Journey to Autism

 Marielle's Diagnosis

I want to share you my DD Marielle she is 5 yrs old. she was in preschool when we decided to bring her for evaluation after her teacher talk to me (I'm seeing something very different about her myself and there's a lot of question ) we went to see a child's psychologist they interview her gave her some test and observation 1st , 2nd , 3rd evaluation. They ask me so many questions as well during my pregnancy, her birth and up to the present day. I wont forget that day April 10,2013 the first time we went to P.E.T. PrePrimary Evaluation Team here in Kalamazoo it was her initial evaluation then they gave her another schedule for her next appointment and another one and another one.... May 20, 2013 we got the result actually it was only me Marc had to work. I'm with Marielle and Michael our youngest son he's 3 years old they were playing in the room with us the psychologist told me that  from their observation Marielle is showing characteristic of Autism and she gave me 15 pages of her report written on paper she said that there is no book for Marielle because all child with Autism are all different.
  Autism........ she was telling me all about it but I was thinking about  Marielle not being responsive, hand flapping, the panic attacks, not talking, saying things over and over, screaming constantly, having her own little world. My oldest son Toby is 15 yrs old now he was a late talker too so I was not really concern about Marielle being a late talker but there is so much more I'm worried about...... it's so hard to get her attention if I call her name most of the time it seems like she is not hearing me .... she don't recognize her father is not home .... I remember Toby he was about one when he started to look for his dad I mean he is not talking or not asking me where's daddy but he will say dada and he will look around Marielle is not really aware of things yet she don't call me or her Papa .... she's not aware that Papa is back she don't look at people, she don't play with dolls she did not know how to pretend play, she like to draw she is obsess with letters and numbers she started to read when she was about 2 1/2 we read every night and she reads with me but I thought maybe because she memorized the book we read ... one day  we were going in the store and she said "Sam's Club" she was looking at the store name and said "blue diamond" and I was did you just read the store sign after that she just started reading all the labels she see but she won't talk to me or answer my simple question like what do you want? I told Marc that she can read he won't believe me so he tested her he pointed to his speaker and ask Marielle can you read this? and she said "Logitech" then he show her our phone and said how about this? she said "Panasonic" and were like wow she really can read ... then he thought ....now we know she can read but won't talk or answer a question how about you right that things she wants to say if she wants to eat write in a piece of paper I'm hungry I want to eat so I did.... and it works she is reading what I know she wants to say I will ask her something I have her choice on the table she will point which one she want and I will write it down and she will read it...... we do this until we put her in preschool.

Now she is in Young Fives Elementary School. IEP meeting we were talking about school bus and my husband decided that Marielle will ride the bus I was so scared for her do I need to talk to the bus driver about her condition, what if she go down when the bus stop even if she is not suppose to, what if she got scared and scream in the bus, do I need to talk to other kids about her Autism do I need to talk to their parents? Marielle was really happy knowing that she will be a bus rider "The Wheels on the Bus" song is one of her favorite nursery rhymes just the word school bus make her jump and flap her hands, every mornings before school starts she will sing and "say school, bus Marielle will ride school bus" that she will sing the wheels on the bus with everybody I told her maybe you can sing with your small voice and if the other kids don't want to sing with you it's okay don't get upset about it, don't scream..... no screaming in the bus the bus driver might get scared and surprise and she "acted surprised and said huh!" she was like that every morning.

The first day of school I talked to the driver and said "will you  keep an eye on her.... that she has Autism.... she is High Functioning" and the driver said "do you want me to give her the first seat so she can be close to me?" and I said "yes I would appreciate it" and "thank you".