I have needed to take a break before writing this because the entire situation had me extremely stressed out. On the 20th I took my son to his double-therapy day. There was a long wait in getting started, so we hung out in the playroom with the toys for a while. Suddenly we had both his primary therapists, and some administrative person from the center in the room with us.
They sat down with us and talked about how they are concerned about my sons behavior and violent outbursts, and went on to talk about how his occupational therapist had been very upset by an incident last week. She recounted the incident in her words, as my mom had taken him to therapy that day, and you would think she was describing some demon she was horrified by.
In a nutshell, my son had a temper tantrum because he didn’t want to do an activity she was telling him to do, and threw himself down on the floor. When she reached to get him up, he came up a bit and intentionally scratched her. She came out of it with two small scratches on each arm.
Now, I’m quite aware that my son scratches during his big tantrums. In fact, I’ve discussed that with his therapists before – as well as having discussed with them how to avoid the tantrums reaching that point. Not to say that I’m perfect, I have had healing scratches on my arms perpetually, and small scratch scars all over them. However, in a one hour session, she’s not likely to have the same exposure to tantrums that I have at home. In any event, the speech therapist said they were more concerned about what he did to my mom after that (keep in mind that the OT seemed upset enough by the scratches and totally intimidated by that alone).
Basically, what happened next was that my mom went over to him and tried to pick him up off the floor. He head-butted her in the chest with the back of his head. Again, something avoidable. I have repeatedly told her not to pick him up from behind and lock her arms around him from behind. That’s how most people react to being restrained from behind – to buck backwards and try to knock off the person holding them. So, he bucked against her, and hit his head into her chest in an attempt to get her off him. Big surprise. It’s happened before. I’ve repeatedly told her to stop holding him like that, but that’s another frustrating experience to discuss another time.
In any event, what ended up being the result of the conversation is that they have decided that my son is a safety risk to their therapists. At least that’s what they were trying to say verbally. The underlying statement was that his OT was so distraught over the situation that she wanted to no longer have him there, and the other therapists were supporting her decision – whether or not they agreed with it. The speech therapist went so far as to say that she wasn’t bothered by his behavior, but noted that she has a lot more years under her belt.
The end result is the same: My son was officially kicked out.
So not only did we lose his OT and Speech therapy, but they said that we could come back after his behavior improves with either behavioral therapy and/or medication. They’ve always been supporters of medicating him, while I’ve remained an opponent to that as a solution.
I am now forced into a position to re-evaluate my feelings on medication. If he is going to totally lose his therapy because of his behavior, is it worth it to medicate him for a period of time to control his behavior enough that he can benefit from therapy? I have to admit that I always wonder about whether or not medication might actually help him in some ways, but I am worried about the question that comes to mind… Would he actually be getting better, or would the medication be making him ’seem’ better?
I’m not in this to treat the external symptoms. I want him to grow up to be a totally self-sufficient non-medication reliant adult.
However, I’m now reminded that while I have infinite patience with him and can manage his behavior the best, that I’m also not his speech or OT therapist.
I would like to find him a behavioral therapist, but worry that we’ll go down this exact same road again with them refusing to provide therapy unless he’s medicated. Of course, even to see a behavioral therapist, we’d have to actually find a pediatrician willing to take an autistic child – which is proving extremely hard.
Alternatives? I could learn about speech therapy myself, and provide that at home. I have a catalog filled with occupational therapy toys and devices that I could fill the house with slowly. I had already planned on a getting a few books on how to do behavioral therapy at home with autistic kids (probably from the library first because each is rather pricey and then see which are worth buying).
It’s just a generally frustrating time for us here, and I’m hoping we find a good solution to it all.
