week to earn his green belt and he passed it. He and Vanessa took the test the same day. Jonathan had a little bit of trouble at first. He got confused. But as soon as he sat down and another child did his routine, the master called Jonathan and he did his perfectly.

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On a separate note, this is Jonathan's last week at camp. He has enjoyed each week and the counselors have given me very good feedback, which is very encouraging.

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With regards to the diagnosis, we have a meeting on the 21st to receive the "formal" results. However, I am already starting to be skeptical. The Dr. called me today to tell me that the speech pathologist had an opening this Thursday to evaluate Jonathan. I immediately questioned her and told her that I thought part of the 6-hour session we had last week was to do a speech evaluation and her response is that she did a high level evaluation and it is not in depth enough to tell me where he is and that I need to take him to a specialist. I swear my blood started to boil and I told her that I didn't have time this Thursday to take him. She told me that on the 21st she would give me her recommendations.

I have to admit that I am disappointed with this Dr. Very disappointed. She kept emphasizing that she is very amazed about Jonathan's progress, particularly after reading the first report written 3 years ago, yet her objectivity is questionable (in my mind).

I have gotten over that bad taste though. I know my son better than she does. I know how bad he was 3 years ago. I know he is mainstreamed and requires little support now. I know he is still somewhere in the spectrum. I just don't agree with her on where on the spectrum he is. And that is okay. The whole spectrum evaluation is vague in my opinion. To give you an idea, she told us last week that after talking to the other Dr., they believe that he still has some "repetitive" behaviors that make him fall in the "autism" bucket because he has a bit of echolalia. And their evaluation of his echolalia is that he sometimes repeats after someone tells him something. If it wasn't for that minor observation, she would have moved him under PDD-NOS. So I paid attention after that, and noticed that he repeats, but he repeats in a question format, not as a straight repeat with no intonation. That was my first observation. Then I noticed that we all do that to him and Vanessa. Then I noticed that it wasn't just us (parents and grandma), but we went to visit my sister-in-law and she and her husband would also repeat in amazement whenever the kids said something that they felt was important. So we started making jokes that we all must have autism because we all repeat. And even Vanessa repeats sometimes. So my point is that his so called "echolalia" may not be such. It is a behavior that he learned by imitating because he repeats the phrase at times as a question as we all do. I agree that it is not the best way to use language, but it is not inappropriate either. Hence my quest for helping him with language. But all his other major "autistic" behaviors have disappeared (except for his humming which drives me crazy at times)

But what bothers me is that I was trying to get her to recommend more than 1 hour a week of speech so I can get the insurance to pay and now she is going to send me to yet another specialist. What a waste of my time.