As Sean and everyone else battled his autism, Savannah was doing
her best to battle her own yet to be diagnosed autism. Unbeknownst to all of us
she was falling through the cracks. She was overshadowed by her brother's
demanding behavior. It was no one's fault, really. I was too overwhelmed with
Sean and my own funk that I didn't observe her as much as I should have.
Honestly, she was so quiet and well behaved that she fell into the background
and was labeled as, "my easy child". I was thankful to her but unfair
to her. She deserved more of my focused attention.
Savannah was born on the last day of July which meant that she
was young to be starting Kindergarten along with those her age in the coming
September of 98. It was suggested when she was in preschool that she might
benefit from repeating another year of fours. At the time I was desperate to
get her into school full time so I could potentially find work and have some
down time. She was in an inclusion kindergarten class so, I thought if Ms.
Livingston, the special education teacher in her class, observed anything about
her inability to learn or behavior, then I would move forward with further
testing. She seemed to make it through with good grades and happy times so I
wasn't concerned. Ms. Livingston mentioned seeing a processing deficit/delay
but it wasn't anything that stood out enough to hold her back. I regret not
doing it anyway. She deserved to be ahead.
Now that Savannah was in third grade, which is a pivotal year in
school, she began to outwardly struggle. If she was out sick and came back to
school to a lot of make-up work, her anxiety was apparent. On the fourth day of
SAT testing - and the filling in of all those dots - she firmly put her No. 2
on her desk and said out loud, "This is ridiculous!!" and
refused to continue. That's my rebel!
It was decided then to begin some specified testing. It was time
to bring Savannah out of Sean's shadow and get her the support she
deserved.
