Albert's diagnosis

I guess I should start with a brief summary of what's happened so far with Albert. His kindergarten teacher suggested I have Albert evaluated for ADHD because of his lack of attention in class. He also was having trouble academically. He saw his doctor and he saw a phsychitrist to have his IQ tested. After seeing everyone and talking to everyone and filling out a zillion papers we got the diagnosis for ADHD. He also had a delay in his fine motor skills. He went to therapy for that for a while then we quit because we thought we were moving. Anyway then in first grade his teacher suggested that maybe there was more going on than just ADHD. So we set out once again to find out what was going on.

He went back to his doctor and back to the people at school and back to have his IQ tested. So round and round we went and here we are. His doctor told me today that "After doing the evaluation with him and looking over the things you told us and his teachers told us I beleive he does have an Autism Spectrum Disorder". I knew that statement was coming but it was still hard to hear.

So the question that I have been asked and know most of you are thinking "what does that mean?" Well that's not easily answered but I will try my best. For the most part getting the diagnosis means that we will get the help for him that he needs. The things that qualify him for autism are his inflexibilty with routines, his communication akwardness (explain more later), inappropriate social behaviour, trouble expressing himself, lack of empathy, his delayed motor skills, and taking things literally and not getting certain social cues.

His biggest area of concern is his language/communication. The thing we noticed first is that he doesn't always anwer questions that are directly asked to him. You ask him something like "What are you playing?" and instead of saying I am playing Bakugans he'll say something like this bakugans name is this and this is what it does. Answering questions with facts like that is a symptom. Then getting him to get his point across is sometimes almost impossible.

I could go on and on but I won't go over every single detail. Plus I am getting tired and my mind has become blank as to what else to tell you to help explain it all. I don't understand it all yet myself so I don't do a very good job at explaining. There is so much information to take in.

The website http://www.autismspeaks.org/ has some good information. He specifically was diagnosed with pdd-nos (I beleive). At anyrate he has the high functioning kind.

It has been a emotional ride so far and sure it will continue to be.

The man at the corner.

I was driving along taking Albert to see his doctor. We were talking about what he had done in school so far that day. We were coming up to a traffic light when I saw this man standing at the corner waiting for the light to change so he could cross. He was obivously talking or singing to himself very loudly. My first reaction was to roll up the windows and lock the doors. I didn't though and boy am I glad I didn't. The light changed to red and the car in front of us slowed to stop at the line. Then I realized he had wires coming from his ears and he was definitely singing. Then I heard what he was singing. It stopped my heart for a minute. I can't remember what it was now but it was definitely a christian song. He was singing and praising God with his hands in the air at a busy intersection. It was a wow moment. I felt horrible for thinking the worse of this man. I thought he looked a bit crazy and here he was shamelessly singing praises. It made think "wow could I so boldly do something like that".

So this man a crazy man that was waving his hands about wildly and singing...... well let's just say performing musicly isn't in his future quickly became someone I admired.

He passed!

I just thought I would take a moment to tell you all..... HE PASSED!!! Yay! Albert passed his PT test this morning. He needed to pass this one the first time to stay in the military and he did. So it looks like we are not Riddlesburg bound after all. I was sort of looking forward to moving back home. However staying in the military is what is best for us. It is to hard finding a job out there in the civilian world right now.

So him passing his test means if nothing changes between now and then he leaves for tech school in January. I think I've written all this before. I think I must be getting old because I am repeating myself. Anyways his school is 6 monthes long. So that means if we get to move we are should be moving in June or July 2012. No we don't know where yet but we are hoping Virginia.

Now I need to make the decision work on getting a job now or wait until we find out if we are moving.

Miscellaneous pictures

Here are a few pictures I've taken in the last little while.
Albert and his new stripe. Look at all those stripes!

My pretty girl after her soccer game!

Albert doing what he loves to do being goalie! Making his daddy proud!

Sarah being a really good big sister. They are playing with the barbie pool. Katey has just recently started to love barbies. She can even say barbie. It's pretty cute.

Andrew is such a silly boy. I have no idea why he doing this but he's cute!

Adventure with Albert update

It's been a while since I have really posted anything on here so I will spend a minutes updating on what's been going on here in LA.

First we will start with big Albert. He has his PT test tomorrow. So please pray for him. This past week he has also received his class date. PTL (Praise the Lord) it's not until January. So he will be here for the holidays including his and Sarah's birthdays. So we are looking at moving sometime in July probably. No we don't know where yet though.

Next we will go with Sarah. Well not much to tell there really. She is enjoying school now that things have been resolved with the bully situation. She is loving playing soccer. She has improved on self confidence a ton since she started playing.

Then the 2 little kids. Well there isn't really anything to tell about them. Andrew is quickly becoming just like his big brother. Carolyn is walking and talking really well for her age.

So that brings us to little Albert and probably the longest update. This has been quite an adventure so far with him. We haven't seen his doctor is go over his autism evaluation with her yet. However we have seen his phychitrist. She retested his IQ and did a general evaluation with him. She found that his IQ went up a lot. It went from 92 to 110. Also she said he does have a mild form of Asperger's syndrome. She also sugested that we go through the school to have a language development evaluation done on him. She suggested this because his biggest problem is in the language area. He has trouble understanding what is expected of him and also he has trouble getting people to understand him. So we are waiting for the school to do their thing which is taking forever. This has been quite a learning experience. I urge you all to look up Asperger's syndrome to understand better why he is the way he is. It really does explain alot. I never knew that autism was even a possibility for him. Before this all began I had a 'vision' of what a child with autism looked like and now that image has drastically changed. Who would have thought that my son would be a face of a child with autism.

Lots of videos of the kids

Ok so here are a bunch of videos we have taken in the last few weeks. I would tell you a little about each one but I can't remember what they all are. So you just have to watch and see for your self. One things for sure there is probably silly kids in each one.

A Beautiful Start to the Day!

There's nothing like starting the day with a reminder of God's promises!

What a beautiful start to the day!

A beautiful sun rise is what was the other side of the sky. It was a kind of morning 'show' that makes you just smile and say Thank you God for creating such beauty for us all to see.

I found what's at the end of the rainbow!! LOOK LOOK IT'S ALBERT!! What a treasure!