My Beautiful Boy

I haven’t updated this blog for a long time even though I keep meaning to. I decided to give it a whole new look so I hope you like the new look. After having a couple of comments left on the blog it inspired me to come in and post again. If I can help other parents just by letting them read our story and letting them know that they are not alone, then it is worth coming in and updating regularly.

So here is our update……..

Corey is now 9 1/2 and is still causing us a lot of trouble. His language is terrible and he still has a lot of anger. I went back to our GP and asked to be referred to a paediatrician since the psychologist and psychiatrist really hadn’t helped us all that much. Even though they seemed quite good, they just didn’t really help.

So the paediatrician did a full physical exam on Corey and full blood tests and other than finding what we think was a lollie in his ear, everything else was normal. He then referred us to another psychologist for a full psychiatric and academic assessment – he was quite surprised that no-one had done a full assessment on him yet and this new psychologist was very surprised too that it hadn’t been done already.

This psychologist is Dr Lindy Petersen and she is really, really good. I can’t believe that she actually got Corey to talk to her and he likes her so is much more comfortable with her. She spent some brief time with me getting a general run down of the problems we’re having and then she brought Corey in for the assessment while I waited in the waiting room.

Then my husband and I went in for another appointment a couple of days later to get the results.

His IQ (I can’t remember the exact score) is normal, except in one area where he scored quite low – it is the area for emotional/social stuff. Then his academic assessment came back good also, he scored at around the level for 10 1/2 year olds, so he’s about a year ahead academically.

Dr Petersen said that the emotional/social area where he scored low, that most Aspergers kids score low in that area.

Next we discussed ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and she said that he doesn’t have it. The criteria for an ODD diagnosis is that they need to have about 4 of the 8 symptoms and Corey I think has 7, but the reason he doesn’t have it is that the other half of the criteria is that they show these symptoms all the time. They are disrespectful and defiant with everyone, all authority, even at school, which Corey isn’t like that at school. At school, he would be too scared to say ‘boo’ to his teacher. So that rules out ODD for him, even though he does have the symptoms but just at home.

Dr Petersen has been doing this for 30+ years and she said she can get a general feel for things when she’s talking to kids and she definately got a bit of an ‘autism spectrum disorder’ feel with Corey although only mild. He hasn’t officially been diagnosed but she does feel that he has mild Asperger Syndrome.

Once again though, he passes the criteria quite highly in one section of symptoms, but is only borderline in the other section. One section involves social skills, lack of empathy, that sort of thing and that is where Corey scored quite highly, he has a definate lack of empathy and social skills. The other criteria is the obsessiveness and repetitive behaviors, which Corey is not as high on, he does have some obsessive behaviors but not overly obsessive.

I have felt for a long time now that Corey has Aspergers and although not diagnoses both the last pyschiatrist and Dr Petersen have said that he has mild Aspergers.

The other thing she said about his symptoms and the ODD symptoms is that it is quite common for Aspergers to have the ODD symptoms at home but not at school. They hold all the anger and frustration inside when they are out in public and when they get home they explode (exactly like Corey). It was really good to hear her say that actually because everyone else we had seen seemed to think he didn’t have a ‘disorder’ because of the fact that he was good at school. They said if he had a disorder he wouldn’t be able to control it any time and he would be like that at all times, but according to Dr Petersen many Aspergers kids do keep it in when at school.

She discussed with us that since Corey lacks empathy that it is pointless trying to discuss some things with him. Even though he does something wrong, it is almost impossible to get him to see that he has done wrong (which is so true with Corey), so she said we are really wasting our time when we try to make him admit he is wrong because he just doesn’t see it. She said that is something that will never change.

Her main advice for us to try over the following six weeks (off when we saw here) was to try and ignore a lot of his behavior. Ignore 90% of the behavior and address the worst 10% that just can’t be ignored. This is because she believes a lot of his behavior is to get a reaction from us, or to get our attention – particularly when he calls me names and argues with me – he wants me to argue back.

I can see where she is coming from but at the same time we have found this really difficult to do because it is really hard to ignore a lot of what he does. He often kicks the doors and walls, slams doors etc which really annoys my husband as he has spent so much time and money working on our house so how can we just let Corey destroy it and ignore it. It isn’t easy.

I do believe Dr Petersen could possibly be the one to help us with Corey, however, for those 2 sessions it cost $900. Admittedly we got back $500 through our health fund but it still cost us $400 for 2 sessions. When it came around to our next appointment we just didn’t have the money to go so we had to cancel it. It is really unfortunate you know and a bit sad that we finally find someone that we think could help and we can’t afford to take our son to her.

All I want is for my son to be good, to stop being so angry all the time. I want him to get better now, before he is 16 and its too late.

Along with his anger he has a lot of nervous tension too, lately he’s started cracking his knuckles when he’s nervous but it has gotten to the stage where he is just doing it all the time. He really reminds me so much of myself when I was younger – except for the anger.

Anyway, I’m going to stop now because this post has gotten quite long. I will try and get back in here more often to post. Please feel free to leave a comment or if you’d like to share your story on our blog just use the contact us link at the top and send us an email.

Take care
Sheryl