a new team
January 5, 2010
I haven’t posted about my son for a couple of months because I was finding it hard to describe what we were dealing with without disclosing some issues about those involved with his care and education that were perhaps not for public posting. And it has been such a difficult time for me, this issue has been all-encompassing, that if I couldn’t write about this, then I couldn’t write about anything. I think our experience could potentially be helpful to others in the future. So I will write about it over the coming months.
In the mean time, I wanted to write about the new resources that have become available to families in Seattle. The first is the University of Washing Haring Center and Autism Center. The second is the Seattle Children’s Hospital Autism Center. By the way, the UW and Children’s are affiliated entities but these two centers are separate. Two years ago, when my son was evaluated at the UW, they did a brilliant multi-specialty team assessment. But when they gave us the diagnosis (which was an unclear, vague, non-diagnosis), they basically said “call FEAT and see ya”. They did not provide services. It was pretty unbelievable actually, even as I look back on it today, that the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital did not have any services that they could provide to my son. Shameful. But now, and they both just started up in September, they both provide services through these two Centers. So, I wanted to get on it right away. The director at the UW Center, who is someone I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, recommended someone at the Haring Center who could consult with us - evaluate what was going on in with my son in the classroom and provide recommendations on useful strategies to help him. I have also been fortunate to know the two doctors who head the Children’s Autism Center and they both recommended a psychologist who specializes in Aspergers for my son. She is supposed to be excellent at understanding how the Aspergers brain processes learning. So, we are fortunate to be bringing these resources on board for my son, and out of all of the pain we have gone through in the first trimester of school this year, we now have a brand new team in place that I am excited about.
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