Thursday 14 January 2010

Today - a diagnosis of autism?

Stephs Two Girls January 14, 2010 autism, diagnosis, paediatrician, speech delay

Well. I'm starting this blog after a visit to the paediatrician today with my younger daughter. It brought some shock news that she may be diagnosed with autism.

The paediatrician visit was via a referral from a speech therapist - we noticed from about the age of 2 that our youngest daughter's speech was not clear and behind where we believed it should be. So we had referred her on for speech therapy ourselves at that point.

After sitting with the paediatrician and being asked several questions, it brought home to me how easy it is to forget about things that have happened in the past, or even that happen on a semi-regular basis. So I'm intending to keep this blog as a kind of diary going forward to remind us what happened when. I'll also go back over what has happened to date, and it'll probably be full of emotion and lots of questions, so no promises it'll be easy to read!

I suppose the first thing to say is that I'm feeling a lot of different things right now - relief, guilt, sadness, loneliness, and like I'm at the start of a long journey. And that I've got a million questions, with no idea where to start. I've also got tonsillitis, the gas man due tomorrow (and no that isn't a euphemism, our heating is not working properly!), a husband due in late who I need to talk to and I'm very tired. So it's most likely I'll be ending this blog before I've even properly begun, and starting on it again in the morning.

But before I go, I just want to say I love both my daughters very much indeed :)

For more information about PDA, please read the book shown below:

'Understanding Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome in children' *

* this is an affiliate link and I may receive a small commission if you click and go on to buy anything. It won't cost you any extra.

(Other PDA books can be found in my

'Books about the Pathological Demand Avoidance profile of autism' review post.)

To find out more about our experiences, please check out our 'About Us' page or the summary of our experience in Our PDA Story Week 35. If you are looking for more online reading about Pathological Demand Avoidance, the posts below may help.