I still remember the day like it was yesterday. We took our 18-month-old daughter to a behavioral pediatrician to see if she may be on the autism spectrum. She had been showing signs of having autism such as behavioral outbursts, a clingy disposition to myself, and she did strange things like make her bed every day and stack and re-stack books for hours. The knot in my stomach was too big to manage with tears ready and loaded as we waited in the waiting room to be called back. I was extremely nervous at how everything would turn out. It was a three hour test. My 18-month-old threw tantrums every 20 minutes, she wouldn’t allow anyone to help her do anything unless it was me, she did things on her terms, etc. How was this going to play out? What if she did have autism? How do I raise her fairly if she needs special attention? In fact, where would I even begin? Oh the questions were endless…
The test started and we were amazed at how well she began the test. In fact, she was getting everything correct. They were asking her questions about numbers and letters, colors and sequencing, positional terms and hypothetical situations. Each question they asked her, she answered with ease and was correct. Our little 18 month old baby was blowing our minds. My husband and I looked at each other in disbelief and started laughing at one point because of how much she knew…it was unbelievable to us.
The nurse continued the test until our daughter was to miss 5 questions in a row. Each page she flipped, the questions got a bit harder. FINALLY she missed 5 in a row and we were able to stop. They then left the room to score her test. When they came back into the evaluation room, the look on their faces was priceless. I’ll never forget the news they gave us. It truly lightened my load and a sigh of relief was probably audible from both my husband and I.
The nurse, in disbelief, informed us that my 18 month old’s mental capacity was that of a 5.5 year old. Our jaws hit the floor! We were ecstatic and couldn’t believe it. What she said next was profound and will always stay with me. In fact, every parent needs to hear it (because I feel most of us may do this) and that is why I share this story with you.
She explained to us that our daughter knows SOOOOO much more than we ever imagined. She understands everything we are telling her and that we are not giving her enough credit for what she does know. She said that we are putting limitations on her because of her age and her behavioral disposition. Her advice was to treat her as an older child and don’t shove her in an “18 month old child” box that we had been doing.
So our child was brilliant! What a relief and we could sleep better knowing that our daughter was pulling the wool over our eyes. In fact, we did treat her differently from that point on, and she did change for the better as far as her behavior goes. But that isn’t the end of the story. It isn’t the end of the long battle we would face for years to come.
The news following the fact our daughter was extremely bright was hard to swallow. She did have something she was battling. She was suffering from something called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Oh no, she now had a label! I feared the label, I feared she wasn’t “normal,” I feared for how to raise her, I just, well, feared…
The tears welled up a bit, my shoulders sank a bit and I realized we had two choices. We could accept it and take charge with this new information, allowing it to drive us in a positive way, or sulk in the news and feel sorry for the situation. We then pulled our boot straps up, stopped feeling sorry ourselves, and did the one thing we knew how to do… called Help Me Grow. They took quick action and wanted to evaluate her as well…and here we went again.
Once evaluated, they were able to come up with a game plan on how to best help our daughter. They quickly took action and BAM…just like that, my husband and I weren’t alone. We were on a team…a team that saw our daughter as she was and met her where she was at, a team that focused on her as a whole person and helped us to navigate a new norm, a team that we grew to love and care for because they loved and cared for us.
Listen, hearing your child is labeled and is different is tough, one of the toughest things to hear and I’m not making light of that. But it is what you do with that information that counts. Do you sit on it and hope it goes away, or do you take the bull by the horns and run with it knowing that early intervention is key to a successful outcome? Don’t do this alone, we found that we couldn’t possibly give her what she needed without the help of our Help Me Grow team. Embrace the different and enjoy the ride to learning all about the beauty of your uniquely gifted child!
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