Most of you know that we've had concerns with Noah for some time now. He was diagnosed with having a speech delay about a year ago and has been in speech therapy since. He's made amazing progress, and although he's still behind, can communicate pretty effectively at this point. We'd hoped that Noah's improved ability to communicate would resolve some other behaviors that we've worried about, but there hit a point this spring that we felt there was more to Noah's situation than just a communication issue. We decided to have him assessed by a pediatric developmental psychologist in hopes of figuring out what that might be. It's taken a couple of months and a number of appointments to complete a full assessment. It's a pretty in depth process - includes everything from interviewing Wade and I and Noah's speech therapist to completing play assessments and standardized tests. Our final appointment was Tuesday - the "big one" during which she FINALLY handed over a diagnosis. We've suspected autism for awhile now, so it wasn't a surprise when our suspicions were confirmed that Noah is in fact autistic - more specifically, he has "mild-moderate autistic disorder".
So what the heck does that mean?! Even after reading numerous books and articles about Autistic disorders and discussing the diagnosis with the psychologist, Wade and I still needed to come home and do a little research to figure out what we're really looking at. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of Autism is not an exact science. The "spectrum" is huge and not everyone looks at the different classifications within the spectrum the same way (which is REALLY frustrating!!). So, let me see if I can lay it out here for any of you that want details...
Usually, we've seen the autistic spectrum and it's classifications laid out like this with
PDD-NOS sitting at the mild end of the spectrum and each classification becoming more severe as you move to the right:
PDD-NOS-----Asperger's-----High-functioning Autism (HFA)-----Classic Autism
So, we expected to find out Noah was in the PDD or (worst case) Asperger's categories. So when we got the diagnosis of mild autism (which she also explained as HFA), we were surprised, thinking that he was worse than we thought. We've come to realize that this is not necessarily true. This visual we'd been referencing is totally misleading. PDD-NOS, Asperger's and HFA can all occur at various levels of severity. A kid with PDD or Asperger's can be worse off than a kid with HFA. Also, HFA is not technically a recognized diagnosis - so we might as well just throw that out! Once we figured all that out, we've come to look at the spectrum a little differently. Here's a quick tutorial on the basics of ASDs (how we understand it anyway!):
Basically, there are 3 buckets ASD kids get thrown into:
PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified): This category is sort of a catch-all for the kids that clearly have something going on, but can't definitively be placed in any other category. The range in severity can be pretty broad, but if they don't meet the full criteria for autism or Aspergers, they often end up here. This is what we expected Noah to be diagnosed with.
Asperger's Syndrome: Asperger's is basically the same as mild autism. The difference is that Asperger's kids don't have speech delay. Since Noah has a speech delay, he can't be Asperger's.
Classic Autism: There is a set of criteria called the DSM-IV that a child has to meet to be classified as autistic. If a child is PDD or Asperger's, they do not meet that criteria and are not classically "autistic", rather they have an "autistic spectrum disorder" - there's a difference. Within classic autism, there's a range of severity...mild (like Noah) all the way up to the kids that have severe autism (the unresponsive kid rocking in the corner).
When it comes right down to it, the treatments for all ASDs are basically the same, so the diagnosis really does not affect what kinds of treatments we'll seek out for Noah. However, when it comes to school districts and insurance companies, I think having a classic autism diagnosis will work in our favor - it's all about the labels with them. Before we had Noah's diagnosis, the school district qualified Noah for speech services only. I emailed them a copy of our diagnosis Tuesday, and they're already working on setting up another meeting with me to review and adjust his services. We've been trying to get Noah into the school district's developmental preschool. I don't think we'll have a problem getting him in now.
Besides services with the district, we're taking Noah to a clinic in Austin August 26th & 27th to look into biomedical treatments. The medical director there, Dr. Bryan Jepson, used to be an ER doc in Utah, until his own son was diagnosed with autism and he started researching treatments. He ended up opening a biomedical clinic in Utah, but has since moved to this clinic in Austin. Autism is largely considered untreatable by the mainstream mental health and medical communities. However, it's being found now that autism is treatable by approaching it as a metabolic disorder and treating it medically rather than just as a psychological disorder. The basis of biomedical approach focuses on 4 general areas: gastrointestinal, neurological, toxicological and immunological. Treatments often include diet, nutritional supplementation and detoxification. I've read a few books now about the biomedical approach (one written by Dr. Jepson) and it makes a ton of sense. Most autistic kids suffer from a myriad of underlying medical symptoms. For example, 80%+ of Autistic kids have significant GI issues (Noah being one of them). Why so prevalent if autism is solely a psychological disorder??!! The biomedical approach is considered pretty controversial, but the evidence in it's favor is strong and if there's a possibility it can help Noah, how can we not take a look at it? We're viewing this as a fight - one we're going to approach from every possible angle which means we plan to go after some of the more traditional treatments as well. Most of those fall under behavioral/mental health therapies. Anyway - TMI??!! Trust me - I can go on and on!!! Hopefully, I've been able to explain this in a way that makes sense to those of you that want to know. I've embedded a couple of links you may want to look at for further detail (ha!). We just want to make sure everyone is "informed".
All in all - we have every reason to believe that if anyone can progress away from an autistic diagnosis, Noah can. The progress he's made in the last year proves that to us already. Feel free to ask questions, tell us about people you know, treatments you've read about etc. - we're not terribly concerned about keeping this on the down-low (pretty obvious I guess now that it's on our blog!). I'm finding that, although I don't want to label Noah as "the autistic kid", the best way to find resources for Noah is by being open about what we're dealing with.
Anyway - hopefully you will see more of us here on the blog - updates on Noah's progress at the least. Unfortunately the bits of free time I used to put into blogging have been replaced by researching treatments and resources for Noah and thus, my blog is terribly out of date! Maybe once school starts?! Wish me luck!!!
My wardrobe for the week! Nothing better than rolling out of bed after an uninterrupted 10 hours, throwing on a swimsuit and heading to the beach. No schedule. No responsibilities. No make up! 
The sunsets were amazing!
We had a couple of pretty good storms blow through, thanks to hurricane Igor. They were usually pretty short lived, but kept things exciting!
.JPG)
Blowing out the candles! He actually had the right idea, just needed a little wind power from the sidelines to get the job done. By the way - had to use my crappy old point and shoot for these, so excuse the blurry photos...
Opening his new scooter or "hepday bike". He was always riding Addie's pink one...decided he needed a manly blue one of his own...
Giving it a test run...shoeless of course...
"Who's rocket is this?"
Drew ended up getting 3rd - and was very proud of it - even though one of his propellers cracked 
Congratulations to Drew on earning his Bobcat! Now if I can ever get to sewing the patch on his uniform...
