We have a diagnosis

After seeing two different doctors Parker has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder Syndrome, a social anxiety disorder, on the autism spectrum. If you would like to find out more about it click the link. Due to the upcoming family reunion I wanted to share this information before we all got together again. Hopefully this information will help us interact with Parker, because knowledge is power! Right!; and maybe what our family is going through will help others in similar situations. Jeremy and I love Parker very much and we want others to love him too, and sometimes to love someone you have to understand them. I have some special people in our lives that are well educated in Special Education, and have been my life lines. I want to give them special thanks for all they do to support us; my Aunt Kathie, my cousin Mariah, and our good friends Aunt Katie and Uncle Troy.

Parker was having a hard time focusing in the classroom, to the point that he was distracting other kids. Parker’s classroom teacher was great, and she supported us, but could not keep him in his seat, and couldn’t keep him from being a distraction. I had a really bad experience with the Special Ed teacher, pretty much Parker hadn’t been serviced for his needs the whole year, because I was told that we couldn’t do a new IEP (Individual Education Plan) until April, because that is when the last one had been done and you have to wait a whole year. (To any of you who may need this information, you can ask for a new IEP any time, by law.) So Parker wasn’t be serviced the whole year, but we didn’t know because he was bringing home speech papers once a week and was in a special reading program. During this time Parker’s classroom teacher was expressing concern about his lack of focus. I would go and sit in the classroom and Parker would act perfect, but I couldn’t be there everyday. So I asked the classroom teacher what the special ed teacher was doing for support, and was told nothing. So I went to the special ed teacher to find out how to help Parker, she said she didn’t even have Parker’s special ed paperwork from Grand Junction (which is a lie because she had told me that I couldn’t have a new IEP until April, and how would she have know that if she hadn’t had his papers at one time.) I went straight home and called Grand Junction to get the records faxed over again. A big thanks to my cousin Mariah who told me to just take the IEP that I already had into the school. Thanks Mariah, after all of this you can do all the thinking for me! So I took Parker’s IEP in, but still nothing. On the last day of school I went in to take something to Parker’s teacher, the special ed teacher grabbed me and told me that she had just gotten the fax from GJ, which I looked at the date and it said 4/28, and the date was 5/22. REALLY?!?! The first thing out of her mouth is “Have You thought about medicating Parker?” Just for your information it is against the law for educators to suggest medication in Utah, and just what would we be medicating him for? What was wrong with him?
So I was mad, and I marched down to Parker’s classroom teacher, and as calmly as I could I asked her if we needed to medicate Parker, she told me NO!, but I would have him observed. Thank – you, to this special person who championed Parker all year, and at just the right moment made the perfect suggestion to me. Why am I including this crazy story of me getting mad?, because it was the breaking point – the ah ha moment! After this interaction I went to my medical doctor and asked for help. My Doctor put his office staff on this and by the end of the day I had a contact, and they were faxing me forms to fill out. I filled out the forms in record time and faxed them back in and called to get my appointments. I told them my crazy story of how we had lost a whole year and I needed help and I would jump through any hoop they asked me to, and I meant it. They finally called me back with an appointment date; it was the 27th of July and the day that Jer and I were flying home from Alaska. The date was almost a month away, but it was a cancellation, and the next appointment was in late August. So I begged my family that someone would bring the kids to SLC from Moab so we could get Parker into the Doctor before school started, and my wonderful Father did. Jer and I were really tired after taking a red eye from Anchorage to SLC, and went to the movie UP just so we could sleep while we waited for Parker, but were still out of our minds tired. Dad brought the kids to the Mall in Provo and we threw them in the truck and headed to SLC. When we were almost to the Doctors office Parker said, do you think I will get a new cast? Jer and I looked at each other in all of our craziness we had failed to tell him we were going to a doctor to help him in school. So we explained this to Parker, and he went into classic Parker shut down mode. We met with the Doctor who asked us tons of questions, and did tons of tests; for the most part Parker was acting like the Doctor wasn’t even in the room. The Doctor told us what that he thought that Parker had Asperger’s syndrome, and we scheduled more Doctor Appointments with other Doctors. We also purchased a few books and have been doing some very heavy reading.
So why am I sharing this? Because we love Parker, and we want him to learn how to behave correctly and not use Asperger’s as an excuse. We have told him that because he knows he has it he has to work even harder to act right. So here we go down the road of Asperger’s syndrome, learning to make eye contact, learning personal boundaries, how to take no for an answer, focusing in school and for Parker not talking just about X-men, transformers, and horses! Please join us, it is going to be a bumpy road, with a lot of pit stops, but we love our kids and want them to be well rounded, healthy people. I would love to answer any questions, or read any comments.
Thanks & Love,
Jeremy & Stacy