From a toddler it was clear Robert was a little different from his peers. With time it became more apparent that Robert was perhaps not neurotypical.
When other toddlers began speaking, Robert did not. He did not respond to his own name and didn’t seem to have much awareness or interest in others. He preferred to play on his own but he was and still is a happy wee boy in his own wee world.
Robert began attending Nurture shortly after his 2nd birthday. It was during our first parents evening Katie and Lorraine (who was Robert’s key worker at the time) brought up the little differences they had notice in Robert compared to his peers. Both Robert’s father and I had noticed these differences for some time. Katie and Lorraine were great in helping getting Robert’s referrals.
First up was a hearing check in Edinburgh which Robert passed with flying colours.
Next was a catch up with Robert’s Health Care visitor. She was kind enough to pop out to our home to see Robert and of course he ‘performed’ fantastically for her. Engaging in play and bringing her toys/ objects and showing that he was sharing his interests with her. After me telling her, prior to visiting that he would most likely ignore her. Our children do like to show us up and make us into liars don’t they?
We were then referred to Speech and Language. After our first appointment for which again Robert was a wee star and seemed to responded wonderfully, I voiced my concerns that he showed signs of possibly being on the spectrum. His stimming was becoming more apparent for example flapping his arms when excited, lack of eye contact and the delayed communication and language. We were then invited to the CDC unit at Beatlie Campus.
After a couple of clinic visits we were given the formal diagnosis for Robert being on the Autism Spectrum.
Even though it was the diagnosis we suspected and expected, I was an emotional wreck. After asking ourselves a lot of what and why questions, we agreed that none of that mattered. We are so lucky to have an amazing child and we are going to do all in our power to help him and we went onto the path of educating ourselves about the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Spoiler, ASD is shockingly complex.
We attended a course for parents called More Than Words which we would highly recommend which concentrates on teaching children social and language skills through play. We were referred for this via the CDC at the Beatlie Clinic. We continue to use the stratagies we learnt to this day.
Then 2020 hit us all. All the therapies and consultations were placed on pause but guess what…… during lockdown, Robert began to speak. He was a lot more engaged in play with us, following simple instructions and showed more general understanding and awareness. Robert was going through a huge leap. He discovered his love of dinosaurs and he can now name them all. Honestly, I have dinosaurs out of my ears!
My advice for any parents going through this is early intervention. We would not have had the knowledge or the help had we left it and pretended there was no issue. That our child was ‘just a bit slower and will catch up’. When the reality was that we had concerns and we wanted a professional opinion, even if it wasn’t what we wanted to hear.
We have Katie and the Nurture Team to thank for this, if it wasn’t for them, we may not have received the help as soon as we did.
Robert is thriving and continues to make great leaps in his learning.
We have days where we feel overwhelmed but I remind myself that the days are long but the years are short.
Thank you for reading
Suki
