My Marley moo

I had a meeting on Monday with the speech therapist / lead worker and psychologist from the ministry of education for St Albans school, Marleys teacher was also able to pop away and meet with me, they wanted to discuss a few things with me, his speech for his age is a wee bit behind but their not concerned often boys have speech issues, he's having trouble with 'L' in words for example lolly would become 'lowwy '. He's also having trouble with 'ch' 'sh' 'tr' 'sk' words, ones with two consonants together.

There are a few other things that he's a wee bit behind with like fine motor so using scissors and a correct grip for pencil.

He's having real trouble socially, he seems to not read social cues, and is often in his own wee world and not paying attention. They brought up the possibility of him having aspergers as there are a few things like I just mentioned that flagged their attention to that conclusion. They said he's an intelligent Boy who has no trouble learning and wants to learn but seems to struggle in a few areas. So they are going to do an ADOS which is an autism screening test, if it comes back that he doesn't have aspergers then the problems he has are most likely to be from having an intellectually disabled brother. They said it was actually difficult to pick whether it's his own developmental problem or from being around Kanye.

I can see where they're coming from and there are a few things that Marley does, a few qualities that resemble the trademarks of a child with aspergers but for the majority of it he doesn't so I'm going to let them do their thing and if it turns out he has or even slightly has aspergers that's fine because as they said the things that wouldn't come naturally to him ie socially can be taught. He would have no trouble functioning in every day life. They're referring him to a paediatrician as well to get a better idea of his development.

I'm on the fence about whether or not he has it, it's as they say it's hard to pick but I don't think he does, I think he's just struggling a bit because of Kanye and the way we've parented him, it would be hard not to be affected when therapist's have told us to speak in short direct sentences to Kanye and the therapist's then say Marley doesn't join sentences he speaks in short direct sentences!!

He's also a very anxious wee boy and that's come from the shakes, they think a lot of his behaviour and even perhaps his struggles come from his anxiety. Hence why they're keen to see if he has aspergers or not. Some things that he does that got their attention are either part of aspergers or his anxiety.

As a family we think he's a normal little boy who is anxious, is a little behind and has a disabled brother, we still love him and want to keep trying to make life better for him. I know it's hard for him and the quakes really did mess him around.