I gotta share with somebody, and so many of you are friends here.
Three years ago my son, 2 at the time, was diagnosed as having "PDD-NOS" which is kind of a bullsquat diagnosis in my opinion, that stands for [SIZE=-1]Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified[/SIZE]. I believe it means, 'we have no fricken' idea what's wrong with your kid'. Anyway, it's a sub-classification of Autism, with Autistic-like behaviors.
The big deal was, at the time, the kid wasn't speaking and made no attempt to. So he was slapped with PDD-NOS label, and made eligible for a special developmental pre-school, in addition to the in-home speech therapy three times a week with a Speech Pathologist that he was already receiving.
Just prior to his initial diagnosis as PDD-NOS, the Speech Pathologist had a full spectrum hearing eval done. (He HAD passed his newborn hearing test and well-baby check-up, etc..) The Hearing Eval and Timpanigram showed a 100% 'blockage' in one ear, and a 90% blockage in the other ear, with the most significant hearing loss in the high frequencies and low frequencies. This meant when you said his name, he turned his head because he could hear the mid-range, but it sounded like being underwater, without being able to hear the sibilance that makes the human language recognizable. And that's why he passed the very simplistic baby hearing tests. The kid was deaf! (And at this point had already developed a 200 word vocabulary in sign-language thanks to the Speech Pathologist.)
Anyway, I disagreed with the diagnosis of PDD-NOS, and thought clearly it had to do with spending the first two years of his life deaf, without his parents knowing about it. I thought for sure, the speed with which he picked up sign-language, and used it to communicate with us showed there was nothing wrong with the brain. BUT, the diagnosis was necessary for this Developmental Pre-School that we all wanted him in, so I was told not to argue too much.
Shortly after starting the school, we got the hearing cleared up... the Ear Nose & Throat Specialist spent two minutes with him before opting for surgery, the dreaded "Tubes" operation, which I thought was absurd. We ended up taking him to a Chiropractor (with me kicking and screaming and laughing my head off at the very idea that a Chriopractor could help my kids ears!) who put one hand on his neck and said "Oh my GOD!" Worse neck on a child he ever felt, and believed it had to be related to the hearing. I was VERY very skeptical. He adjusted my kids neck and a week later the Timpanigram showed both ears were 100% clear. The ENT shook his head and tested him three more times. Then he passed his full-spectrum hearing test with flying colors and has been hearing fine ever since. But he was very, very behind, developmentally, where he should have been at that age, and the goal of the school was basically to catch him up (in my mind).
Since the three years after fixing his hearing and attending full days at this Developmental Pre-School, and speech therapy three times a week, (and a lot of hard work at home with Mom & Dad) he went from far behind his 'age-appropriate' level in every skill, to catching up to age-appropriate, to surpassing it (and a 6-800 word sign-language vocabulary that we all still use around the house even though he speaks fine now). And slowly, the autistic-like behavior decreased and finally disappeared.
In preparation for him being mainstreamed into regular kindergarten next year (!!!!!), we had the follow up evaluation done today by the Doctor that first diagnosed him with PDD-NOS. I was nervous as hell. About an hour and a half into him testing my son, he said he was going to put away the pre-school level stuff and move on to Kindergarten level "just to see how far he can keep going". We then moved on to First grade stuff. Apparently he blew away the pre-school level test and the Doctor couldn't believe it.
When it was all done, he sat back with a big smile and said, 'Now I still have to actually score the thing, but honestly... I can't imagine there's any way I'm going to be able to give your son a diagnosis of any kind.' Just what we wanted to hear. He added, 'Other than damn bright, and very advanced for his age'.
:rocker:
So anyway, I officially have a 'normal' son, and he'll be starting normal kindergarten next year, and will graduate from his developmental pre-school in a couple of weeks (they do little caps and gowns and the works!). It's been five tough years with this kiddo, and I tell you what, I've got all the respect in the world for parents of 'challenging' or 'special-needs' kids or whatever you want to call them. I know I'm damn lucky that mine was only temporary.
Sorry for the self-indulgent novella that had nothing to do with Ty Law. I'm just the happiest guy in the world right now and wanted to share with my Patsfans family.
