Starting All Over Again (GDD & Regression)

Our eldest son finally resumed his schooling two weeks ago and we are very grateful for that. Technically though, his first session only happened last week because the first meeting was for the initial assessment. I wasn’t expecting that there would be an assessment again since it’s the same school plus my son has had a month’s worth of occupational therapy in July last year.

Starting All Over Again (GDD & Regression)

The school personnel told me that the initial assessment was necessary since my son has been away from school for around six months. That was fine especially because he would have a new teacher since his former teacher wasn’t available in the schedule that we got.

Getting my son to go up to the classroom was a challenge. I think it was because he hadn’t been outside with other people for too long. It was a struggle but I was able to finally bring my son to the classroom and leave him with his teacher after much crying and trying to escape.

After the initial assessment, I had a talk with the teacher. She told me her observations, with particular emphasis on my son’s ability to focus and concentrate. That had always been our issue so I said that it would still be part of our goals.

However, what got me a little concerned was the feedback that I got after my son’s first session. My son was very cooperative when we arrived at school. He was even smiling when I told him to go up the stairs.

When the assessment came after the therapy session, the teacher told me that she had a hard time getting my son to sit still and concentrate. He would insist on doing the activities that he loved, which was the alphabet and numbers. Well, I was expecting that.

I began to worry though when the teacher told me that he couldn’t get my son to do the shape-matching activity and the vehicle form boards.

I was a little shaken because those were my son’s favorite activities during his previous therapy sessions, even in our home program. He aced the shape blocks and form board table top activities that his former teacher told us that he doesn’t seem to be challenged with those anymore.

Now, here we are starting all over again. I asked the teacher if my son regressed and she said that it seems like it. She couldn’t get him to wipe his mouth and face and pack away his learning materials.

You see, one of the hallmarks of Global Developmental Delay (GDD) as well as autism is regression. This means that the child has lost the previous skills that he has learned. Admittedly, I was somehow at fault because I focused on other activities in the last few months. I thought that since my son previously enjoyed shapes, he would continue to do so even if we didn’t practice it. Now, we're back to square one. Well, it should have been a continuous effort on our end.

What I did is to slowly introduce the activity again in my son’s daily routine. It was hard at first but in the second and third days of convincing my son to do the activities, he’s slowly warming up to them.

We’re also trying to get him to wipe his face after eating or after his playtime. I know we’ll get our groove back slowly but surely. It’s just a matter of not giving up and never stopping to wallow in the past.

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