Round and Round

We seem to have been going round in circles over the last couple of weeks. Armed with the Paediatrician's report, and as per his instructions, we went to see our GP to ask for an ADHD referral. The GP was less than amused! She said that since Nipper's issues were behavioural and not medical it was no longer within her remit and the Paediatrician should now be looking after Nipper. Apparently the Paediatrician's report left a lot to be desired and wasn't specific enough nor did it clearly state who should be doing what next. So the GP will write to the Paediatrician and politely point this out and we will have to wait to see what happens and where we go next.

We had our meeting with the SENCO (who you might remember I was very annoyed at!) I figured I had better keep my annoyance to myself since we are likely to need her help in the future. She went through her observations and said that Nipper had come on some since she first met him. She ran through a few things that we could do at home - working on his pincer grip as he can't hold a pencil nor can he write his name; playing simple games which involve turn-taking, and setting an egg-timer so he gets the hang of beginning and finishing a task within a certain timescale. Apparently she shares an office with the person who administers the Educational Psychologist referrals and was going to check if Nipper is on the list - I don't see how he can be as no one has referred him to my knowledge, even though the Paediatrician thinks he's going to be getting an Ed Psych report! She said she would let me know about this but the only contact I've had since is her asking me how we got on at the GP's. So that's another thing that I'll have to chase up.

On a much better note, I had a letter from Speech Therapy saying that Nipper was at the top of the list for an appointment so we're off for that in a couple of weeks. No mention of the Diagnostic Language assessment and Speech Therapy said that it's not their department so I need to follow that up too. I had a good chat to the principal therapist and she very kindly emailed me some information regarding who I would need to speak to in order to get certain referrals as apparently though the Paediatrician is now in charge of Nipper's care he won't necessarily be the one doing the referrals. Confusing isn't it? If the Paediatrician doesn't refer and the GP doesn't get involved then who sorts it out?? Anyway, it seems that we really need an Ed Psych assessment, the Diagnostic Language assessment and probably a Sensory assessment by Occupational Therapy. Nipper can't be assessed for ADHD until he's 6 years old so it's odd that the Paediatrician told us to go to the GP as a matter of urgency and ask for a referral!

We're off on our hols to Devon next week so perhaps we'll know a bit more when we get back.

Round and Round