We took Deqlan for his assessment with a paediatric neurologist last week Tuesday in order to get a more official and more up to date look at how our gorgeous boy is progressing.
We were not sure what to expect as we had heard some real horror stories and tried really hard to prepare ourselves for someone who was not going to be to understanding and would not treally get the correct picture of who Deqlan is and how far he has come.
I must say we were pleasantly surprised at how well it went and that this doctor actually got to know Deqlan before giving us his opinions.
Deqlan ran into his room straight past him to the cars that were on the table. But he played appropriately with them ,taking the characters in and out ,moving the cars along the table and carpet as they should be played with. We gave a bried history of what Deqlan has gone through, his first autism diagnosis, the improvements we have seen etc
He asked Mark and I a lot of questions and then turned his focus to asking Deqlan to do certain things. He easily completed a coloured stacker excercises matching colours correctly. He answered questions about and matched shapes. He even called a slanted diamond shape a rhombus! I haven't heard that word since matric geometry so we were all blown away that Deqlan had used such a technical word correctly!
Defintion of Rhombus - In geometry, a rhombus or rhomb is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. The rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in playing cards, or a lozenge, though the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° angle.
He then wanted Deqlan to identify some animals he was pointing to in a book.Deqlan started reading the words, which were in afrikaans by the way! Again, we were blown away! We knew he could read English but Afrikaans to?
Dr then drew a heart and a balloon onto a piece of paper and asked Deqlan what they were,which he identified correctly,and then asked him to colour them in specific colours. Which he did,but didn't really enjoy. Dr pushed him a little to colour in completely and when he had Deqlan was proudly saying ” good job well done”
He asked Deqlan to try and copy some other things he had drawn like a road but Deqlan wasn't into this anymore and kept looking at me in the cutest way saying "hello mom” His best and cutest attempt to get out the activity!
Dr asked him to sing Happy Birthday which he didn't do,but actually can and has sung about 20times since then :) I asked Deqie to sing the Thomas theme tune and off he went, the entire song! After that we watched him kicking a ball back and forth with the Dr, giving cheecky smiles and laughter to him to!
By the end of the evaluation the Dr we were so not sure of, was hugging Deqlan,kissing his head and throwing our boy uo into the air. Deqlan loved this and kept asking for more and more!
Mark and I were so extremely proud of Deqlan!
Dr has diagnosed Deqlan with high functioning Autism - i wanted to shares some excerpts from the official diagnoses letter :
DOCTOR FIRST GAVE BRIEF HISTORY OF NEUROBLASTOMA BACKGROUND THEN MOVED ONTO
"It marked the onset of autism.
He is now 4.4 years old and displays the profile of a high-functioning autistic child, being
· moderate aloof in his own world
· having good underlying intellect with some unique savant functions, like reading and working computers
· mild over activity, and fleeting attention span
· unfortunately with some maladjusting behaviour (ignoring, escaping demands, opposing)
He does however connect with dear-to-him folks, with gentle hugs.
His language is fairly good, with semantic and prosodic and pragmatic oddities, and he signs a few songs (many words however are muffled and not clear).
He is well in the somatic sense
· 16,7 kg
· 53,5 m skull
There is no evidence for a secondary cause for his autism and therefore we consider his as a primary form.
I wonder whether he will be hypercalculic too, eventually, but rote maths memory is exceptional.
With his keen little mind, the chances are that he may better fit into a specialised school like Tomorrows People (age 6 to 7). He will have to learn a higher level of compliance however. I really hope he will. I have purposefully opted not to offer him risperidone treatment."SAVANT LIKE - When one has an extraordinary single skill in an otherwise unexceptional intellect, he or she may simply be described as a
savant, without qualifier, although savant is usually meant to mean a person of learning, especially one of great knowledge in a particular subject, without remarking on the person's overall state of intellect.
It is a rare phenomenon which occurs in some
autistic people and/or people with certain developmental disorders. Some people have acquired savant-like abilities after suffering from head injuries.
Autistic savantism is usually recognised during childhood and is often but not always found in
autistic children. However it is also sometimes acquired in an
accident or
illness, typically one that impairs the left side of the brain. There is some research that suggests that it can be induced, which might support the view that unusual savant abilities are innate within all of us but obscured by the normal functioning intellect.
Most autistic savants have very extensive mental abilities, called splinter skills. They can memorize facts, numbers,
license plates, maps, and extensive lists of
sports and
weather statistics. Some savants can mentally note and then recall back perfectly a very long series of music, numbers, or speech.
Some other autistic savant skills include:
lightning-fast
arithmetic calculations, including finding
prime factorizationsprecisely estimating distances by sight
calculating the day of the week for any given date over the span of tens of thousands of years
perfect perception of passing time without a
clockWhy autistic savants are capable of this sort of astonishing ability is not quite clear. Some savants have obvious
neurological abnormalities, but the
brains of most such individuals savants are anatomically and physiologically normal.
Examples of autistic savants include
Blind Tom, who had exceptional musical ability although no musical education, and
Richard Wawro, who is an exceptional artist although autistic
HYPERCALCULIC -
hypercalculia refers to exceptional arithmetic skills in relation to intellectual ability
A lot to take in ! I know - im still doing all the reading i can to get to grips with all of this - but mostly, just saying thank you to God for the gift of Deqlan and the gifts He has given our gorgeous boy
We are extremely pleased and proud that Deqlan is loving life, being who he is and letting us into his amazing world of possibilities and gifts!
We will be looking into different options for his primary schooling and will keep you all in the loop as always!
Hope you all have a super weekend, ours is going to be unpacking and sorting out our new home! Which we are settled into , and happy with , but got lots to do still!!!!
God Bless, lots of love
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
Goldilocks and the 3 bears - especially when Nanna reads or tells the story to him! Its also the story currently being read at school, Deqlan is lapping this story up!
The sandpit or 'snow' as Deqlan likes to call Nanna's Zen garden - he is absolutely LOVING playing in the sand more then ever, at school and at Nanna's house! He loves putting Rosey and the Aliens from Toy Story under the sand and waking them up again!
Kerwhizz is back - this must definitely be one of Deqlans favourite favourites, he LOVES it and takes in every activity , every colour, every laugh!
Watching Kerwhizz with my best buddies, Rosey and the Aliens - they go everywhere with Deqlan, even to school!!! Rosey has her own chair at school and is even sung to in greetings. Deqlan talks to them, jumps with them, baths with them, even eats with them and gives them food to! Its awesome to see the friendship relationship being understood and again, imaginary play blossoming!!!
