Autism Walk Northland
Team Wyatt
I
met my stepson Wyatt 3 months before his 4th birthday. He stole my heart
the first time I saw his beautiful blonde hair (which was then long and
curly) and his amazing blue eyes and I have loved him ever since! His
dad, my husband John, jokes that I wouldn't have given him a second
date if he hadn't of brought Wyatt with him on the first one :-)
He and John moved in with me and my daughter Hayley, who had also just turned 4 two months before Wyatt, and we began our family. Until Wyatt moved in with me he hadn't had much exposure to a lot of people, including other children. He had never been in a daycare and until moving in with Hayley and I, he was watched by his dad and his biological mother. One worked during the day while the other watched Wyatt and the other went to work at night after the other got home from the day shift. They were aware that Wyatt had some delays, especially in his speech, but contributed it to lack of contact with peers his age.
When they moved in I registered Wyatt for the 4K program in our then hometown. We slowly started realizing that Wyatt's delays may be more than just lack of peer contact. His speech was very delayed because he would just point to things he wanted or pull people to what he wanted to show them. He didn't want to play with any other children in the 4K program other than Hayley, who was in the same class as him. He didn't make eye contact when people talked to him, especially in confrontational situations, and other than his father and I he wasn't a big fan of cuddling or hugging like other kids. We also noticed that he only liked to play with certain toys and he would play with those toys repeatedly, and if you played with him he would want you to play in a very specific manner, almost like he scripted the playtime.
Once Wyatt entered Kindergarten at a different school he started having meltdowns every day. These meltdowns would happen if the classes schedule was off, even by a minute, and almost every day at lunch. He refused to eat at school. That's when John and I decided that we needed to look further into his problems rather than just believing a speech delay was all that was to it. I had only briefly heard of Autism at that point and didn't know a lot about it but knew it sounded a lot like Wyatt. So, we started where I'm sure a lot of parents do, the school system. They performed all the tests and told us that Wyatt had ADHD. We knew in our hearts that he did NOT just have ADHD. There was so much more to it and we knew it. So we took it to the next step and went to our pediatrician.
She sent us for more tests, which we waited over 6 months for, that showed he had ADHD and some learning delays. We still weren't satisfied. At this point we had been going through this process for over a year. We moved, found a new pediatrician that sent him for another round of testing and, after almost 2 years (Wyatt was almost through the 1st grade) we finally got a proper diagnosis. Wyatt has high functioning Autism. He was finally able to get appropriate help through an IEP at school and they HAD to make adjustments for him, adjustments we had to fight for him to get. He was able to use "dead heads" (noise blocking headphones) to block out the noise of the classroom, they allowed him to take his lunch into a different room with supervision to avoid the stress of a child packed lunchroom, and he was taken on "movement breaks" every 2 hours to cut down the stress of sitting in a class with 18 other noisy children for too long. His teachers are all now required to have a visual schedule for him and send me home notice in advance if anything is going to change so we can get Wyatt prepared for it.
Wyatt works very hard and is making a lot of progress on working through some of these problems. Other parents don't understand why our family celebrates a day that Wyatt can eat his lunch in the lunchroom with his friends or get through a day without taking a movement break. He makes us proud every single day, even if he has a hard day, because he tries with all his heart to not let Autism rule his life
He and John moved in with me and my daughter Hayley, who had also just turned 4 two months before Wyatt, and we began our family. Until Wyatt moved in with me he hadn't had much exposure to a lot of people, including other children. He had never been in a daycare and until moving in with Hayley and I, he was watched by his dad and his biological mother. One worked during the day while the other watched Wyatt and the other went to work at night after the other got home from the day shift. They were aware that Wyatt had some delays, especially in his speech, but contributed it to lack of contact with peers his age.
When they moved in I registered Wyatt for the 4K program in our then hometown. We slowly started realizing that Wyatt's delays may be more than just lack of peer contact. His speech was very delayed because he would just point to things he wanted or pull people to what he wanted to show them. He didn't want to play with any other children in the 4K program other than Hayley, who was in the same class as him. He didn't make eye contact when people talked to him, especially in confrontational situations, and other than his father and I he wasn't a big fan of cuddling or hugging like other kids. We also noticed that he only liked to play with certain toys and he would play with those toys repeatedly, and if you played with him he would want you to play in a very specific manner, almost like he scripted the playtime.
Once Wyatt entered Kindergarten at a different school he started having meltdowns every day. These meltdowns would happen if the classes schedule was off, even by a minute, and almost every day at lunch. He refused to eat at school. That's when John and I decided that we needed to look further into his problems rather than just believing a speech delay was all that was to it. I had only briefly heard of Autism at that point and didn't know a lot about it but knew it sounded a lot like Wyatt. So, we started where I'm sure a lot of parents do, the school system. They performed all the tests and told us that Wyatt had ADHD. We knew in our hearts that he did NOT just have ADHD. There was so much more to it and we knew it. So we took it to the next step and went to our pediatrician.
She sent us for more tests, which we waited over 6 months for, that showed he had ADHD and some learning delays. We still weren't satisfied. At this point we had been going through this process for over a year. We moved, found a new pediatrician that sent him for another round of testing and, after almost 2 years (Wyatt was almost through the 1st grade) we finally got a proper diagnosis. Wyatt has high functioning Autism. He was finally able to get appropriate help through an IEP at school and they HAD to make adjustments for him, adjustments we had to fight for him to get. He was able to use "dead heads" (noise blocking headphones) to block out the noise of the classroom, they allowed him to take his lunch into a different room with supervision to avoid the stress of a child packed lunchroom, and he was taken on "movement breaks" every 2 hours to cut down the stress of sitting in a class with 18 other noisy children for too long. His teachers are all now required to have a visual schedule for him and send me home notice in advance if anything is going to change so we can get Wyatt prepared for it.
Wyatt works very hard and is making a lot of progress on working through some of these problems. Other parents don't understand why our family celebrates a day that Wyatt can eat his lunch in the lunchroom with his friends or get through a day without taking a movement break. He makes us proud every single day, even if he has a hard day, because he tries with all his heart to not let Autism rule his life
