I didn't feel free or relieved when I saw the pain on Morgan's face and the frustration in her voice, when she looked at us and said " I have to stay like this?" And later found out, that she thought we were there to "fix" her rather than find out something was actually
I feel we made the right decision on having her tested and now only wish I'd listened to my heart sooner, and done this years ago. I've looked up her "quirks" for years and always found myself reading about kids on the Autism Spectrum and thinking, could she be? And felt it was a possibility.
The Doctors at Children's explained that she does have a lot of the characteristics of A LOT of different disorders, but she always seemed to be lacking the key piece they use to make the actual diagnosis. Except in two things that seemed very obvious.
"Your child has a very complicated profile" ..."how she has gotten this far in school, we don't know."
"Morgan suffers from communication disorder...an impairment in the ability to receive, send, process and comprehend concepts of verbal, non-verbal and graphical symbols."
"She has a speech and language impairment of the articulation of speech sounds, fluency and voice. Impairment comprehension and or use of spoken written or symbols systems."
"Morgan also has Dyslexia, a learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to other words."
"By the time a child is a certain age they have developed a word bank in their brain of commonly used words. Morgan's word bank is underdeveloped."
"We also believe this is causing her to have anxiety and making her feel as if she is out of place, or socially awkward as she calls it."
"How she has gotten by so well in school, is amazing."
How in the world didn't I realize this....
For years I watched as Morgan was misunderstood, by teachers and eventually friends and even family. It was heartbreaking, for me.
And I feel terrible for not realizing what it must have felt like for her.
I never had any answers for why she did the things she
But now, it makes so much sense!!
Over the years, mostly since being in middle school.
Morgan has been referred to as being "rude & "snarky"
(by a teacher)
The same year was compared to a baby (again by a teacher) has been singled out in front of the class (by another teacher) has been accused of lying, withholding information and purposefully ignoring people.
All by people who know her and see her on a daily basis.
Watching someone trying to have a conversation with her is sometimes painful... I cannot imagine what it is like, for her.
Morgan is in the 7th grade and is unable to use a dictionary effectively...but can build just about anything and make it work.
She doesn't measure anything..but she can design a costume better than most adults.
Calendars don't make sense to her. Neither do weeks and months. But she can fly a plane.
As we walk down our new path, I will continue to share about Morgan as long as she's comfortable with it. In time I'm sure she will open up about how she feels about all of this new information. Until then she has given me permission to share my feelings on it, as long as I consider letting her have a puppy!
These are the things that make Morgan who she is, guaranteed she will not let this stand in her way!
