Meetings March 6th and 13th

Following the visit Norman and I had on 2-27, I flew home with Norman to DC on Saturday the 28th. The appointment on March 6th was a conference call, so Norman and I went to Eli's home psychiatrist and we called Meridell and did our meeting that way. It was the most uneventful meeting we have had...at that point they were still working on getting his testing done, but the biggest news from that call was that he had gone 6 days in a row WITH NO REDS! That was phenominal, and still has been the longest stretch he has gone being that good.

I flew back from DC on Thursday the 12th, and had an in-person meeting/visit on Friday the 13th. Because of his good behavior, he earned a day pass, which means that we were able to spend the day off of Meridell's campus and do something together. We chose to go to InnerSpace Caverns up in Georgetown (just north of Austin), and we had the BEST TIME! It is such a neat place, and it is a really big cave! We got to see lots of itty bitty bats, and Eli had a fun time. He behaved very well, and was able to really keep on track when it seemed that he might go a little off course. We ended up in Target so that I could get him some more toothbrushes/toothpaste, socks, etc, and of course there were those toys and items that he wanted, but I said no. I explained that I bought him a souvenir from the caves, and he did start to whine and protest, but then corrected himself and said, "Okay mommy, I'll do the right thing. Maybe next time". I was SOOOO proud of him! He seems so grown up. *sometimes* :)

We did get the results of the testing back on that day - earlier on during the meeting. The tests they performed were...

*Wechsler Nonverbal Scale of Ability
*Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning - Second Edition
*Wechsler Individual Achievement Test - Second Edition
*Delis-Kaplan Executive Functions System, Verbal Fluency, Design Fluency
*Trail Making 1-5
*Index Finger Tapping, Lateral Dominance, Grooved Pegboard
*The Berry-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration
*Oral and Written Language Scales
*The SNAP-IV Teacher and Parent Rating Scale

He scored either in the average ranges or high ranges for his same age and grade peers, but what is confusing is that during testing he was not paying attention. He was all over the place, because this was before they had him on the medications he is on now. He was in and out of his seat, focused on other things going on in the room, and they had a hard time getting him to focus. We are all left wondering what the "true" scores would be if he had been paying attention, but needless to say we are happy that he isn't experiencing huge delays in most major areas. The problems that they do report are as follows (I'm taking the paragraph from the report).

Testing suggests significant problems with recalling verbal information without cuing and moderately impaired visual working memory. Visual attention functioning was also quite variable and mildly impaired on one measure.

About his language, they did say this...

Eli's spontaneous expressive language was generally fluent and free from paraphasic errors. His articulation and pragmatics appeared grossly intact. There was a significant difference between his receptive and expressive language scores, indicating that Eli performed better on receptive language tasks than on expressive language tasks.

And about his behavior during one of the interview sessions...

He was extremely fidgety throughout the interview, and eye contact was rare and fleeting. Eli's receptive and expressive language functioning appeared grossly intact. His thought process appeared logical and goal oriented.

During the testing period, his medications were as follows:
*Lithium - 150 mg 3x per day
*Concerta - 18 mg 2x per day
*Seroquel - 25 mg 2x per day and 100 mg at bedtime
*Depakote - 125 mg 2x per day

Sometime after the testing period, they took him completely off Depakote and added in two new meds. They have been lowering the Seroquel (I believe with the intent of doing away with it eventually).

So that is enough on those meetings and visits. More to come soon...