No in the Spectrum But.... DO NOT GOOGLE Symptoms || Mom Life

So, you are probably wondering….

My kid is 4 years old and so far, has never shown signs of being neurodivergent, at least for me, but we live in a time where everyone has an opinion, and you try and don’t listen but sometimes those voices get on your head.

Now if we add to that the fact that the kid start doing something that he didn’t do before well… you start to wonder… and if you add Google to that, you will go insane.

Know the kid before opening your mouth

Doctors are humans and well they sometimes not only have an opinion but also believe they know it all cause they are doctors, bad combination, a few years ago I took the kid to his annual checkup, he was turning 3 and didn’t speak no one word, no even mom, because of the pandemic and cause he had been a healthy kid we didn’t actually took him to the doctor that often, so his pediatrician at the time had only really seen him 1 time before when he was even more little like maybe 1 year old, The doctor had move offices and in this new office she had all this toys for kids to play cause she is a pediatrician.

Juan was a pandemic baby no because he was born during it but mostly because he had grown up during it. So, going to a new place with new toys was actually exciting for him even if that mean the doctor, specially cause he didn’t need vaccination at the time nor to receive any medication, so the consult was pretty normal, and he spend all of it playing with the toys and just being a kid.

When we were asking the doctor what her opinion was on why he hadn’t talked yet, she said we should do some scans and have him check by a neurologist cause she believe he was showing signs of hyperactivity or could be in the spectrum, why? Cause he was playing with the toys in her office, the ones she put there to keep the kids entertained. 🫠

To be honest I was initially worry concerned a bit about this “diagnosis” but when the dad and I started to think more about it we realize how this doctor had made an assumption by just seeing the kid less than 30minutes, and so, we didn’t took the kid to get any scans or for any further evaluation.

Preschool is the best tool for help with speech development

Juan got into preschool when he turned 3, one the first day he stopped using diapers and never again we looked back on that (Thank goodness cause, We were going broke buying them), and not only he manage to leave his diapers in one day, he also started talking so, much so, that right now he is 4 years old and I can’t shut him up even if I promise him chocolate (and he would do anything for chocolate).

Omg that kid talks more than 2 old ladies catching up on a century full of gossip, the only way he stays quiet is when he is sleep (or in the tablet but even then, sometimes he speaks lol).

If your kid is only 3 or 4 and doesn’t speak, I recommend school it will help immensely. (obviously have him check by a professional but… school helps a lot).

Whispers…

Have you ever seen the series “The Middle” in it there is this kid called Brick Hack who when he talks he sometimes repeats whispering a random word he was just saying.

_source

My kid started to do the same, the only difference was the character in the series also looked down while doing it and mine doesn’t. an example of how this goes in a normal conversation would be like this:

*Mom, I want Chocolate Ice Cream in a cone cone with colorful sprinkles and chocolate syrup. *

Where the word cone was repeated in a whisper, and while he does this if you mention it to him, he will say, he is not doing it, cause he doesn’t notice it happening, he doesn’t realize he is doing it.

DON’T GOOGLE ANY MEDICAL ANSWERS

I know this, I know better than to google anything that a Doctor should be the one giving me answers for, but… I googled…

And well Google immediately was like, well this obviously is Echolalia, I bet you if I looked a bit more into this, I would have a Cancer or Imminent Death, cause that is what you get when you google symptoms.

_{source Wikipedia yeah not a good source either.}

The echolalia not only is involved in Autisms diagnosis, but also in aphasia, Tourette, and even early dementia 🫠

Can you picture my head when I read all that? I got a headache in that moment, then the dad was like really? You seen your kid? Really? and I calmed down a bit, but the concern never left my body.

## Going to the specialists for answers

Juan does swimming practice every day and a mom of 2 of his teammates is a psychologist. So, I obviously asked her the second I got a chance to, turns out she is not a child psychologist, but she told me about this special event a screening day for diagnosis of kids in the ASD, it was free and was organized by pediatricians specialized in the subject.

We went, and there were so many kids there, so many with whom Juan played all afternoon until it was his turn for the consult, when the doctor who was assigned to us finished the test she said it was the first time in all day that she finally got a negative result, it was almost 4pm by then and she had seen so many kids already, Juan was the only one with a negative result.

So, is it not autism what is it?

The doctor said is probably just a phase and he will get over it on his own, he can probably be playing when he does it and/or is just a normal speech development tick that he will eventually grow out of.

Does he need any more testing? Nope, he just probably needs to not eat so much sugar cause it makes him a bit hyper but, he is not neurodivergent.

What would happen if…

The good thing about the internet right now is you have so many tools and information at hand to help you as a parent to deal with a neurodivergent diagnosis, even here in Hive you can find so many moms talking about their experience with their blue kids that, that in particular didn’t actually worried me, I was worried more about the aphasia and dementia probabilities and what that would mean.

So, now you know too, DO NOT GOOGLE symptoms go to the specialist for answers.

As always, thank you for reading me, would love to read about your own experience on this, so please leave a comment or better yet, make a post in The Motherhood Community.

_{Picture Credits: All images are of my property unless said otherwise, the emojis are made with Bitmoji.com & Icons with icons8
Disclaimer: This is an alt account to post personal and short content, for Hive tutorials, initiatives and more please go to my main account Hive account@victoriabsb}