The Evaluation

I can now say that a full psychological evaluation for a 5 year old is intense. It is time consuming. It is draining, emotionally and physically. It makes you look at things in a different light.

It has been a very long ordeal :

Week 1 -
     Make the call for additional help. We were at our wits end with the way things had escalated since school started. Yay we made it onto the waiting list for intake!

Week 2 -
     We waited. And we waited...we called and left a desperate message to get moved up on the list...and we waited some more.

Week 3 -
     We got a call! Yippee...a call to let us know that someone in intake would be calling to schedule an appointment in the next 48-72 hours.

(Time Out)
  At this point...we were really beginning to worry about our decision to go with the firm that we did. 3 weeks to get a call saying that someone was going to call us. I made up my mind that if they didn't call in 48 hours we were going to start looking at other options.

Week 4 -
     In the final hour, intake called. It was not a receptionist or an assistant...it was the actual intake clinician that was calling us. Impressive. We set an appointment to come in for an initial consultation and observation.

Week 5 -
     We met with the clinician, and, boy, did she get the full brunt of him. I decided to strategically set up our arrival time so that he wouldn't have time to adjust to his surroundings. Typically we arrive a goo 30-45 mins prior to any appointment for "he" so that he can get used to his surrounding and work out all his anxiety and energy. That day we arrive 5 mins early, had filled out and faxed back the paperwork to expedite the process and we were ready to go. We were ushered into a 5' x 7' room. He literally bounced off the walls. He did a head stand on the edge of a couch. He climbed on top of her desk, knocked over her computer. He screamed. He spoke his gibberish. He voiced his frustration with being there. I was asked why we were there. What we hoped to change. Would we be willing to medicate? Would we be willing to isolate him while getting the dosage right? Had he hurt himself? Had he hurt anyone else? Had he had a full evaluation before? What testing had he received? How recent was that testing?
     I feel like we had more questions than answers when we left. I felt horrible for not taking him sooner. I cried, a lot.
     We left knowing that we weren't imagining what was going on. We learned that we had made a lot of concessions in our lives to keep him stable. We learned that he needed to learn to make adjustments to cope. We learned that he didn't neatly fit in any given box. We learned that our insurance covered a full evaluation (yippee). And we learned that we would be meeting with a full fledged psychologist  who would be calling, in the very near future.

Week 6 -
     I met with Ms. J to answer some really basic questions about him in her office, without him. Why hadn't a full eval been done before? What meds did he take? Where has he been to be evaluated  What had been ruled out? Did he have any physical impairments? We discussed how long, in time frames and averages, the evaluation would take. We talked about what would be discussed, that I would have to sit outside and wait for him. I signed a ton of disclosures saying I consented to testing, leaving him alone, picking him up on time, etc. Then we set up the next 2 appointments.

Week 7 -
     He met with Ms. J and I was given a multitude of multiple choice questions to answer...and oh goodie...a stack for his brand new teacher too! Some of the questions seemed redundant, some felt impossible to answer. He hid under the table the entire first session. I met with a clinician to talk about somethings that the law requires in the way of accommodations for him and what the school is required by law to expect from him, and I set up an appointment for myself. They noticed that I seemed to be taking a lot of the burden on my self. That I had a lot of blame festering inside of me. Things were coming to a boiling point and that was why I was asking for help for him.

Week 8 -
    This week went better I feel. He drew some pictures. He answered some questions about feelings. He answered some questions about bullies at the school. How he feels at school came up. What he does at home. Does he get in a lot of trouble? He only hid under the table the entire time. I turned in our part of the paperwork, and we scheduled a new appointment.

Week 9 -
    More of the same. This week he put together puzzles and finish patterns. They talked about friendship. She tried to get him to make up a story.

Week 10 -
     This was the last week he went to see Ms. J. They finished up the patterns that he was too frustrated to do. They played with some toys. They played pretend. We set up a time for me to come the next week and complete a parent interview. I was warned that this would take 2-12 hours and needed to be completed in one session.

Week 11 -
     5 hours. That's how long my parent interview lasted. It would have been awesome if I had been advised to take the baby book for him so that we could look at milestones like first words, when he walked, first sentence, potty trained. There were more abstract questions like do you feel he acts strange? No he acts like him...How do we help him cope? He does he self soothe? What facial expressions does he make? Are they appropriate? Does he talk to strangers? Does he seem to recognize people? And so on and such forth. It was grueling. It made me realize that sometimes we make concessions for him...like we always start conversations with questions for him to get him to speak. We automatically abide by rituals so we can control outbursts. We accepted a long time ago things in him that aren't in the realm of normal. I realized that bringing him places early so that he could adapt...well it prevented everyone from getting a full picture of what was going on earlier.

We will see where all this has landed us in the next 2-4 weeks as all of the evaluations are scored and processed. So I will be on the lookout for yet another call to come about him...hopefully we get some answers soon.