The Good, The Bad, The Stimmy!

So, Benji went to the Child Development Center at Vanderbilt Children's for his suppose to be yearly developmental pediatric visit. His last visit was 18 months ago when he was diagnosed with the Disorder of Childhood and was referred over to Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson to be checked out for Sensory Integration Disorder which he was then diagnosed with.

So, Dr. Cooper was glad to see us and reviewed Benji's progress with me. Or.. I should say I shared Benji's progress.

• His Speech is almost completely caught up. He still has some articulation to work on and he needs to pronunciate better, but he is a talking machine once he gets going.
• His fine motor skills are nearly on par. It's more of a stubbornness problem than not being able to do something. (i.e. He knows how to hold a pencil/crayon but chooses not to do it right)
• Gross Motor is improving. He still needs to strengthen his core muscles and we still need to work on those ankles.
• He is off the blood pressure meds for his heart. It's will be a year in May!
• While he does have low sugar episodes, we catch them quickly and he recovers fine. Mostly happens when he has been playing all day outside and doesn't want to stop for anything.

Dr. Cooper appreciated my knowledge on what was going on. Which this is a soapbox of mine... Do parents just not pay attention to their kids? I mean really. Benji has some medical issues, so I do the research and I do what I can at home to help him. That's how we realized it was the cow's milk that was causing the colic when he was little. That's how we discovered the sensitivity to red 40. (OH MYwas it wonderful when we got rid of that! The hyper activity disappeared!)

Anyhow.. so Dr. Cooper thinks we should do pretty much the same testing we did last time and see what comes up. His non-official opinion is that Benji is either a quirky 4 year old or we are looking at Asperger Syndrome. This does not surprise me at all.

• Ridgidty ~ Must have schedules. If normal routine changes he gets very non-compliant with anything. It completely disrupts him. (eating, sleeping, pottying, mood, etc)
• OCD type ~ While this isn't as bad as it could be. Benji is very particular about how things are. If he puts something somewhere, it had better be there when he gets back. Things also have to be 'just so'. It's hard to explain... would you like to come over and see one day?
• Obsession ~ for over two years the only thing Benji wanted was Cars. You know Disney Cars? It is still an obsession and he has moved to include Hot Wheels, Wall E, and Transformers with it. They are all mechanical and he loves to "help" work on the car or just to help with tools in general. He is also now obsessed with video games (PS2)
• He is very sensory seeking. The deep pressure type. He loves getting in his sling swing all cozy and swinging. Also jumping on a trampoline. When he is seeking he will throw himself on the ground or against the wall and laugh.
• While exercises have helped he is very tactile defensive. He will play in finger paints now but he doesn't like it and the second he thinks he is done he wants his hands cleaned.
• Can't stand to be sticky, slimy, itchy, etc.

So... that was the visit with Dr. Cooper. We are waiting for the call to get the testing done.