Nicholas

Families in the Spotlight (Patrick)

You can be very prepared. You can all have the credentials and experience in the world and you still will not know how it feels to have a child that is different. This is a completely unique child that you will have to coach through life and in the process learn an entirely new life for. It just goes to show that in theory, advice is easily handed out. It takes a lot more dedication to actually put it into practice.

Kim and Maurice are both on the phone with me. They are both wonderful authorities on their son and how they have gotten so far.

Kim starts at the beginning. The moment that she realized her son was different from his peers. “I would say that I really noticed when he was fifteen months old and we joined a play group with other kids. The other kids interacted with each other more than he interacted with them. He spoke early and really well and was precocious in learning things like letters, numbers, shapes and colors.”

“He was always very cautious and careful. I am a pediatric physical therapist. I had a lot of experience working with kids, and I had some concerns about Patrick’s development. Others downplayed my concerns because he spoke so well and interacted with adults.”

Kim seemed to be the only one concerned about her son’s behaviors. Both Maurice and Kim acknowledge that part of the problem was that their son’s behavioral differences were not as noticeable to others that weren’t around him every day.

“When I was concerned about his peer interactions it was difficult to get other people to see it or believe it.” Maurice added, “Unless you are around him for awhile, you may not notice it.”

“I was around him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a baby I would be in line at the grocery store, and people would comment about how intently he was looking at me and seemed to understand everything that I was saying. He just had that look on his face. However, he was sporadic in responding to others; he would only respond to certain things. In a sense, he used me as an interpreter to the outside world. He needed extra processing time to respond to others. People would usually say it was because of his age. No one really seemed that concerned. Before he turned three, I looked at five different areas of child development, and he wouldn’t have qualified for services. Upon turning three, I thought he would qualify, so I brought him to the school for an assessment. They looked at him briefly, said they weren’t concerned, and to put him in a typical preschool.”

One of the stories about seeing the subtle peculiarities in Patrick’s behavior occurred when they brought him to preschool. “We brought him to a preschool that was located at a church. He had a fixation with the bell in the church tower. He wanted to go to see the bell; not go to the preschool. However, he didn’t say that he didn’t want to go, because he still wanted to see the bell. He also called himself ‘you.’ By the end of that month he did say, ‘You don’t want to go to preschool, you want to stay with mommy and Shannon (Patrick’s younger sister).’”

Maurice explained why they waited, although they were suspicious of Patrick’s behaviors. “For us, he was our first. As new parents you don’t know what to expect. I would have never seen it. I thought it was just things that Patrick did. I thought maybe it was just gifted behavior; he could spell his name and he knew all the presidents’ names before some other kids could even say their name.”

Around the time he started kindergarten, they brought Patrick to a neurologist. However, even after that he wasn’t given an official diagnosis. Kim says, “I didn’t want to worry too much about it and over-analyze the situation. I was concerned, but I didn’t want to put too much into it.” When Patrick reached first grade it was no longer possible to assume that he was going to be like the other kids. Kim relates the story of finding the Connections Center: “I really started to research everything and it was then that I knew he had Asperger’s. That year I spent a lot of time educating myself. I began doing a lot of reading, and I had seen ‘Solving the Relationship Puzzle’ referenced several times. At a seminar I saw the book and bought it right away. I read it cover to cover that weekend. Coincidentally, we already had plans to visit Houston. I called the Connections Center office and they didn’t have time for an assessment, but we went for a consultation. We got to meet with Dr. Sheely. She was the first person that really listened to the whole story. The next month we attended a presentation on RDI in Long Island and met Dr. Gutstein. We went back to Houston in July for the assessment, and then I started working with him. By March he was well into Level II.”

RDI not only has given Patrick more ability to interact with others, but also helped his family have more fun with him. “It gave us so many more ways to have fun with him. Before RDI he would play board games, not much else. With RDI we could just do so many more things with him. In doing RDI on a day to day basis, we have seen many small and incremental changes in Patrick. The biggest thing though is seeing him interacting with his cousins and some peers. It is then that you really see how much progress he has made with RDI.”

RDI has taken a permanent place in the lives of Kim and Maurice. “We have definitely incorporated it into our daily lives. Now he references us and checks in from the other room. Once he got referencing down, that was a really big step. Now, when we are driving in the car, Patrick and his sister will look at each other after a joke and smile and laugh. The two kids have done really well together. Before we started RDI, Patrick and Shannon had made up a few small scripted games to play together. Patrick would tolerate these games for a short time. There weren’t really many variations. Now they can play together for hours with ongoing variations. Before RDI, when kids came over Patrick didn’t play with them very much. Now when other kids are here, Patrick is so much more engaged.

Kim and Maurice have many stories of Patrick’s accumulating successes. “We were at the lake this past summer with a family friend and her friend. Patrick had no trouble adapting and playing with both girls. Another time we were at a beach house visiting relatives and their kids whom Patrick had never met. Before, Patrick would have done his own thing. This time he easily joined in to play with the other kids. Now he plays tag, hide and seek, and he can have fun running around with other kids.”

Most importantly RDI has helped Kim to stop worrying as much. “I really worried all the time before RDI. Now I feel good about doing something that I know really can help. I have something constructive that I am doing. Last year, even though his academics had been solid, we had Patrick repeat first grade largely to allow us an opportunity to focus on his social/emotional development.”

Now Patrick has joined a peer dyad with Christopher, a child who is also involved with RDI and is at Patrick’s stage. Beginning this September Karen, Chris’s mom, and Chris started making the 1 ¼ hour trip to Kim’s on Saturday mornings. “Patrick and Chris really like being together. I thought that was really neat that you could take two kids on the spectrum that had never met each other before and they could so quickly form a friendship. Now Patrick asks when he can go to Chris’s house.”

In terms of the future, Kim and Maurice are optimistic. They are able to see what their efforts and working with RDI can accomplish. “It’s great to see how Patrick’s interest in friendship has grown. He has developed relationships with several kids who he really enjoys being with and who enjoy being with him as well. We firmly believe in RDI and that it will continue to help Patrick in many ways.”

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