Our Adventure with Early Intervention

For the last month or so, my husband and I have been dealing with the paperwork and meetings involved with Early Intervention. Turns out that at our son's 2 year old well check up, the pediatrician had some concerns about his development. Some of his behaviors led her to suggest us getting him evaluated for Autism, which scared the shit out of me. I jumped online and read everything I could about autism in toddlers, and I had myself convinced that he was autistic. Have you ever noticed that once you get online and start looking up a condition, you start trying to convince yourself that you have the symptoms? Self diagnosing is a dangerous thing!!

Anyway, the day of the Evaluation came, and I felt like I was going to vomit all day. I prayed that it would go well. Of course, Peyton had a MONSTER temper tantrum for a good 25 minutes, up until about 15 minutes before the Speech therapist got there. I'm talking full on tantrum. Rolling on the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs, yelling if you got near him.

After a loooong evaluation, it was determined that Peyton has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). You can find out more about SPD here, at a really great website that has helped me out some already -- http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/
Basically, it means that the child's brain can't process all the senses at one time and gets overloaded. Peyton has a hard time when he gets over stimulated - like if we go out to dinner, then shopping, he almost always has a meltdown. And his melt downs include him making himself throw up by sticking his fingers down his throat -- soooo not a pretty sight for a 2 year old. He also has a lot of other issues -- he hates to have blankets or anything too 'heavy' on him and will strip down naked to avoid the feel of clothes on him, he throws MANY temper tantrums SEVERAL times a day (for no reason), and hates noisy/crowded places (but then again, so does Mommy and Daddy, so I can't blame the kid for that).

So now we're waiting to find out how often he'll have to see an Occupational Therapist, who *should* be able to help him cope with his 'issues'. We have a long road ahead of us, but throughout it all, he'll always be my sweet, funny, lovable little toddler.