Breaking News
“The child has met the diagnostic criteria for autism.”
Depending on the type of person you are, this is some of the most life altering information you, as a parent, can receive. The anticipation through the assessments and waiting for confirmation to find out what exactly is going on with your child has been building up to this moment. And now, you have it named: Autism.
Autism is now known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) due to its wide range of symptoms and levels of impairment. Autism Canada defines Autism as “a complex neurobiological condition that can affect the normal function of the gastrointestinal, immune, hepatic, endocrine and nervous systems. It impacts normal brain development leaving most individuals with communication problems, difficulty with typical social interactions and a tendency to repeat specific patterns of behaviour. There is also a markedly restricted repertoire of activity of interests.”
How does this help you to answer the dozens, if not hundreds of questions and concerns that have got to be piling up in your mind faster than the line-up for Tim Hortons coffee during morning rush hour? The answer is it doesn’t-not really. It does give you a basic, albeit medical jargon heavy description of what is going on with your child, but, other than that, it does not help you get through the rest of the day and all of the days that are going to follow this one.
What does this diagnosis mean for your child and family? What’s going to happen next? How is your child going to be prepared for the future? How are you going to pay for the therapy? Where do you get more information? What is school going to be like? Are there sensory friendly services in your area? Who is going to help you?
These questions, while they may seem overwhelming, are easy to answer. It is our greatest hope that you will find most of them in this section of ‘What Happens First’. Our hands are extended to you. We get it; we’ve been there and we want to help show you your own way through this life changing set of circumstances. Take deep breaths.
If you haven’t already, please head on over to our Disclaimer, for a recap of what this site, Prairie Spectrum, is and isn’t.
We welcome you to Prairie Spectrum and What Happens First.