The Best Psychologist For Griffin... Imaginable

For starters, I canceled the IEP meeting until I can get one of the advocate from the Autism Society to go with me. With that said.....I took Griffin to a new psychologist yesterday and boy was I ever impressed! He was amazing!

First of all he engaged Griffin and interacted with him and didn't just sit there and talk to me about Griffin. He put a video on for Griffin (Milo and Otis) and as he was talking to me he was observing Griffin and how he was reacting to the movie. So, when Griffin would laugh at the movie the doctor would pause the movie and ask Griffin what it was about the movie that he liked. Griffin was not forthcoming but I thought that it was great that the doctor made that effort.I appreciated that he talked to Griffin and interacted with him and not just talking to me as if Griffin wasn't even in the room. He talked about Griffin's sensory issues and reminded me of how they affect him and cause his meltdowns, and I say remind because I have forgotten how sensitive he really is to external stimulation and all the other doctors that we have seen have not mentioned it so I have not given it as much thought as was needed. So, I was grateful for him to remind me of this. I needed to go back to the elementary/rudimentary education that I learned about so many years ago because his meltdowns have increased lately and I've got to help him avoid them instead of just coping with them once they've begun.

When I told the doctor that the school was trying to take away Griffin's speech therapy he shook his head in disgust and when I told him which school he told me that he wasn't surprised. He made sure that I was going to have an advocate go with me from the Autism Society and I confirmed that I was. He expressed that if he didn't have communication delays/issues then he wouldn't be autistic, which actually one of my followers had mentioned to me in her comments. Let's think about it.....autism = communication delays + social delays + (in Griffin's case) hyperlexia = all that he was working on in his speech therapy.

This doctor had asked me what I wanted to accomplish by seeing him and I told him that I wanted to address the meltdown issues. And I had mentioned the medication. He kind of chuckled and let me know quite frankly the lowdown on how it all works.....if I go to see him for advice then he is going to use a psychological approach in dealing with behavioral issues, whereas if we go to a psychiatrist or pediatrician then they of course are going to talk about medications. So, it was important for me to decide which one it is that I thought was the approach that I wanted to take. I was so immensely impressed by him that I let him know that I wanted us to come back to see him as soon as possible.

We got about a foot of snow, went out and played in it last night and today. Thank goodness we didn't lose power as was predicted. Griffin just loves it and so does Abby. We have lots of food so we are well prepared for being stuck here for several days. There are 3 cars stuck at the entrance of the entire apartment complex so there is no way in or out. Hope there is no emergency or no need for the power truck to get in or else they are out of luck. We stay busy on the computer, reading, Griffin plays with his Legos, I do cleaning and studying so it's not so bad.