Preston's Results

Kyle and I had our conference last week at the CHDD at UW for Preston to hear the results from his testing. We didn't know what to expect going in. Maybe a diagnosis or maybe hearing the same thing we've been told before. I was a little nervous. We met with the psychologist, speech therapist and physical therapist (the one's who did his testing). They told us they thought Preston had High Functioning Autism. They gave us their recommendations for his IEP at school and how to proceed. They gave us lots of resources to turn to. We asked questions and discussed his strengths and weaknesses. I was kind of surprised, but then again not really because I knew something was different. I just don't want him to have that 'label' for the rest of his life. And then I think about bullying and how all these kids with autism/asperger's, etc get bullied. I try not to think about it or worry about it right now. They told us he was a difficult case to diagnose because he had a lot of strengths. They felt that he would receive the best help and care with this diagnosis. The main thing that will change is he will qualify for extended day preschool next year.

We are thankful for our family support! My Mom shared this poem with me that she had read a while ago. I thought it was so true.


Welcome to Holland
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. 


After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." 


"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy. 


But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. 


The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. 


So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.


It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts. 


But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." 


The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. 


But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.


Written by Emily Perl Kingsley