Child Study Center

Yesterday, I took James up to the Child Study Center to be evaluated mostly for CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder). There was some car accident or something that caused stop-and-go traffic for most of the drive, so what should have taken half an hour took 2 hours! But luckily, one of the specialists was also driving up from Norman and only arrived 10 minutes before me, so it wasn’t such a big deal that I was an hour late. Besides, one of their other patients didn’t show up so they weren’t behind.

They did lots of tests and the auditory ones showed he had no problems in that area, same as the results the audiologist came up with at the health department, so I’ll believe it now that I got a second opinion. The hang up I had before was that the room was a stimulant-free environment. Without any visual distractions, it was easy for James to pick out the right word from the background noise in the headphones. What Rex told me later was that visual distractions fall under the category of ADD.

Strictly from the responses I gave on the behavioral surveys, they assessed borderline risk for ADD and would recommend him being tested for that. We finished that stuff at the health department in December and are awaiting the results in a few weeks.

The speech, language, and cognitive tests showed that James’ receptive language was remarkably high and, as we already knew, he was a very bright boy with a high IQ. His expressive language though was still behind, assessing him at a 4 year and 1 month old child.

His fine motor skills have improved remarkably as they were impressed with how well he could write and use scissors, which was something we worried about at the beginning of the school year. Furthermore, they told me that he had great eye contact! This is a huge change, something that has occurred only recently. (And he still has trouble looking me and Rex in the eyes, but maybe it’s better with other people.)

Sensory Integration was brought up a lot. And the more I think about it, the more I’m able to accept it, despite the fact that he doesn’t fit any mold THE book (The Out of Sync Child)suggests. I have always known he was over-sensitive to loud or unexpected noises and that his mouth was under-sensitive or at least hadn’t received the stimulation he needed as a baby since he never put anything in his mouth then. However, the specialist stressed that Sensory Integration Dysfunction was NOT a medically recognized disability so it COULD NOT be diagnosed. (So why does everyone throw it around so much? And why is it the label everyone uses as the problem with their child?)

So no diagnosis was reached. No problem. As with last time he went there, we ruled out a possible disability. Then, it was autism. Now, we have ruled out CAPD. As with before, they gave me recommendations on how I can help James. That is the most valuable part of this procedure. They, like all other teachers and doctors have agreed with us that it would be greatly beneficial for James to repeat Kindergarten next year.

James did remarkably well. You could see his little body fidgeting and he said many times that he was done and wanted to play. But he kept trucking along as he was asked. He rarely got frustrated and was super cooperative and focused. And what made my day was hearing the doctors say how happy and charming he was. That’s my boy!

I took him to McDonalds afterwards to reward him with fries and a chocolate shake and let him get some of that pent-up energy out. He really riled up the group of kids in the play area there. With only an hour and a half left of school, of course I didn’t make him go, especially since he’d worked so hard all morning.

I will let you know the results of the ADD testing when I meet with the specialist.