Just diagnosed and not sure where to go from here

by Keri Taylor
(Havre de Grace, Maryland)

i always knew my 5 year old was different. from birth he would not go to sleep without me holding him and had to stay in my bed in order to stay asleep all night. i figured it was because he was a baby and he would grow out of it. he never did and even now has to fall asleep with me holding him and then i move him to his bed which is in my room still. at least once a week he will crawl back into bed with me for the rest of the night. he cries for no reason at all or gets very angry if there is more than one other kid at our house to play. he will also be playing and just scream for no reason which makes the other adults in the house upset because they don't understand why he does this.

if we go to stores i have to find ways to keep him occupied because if not he will just start screaming and yelling for anything he sees even if we don't need it at the time. it actually was so bad at our last shopping trip that people were giving me dirty looks and one woman made the remark to another woman that he was what happened when parents spoiled their child. it took all of my strength to not to say something to them. at school his teachers were worried something was wrong because he would fidget and sometimes fall for no reason at all. even other people in our neighborhood would notice how clumsy he is. he has gone to orthopedic doctors to see if something was wrong with his legs and had tests done to see if his equilibrium was off and everything has come back normal.

by age 4 he started seeing a therapist because his first teachers were worried because he would not stop doing anything in class to go to the bathroom and had multiple accidents in a week. he hates change and refuses to try anything new be it an activity or food. he was diagnosed last year as having adhd but i never believed that was what was going on.

after learning about SPD i gathered checklists, articles and any information i could about it and took it today with me to see if this is what he in fact had. the doctor said he does have adhd but also spd and wants to keep an eye on him over the next month and then see where to go from there. i'm thinking of taking all the information i have now to his regular pediatrician to see if he will agree to send us to an OT to see what things we could do with him to keep him calm before school starts. a friend also told me to contact his school to set up an iep meeting now so that things could be ready when he starts school back up in the fall. my only problem is that all of the OTs with an SI certificate that i could find are in the next county over and i have no transportation at all right now.