Miraculously we had an appointment with our develomental pediatrician, Dr. Greenberg, last week. It was really strange ... I knew we needed to see her given all of my recent worries & revelations, but had no idea when our next appointment was since it wasn't on my calendar. I called her office on Wednesday afternoon to ask and discovered our appt was scheduled for Thursday at 10am! Coincidence? hrm...
Anyway, we had a LONG visit with Dr. Scott (her PA). He's wonderful. Filled me up with information about H1N1, foot development (another story for another post), his views on speech apraxia and, are you ready for this, ADD. Yep, those dreaded three little letters. His instinct is that Dylan's issues are more about ADD than about apraxia. Not sure how I felt about that so he gave me a questionnaire to fill out while I waited for Dr. Greenberg. 15 minutes later we're in her office. She, always in a hurry, took one look at my form and said "Yep, textbook ADD. We'll get him on some medication and he'll be noticably better in days". She wants to have his teachers and therapists complete forms, too, to make sure they're in-line with my responses. And that was it. She'll see us in 3 months.
Huh? OK, first of all I totally failed at my new role of being a good advocate for Dylan. She makes me so nervous that I didn't have a chance to ask too many questions. I was irritated with myself the moment I got in the car. I drove 2 hours one way for someone to give a quick assessment of Dylan and not allow me to ask questions? ARGH! I'm sure ADD has been in the back of their minds for quite some time - it's been in mine - but this was the first real discussion about it.
Anyway, most of the info I got was from Dr. Scott. They're belief is that while Dylan may have some apraxia his real issue is not being able to focus long enough to learn how to speak. I guess there is some validity to that argument, but they are not SLPs and have not been on this speech journey with us so I feel like their diagnosis is a bit premature.
Then I had lunch with Amanda - our first SLP - on Friday. It was meant to be a social lunch, but I'd had so much on my mind that I couldn't help but mention this to her. She sees a bit of validity with Dr. Greenberg's point of view, but Amanda STRONGLY believes that Dylan is apraxic. In fact, she's agreed to begin working with us again (once she can fit us into her hectic client load and 3 children schedule!). And she's agreed to help train us with our new Dynamo device (I think that's the name. We're getting a loaner from the school system to try out...).
So, more confusion for me. Lots of learning about ADD, medications, natural treatments, speech augmentative devices, etc. More updates soon. Off to speech therapy with Miss Burdell now!
Holy Curve Ball
Monday, February 1, 2010Posted by the jaynes family at 9:59 AM
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2 comments:
I understand busy schedules, but I am a bit peeved at Dr. Greenberg for seeming so callous. Of course, you would have had questions. Of course, you would have wanted to know options and solutions, etc. If you would have had more than a ninosecond to process what she had just told you, then I bet the questions would have been asked . . . and hopefully answered.
I respect that Dylan may or may not have ADD. What boy doesn't? However, Dr. Greenberg shouldn't assume that you would want to medicate your child either.
Speech apraxia? ADD? The answer will be found.
Thanks Regi! We're persevering. None of the speech therapists agree completely with her assumption that his issue is ADD and not apraxia, but no one is surprised by the potential ADD diagnosis either. He's a very active little guy. The ADD may have something to do with the speech delay, but our therapists firmly believe there's significant apraxia.
Still searching....
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