Paediatrician Visit

I took Little Prince to see the Paediatrician this morning. We were with him for about two to two and half hours, even the nurse said we got our money's worth lol. He took extensive birth and developmental history. He observed Little Prince as he played and we talked. He asked lots of searching questions about his behaviour and schooling. The Paediatrician wants Little Prince to have blood tests to see if there is any underlying medical/chemical reason for Little Prince's difficulties, as we have little to no medical history for his birth family. He also wants him to be checked out by a specialist Speech and Language Therapist, to check his understand and comprehension of speech, due to the fact that Little Prince can take things that are said, very literally. He wants Little Prince observed and assessed by the Educational Psychologist and for school to fill in some questionairres about his abilities and behaviour. He took a copy of the Occupational Therapist report, and said it was a very good report. He said that given Little Prince's scores for fine motor control and visual motor integration that there is no quesiton that he has dyspraxia. But that he thinks there is a lot more going on, he is considering ADHD and Aspergers. He does not like to diagnose ADHD before the age of six years, but says that Little Prince has obvious attention and concentration issues. The Aspergers comment was due to Little Prince's penchant for lining up his toys and his very literal interpretations of things that are said to him. We are seeing the Paediatrician again in November after the other tests/investigations have been done, so that he has a more complete idea of Little Prince's areas of difficulties. The Paediatrician checked that we were okay with travelling to that particular hospital as he said Little Prince would probably be under his care for a good few years to come. He mentioned the dreaded medication for ADHD, but said that he does not prescribe this unless the child is given a lot of other support, as the medication just masks the symptoms and does not help the underlying issues. This was quite reassuring as I would hate for a 'chemical cosh' to be used on my bouncy little man.

At the moment I'm quite stunned and overwhelmed by all of this. We have other things going on at the moment that make this quite a difficult time and have some hard thinking and decision making to do. Think of us...