We haven’t had Rowenna’s IEP meeting yet, but I want to pause here to talk about privilege for a minute. (And for those following at home… I do think things will end well after the meeting next week.) In the last week, I have become acutely aware of the amount of privilege I have when […]
Tag Archives | Autism
Pop
Hear that? It’s the sound of my balloon bursting. Until now, we have had an amicable relationship with our school district. We felt very in sync with their suggestions for Rowenna, and we loved her placements for the last two years. We know many children who have various diagnoses, and many of them did an […]
Autism, Rowenna Style
As Autism Awareness Month draws to a close, I thought I would post about why we pursued further testing and what autism looks like for Rowenna. Disclaimer: we are still learning about autism and Down syndrome. For resources, please check out The Down Syndrome-Autism Connection and this fantastic book about the dual diagnosis. For a […]
“I Want Ball” – A WDSD Reflection
March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day. Some celebrated by wearing “wacky” socks as a conversation starter. Some performed random acts of kindness, leaving behind little calling cards describing the purpose of WDSD. Others participated in the Day in the Life campaign, an ongoing project collecting stories about life with Down syndrome, preferably in the […]
Welcome
We’ve been doing a lot of treading water in my family these days. Rowenna’s therapy has been incredibly transformative (more in future posts) but exceptionally time-consuming. Afton has been on her own diagnostic journey, which has left us with a lot of bills and not much in the way of answers, and has a sleep […]
Windows
Truth be told, one of the hardest things about the last year has been watching Rowenna slowly slip away. Where she used to want hugs, seek comfort, imitate signs and sounds, we watched her retreat into her mind and didn’t know how to help her. A month into therapy and two months into the school […]
The Plan
First things first: earlier this month, Rowenna received an official autism diagnosis. We knew it was probably going to happen, but having a folder full of information thrust into our hands and then a month of calling therapy providers and chatting with various insurance reps made it a bit more concrete. This has been a […]
Blog Challenge Week 5: Comforts and Connections
Today Rowenna officially received an autism diagnosis. After watching our girl change over the last year, and a series of evaluations, there was nothing but relief. With that one word on paper now we have access to a wealth of supports to help her better navigate the world. As we’ve been going along the last […]
Still Rowenna
Today we had some evaluations done as part of our journey to figure out what’s going on with Rowenna. There’s been a slow build up of indicators that something might be going on in addition to Down syndrome. Over the past year, we have seen some majors changes in our girl. For a while we […]
