The Evaluation Process
Currently our youngest son is going through the Autism evaluation process. With our oldest, this took months between appointments with a State psychologist. This time around we are going through the school district. The process is basically the same, though the financial impact is less (the school is evaluating our son for free). This is important, as Autism is still not a covered diagnosis for our health insurance in Utah.
This last week, on Tuesday (yes, Valentines Day), the school psychologist came out and evaluated our son in preschool. The report they sent back was that his speech is delayed by a year (of which we were well aware). The rest of the findings will continue on to his final evaluation in a couple of weeks. The process seems to be taking a long time for us, though I’m sure the school district is working as quickly as they can. It’s not surprising they are busy, as the current estimates of children with Autism in Utah is 1 in 77 (that’s almost 25%!). That’s a lot of children to get evaluated, tested, and placed in school.
Luckily for us, we have gone through this process, and know what to expect. Our first son, though not diagnosed through the school initially, was the real shocker for us. The impact was quite high, sending us through bouts of anger and depression while trying all we could to get our son started on the right path. It’s not something I would want to go through again, and so far this process with our youngest son has had less of an emotional impact.
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