How did I get here?

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Great question! My son, D, has been struggling in school but of course we thought it was the disruption the pandemic caused. (We are located in the northeast and this area was late to reopen schools. Remote education did not work for my child.) Once back in a physical classroom, he received an ADHD diagnosis and responded decently to medication. However, my mom-senses felt something else at play in terms of his learning ability.

My husband and I decided to have a neuropsych evaluation done. Easier said than done in this environment. In my area, the wait times can be as long as 18-months and, some centers have closed waiting lists or only take new patients if in their healthcare system. Our friend had her child privately evaluated and we decided to just throw money at the problem. (I recognize our extreme privilege in being able to choose this route). D had a neuropsych evaluation three months after the initial screening call. This seemed both super fast and like it took forever.

A few weeks after the actual evaluation we received the report with the diagnosis of ADHD (no surprise there!) and dysgraphia. However, because “dysgraphia” is not in the DSM-V as an actual diagnosis (heck spell check doesn’t even recognize it as a properly spelled word) , our written report states “Specific Learning Disorder with impairment in written expression.”

With this new diagnosis, I sent the report to our public school and asked for my son’s IEP (he is currently slated to receive executive function coaching twice a week at 15 minutes a session and general counseling also at twice a week for 15 minutes a session) to be updated. However, since there were fewer than 10 days of school left in the year, we will reconvene in the new school year.

After the initial diagnosis, I decided to wait a month before fully immersing myself in the world of dysgraphia so I could enjoy the summer and rest up.

And that is how I got here.