We Are Not Amused

Understand that this blog is part of my coping/processing...process. So do bear with me.

Yesterday, #2 has been psycho evaluated to have Autistic Spectrum Disorder. This is not news. It's not even uncommon. I know that she has problems communicating. I know that she doesn't behave the way most children do. I have often thought of her as a kitten in a room full puppies. She's little like they are, soft, cuddly, in need of love and food. But she doesn't act, speak or do things like they do. That's fine. Well, most of the time it's fine. I was actually fine with most of the evaluation.

 Most of it.

The school psychologist, Dr. Diehl, did not make the meeting for reasons unknown. I thought the room seemed off, but there was joking and such, so I began to think it was just me. I was glad, at the time, he had not shown up. He has a way of putting things that makes me feel rather on edge and defensive. It's his tone and turn of phrase. I'm not saying he's bad at his job. In my opinion, he should watch his phrase-ology. I thought the weirdness might have been just me being tense about his being there and then he wasn't so I stressed over nothing. We continue...

Alternate assessment was brought up again. For those of you who don't know, Alternate Assessment is another FL state diploma track which children with learning disabilities can have. These kids take tests that aren't as hard, but in the fine print, you see that such a diploma means they can't even sign up for military service. This was brought up before, and I declined it. I wondered why it was being brought up again. I believe it had something to do with Dr. Diehl's summary which we will get to.

We didn't go over the eval as the man wasn't there to do so, and I read it myself best I could last night. That is when I turned into this:

The summary states: full scale IQ is 68, extremely low, and represents the best estimate of intellectual ability at this time. Comprehension was a significant weakness.

As you might imagine, I said and thought things us good, Christian woman are supposed to be above...I am not, apparently.

Now. My child may not be a genius, but she certainly has at least an average IQ. Her comprehension is not a question. She understands so much more than she gets credit for. The thing is with a lot of autistic kids is they know things and understand them and how to do them. They just don't care if you know they do. If they don't want to do the test, they won't unless they care about the consequence.

I know they have to go by what the test say. She didn't finish half of them. Maybe she didn't know some the stuff, maybe she did. I say screw that test. I know my kid. She is not more dumb than Forrest Gump. We are requesting to have her re-evaluated by some one else. I positively rebuke, refuse and deny any test result that says Cahira Michelle Easley isn't smart.

Tell me she has communication issues. I know.

Tell me she has behavior problems. No kidding.
Tell me she has Autistic Spectrum Disorder.  If you say so.

Tell me she's not bright. Screw you.

I'm beginning to think it was a very good thing the doctor did NOT show up yesterday. I'm rather sure I might not have been so polite, controlled or ladylike. Rather sure indeed.  After all, we Easley girls seem to have a problem behaving.