The Doctor is In.

This week was Jackson’s 18-month check up! I cannot believe how big he is. While I was excited that he reached this important milestone, and happy by how big he’s grown, I also had reservations about the upcoming doctor’s appointment. It would be when the doctor would test him for autism.

As we walked into the doctors, his mom Cathy filled out the general forms and he was weighed and measured. The nurse gave Cathy an autism-screening sheet to fill out while we waited in the room for the doctor. We talked about the questions and laughed (nervously) about couple that were very much Jackson, while he ran around the room, or tried to climb up on the table.

 

The doctor came in and she smiled at Jackson. She sat down and started asking her typical doctor questions, and Cathy voiced her concern about his lack of development. The doctor watched Jackson as he went over to her and smiled, babbled at her for a little bit, tried to take her papers off of the chart.

She went through the questionnaire that Cathy filled out and discussed each one with us. Some of the ones that she discussed more in depth were

-does your child play properly with small toys?

-does your child sometimes stare at nothing or wander with no purpose?

These were the only two questions on the sheet that had answers that were positive indicators of autism. Fortunately, they were not significant in Jackson.

The big question that remained was why didn’t he talk? He really didn’t many words, or he would have words then lose them. The doctor explained that she thought that Jackson had what was an expressive language delay.

However, later looking this up later, I found that later in life this was sometimes also linked to autism! Will the questions ever end??

An expressive language delay sometimes can develop into an expressive language disorder.

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Expressive_language_disorder says:

Expressive language disorder means a child has difficulty with verbal and written expression of language. The child may have problems with producing sentences, recall of words and vocabulary. The cause is often unknown, although it may be associated with other developmental difficulties such as Down syndrome, autism or hearing loss. A speech pathologist usually assesses and treats this impairment.

Jackson’s parents will have to continue to be very proactive about getting him to say words, trying to get him to develop his vocabulary and catch up to other children his age.