Mum labelled ‘paranoid’ before daughter diagnosed as autistic
AMUM who was dismissed as a “paranoid” parent has overcome a long battle to get her daughter diagnosed with autism.
When Miley was only 18 months old, her mum Natasha Evans knew she needed extra support.
The Merthyr mum-of-two noticed her daughter’s heightened sense of hearing, sight, and smell, but was also aware that she had no interest in playing and would soon become overwhelmed in new situations.
Now, after years of being been given the wrong medication, the seven-year-old has received the correct diagnosis thanks to her family’s determination to get support.
Miley’s diagnosis came after Nastaha spent many hours researching her daughter’s behaviour.
Natasha, 37, said: “She was diagnosed with ADHD very early on, but I knew it wasn’t that. She was smiling but she wasn’t doing a lot of things. She didn’t play and she wasn’t interested in playing with children.”
After starting at Dowlais Primary School, Miley was given medication based on her disruptive behaviour at school.
Natasha said: “She was about four so she was early having that diagnosis, but then they put her on medication which I didn’t like.
“They made her really quiet and the school thought that was a good thing as it saw her behaviour improve, but it was making her ill. She was having headaches and she was being sick.”
For the Malta-born mum, however, it took another three years of fighting for the correct diagnosis.
She said: “It was really hard to get a diagnosis as if they asked her a question she would answer them. She was getting on so well that they were saying she couldn’t be autistic.
“As she was my first child they thought I was being paranoid. I went to do a lot of training myself.”
She added: “I was being told it was the job I used to do working with Barnardo’s and young offenders.
“It made me feel like I was trying to force autism on my daughter.”
Since learning about her daughter’s condition, Natasha is now trying to raise awareness of the condition and the support available.
Natasha, who is now chair of the Merthyr branch of the National Autism Society, said: “It can be lonely.
“The amount of times people say ‘she’s only got it mild’, but she has to go through so much just to get to school.
“She has to do the same routine every morning, there’s a set routine for dressing and with school uniform, and if there’s any difference, we will have a nightmare.
“If there’s a film she likes, she’ll want to watch it over and over. Her sense of smell is stronger, and she can hear things better than us, so, as with other children with autism, she can’t handle the outside world.
“Even though she’s seven, the attention you have to give her is like you’d give to a toddler. You have to know what she’s doing as she can put something in her mouth, wherever we go we have to risk assess. We plan our holidays around Miley.”
She added: “I was in Tesco a few weeks ago and told Miley to sit down – a customer came up to me and said ‘that’s not a dog that’s a child’ as they just don’t know. It happens all the time.”
For Miley, however, her diagnosis has helped her receive the support she needs.
Natasha said: “As she didn’t have a diagnosis straight away and as she did so well in school, she went straight into a higher class.
“She went from being with 15 children with two teachers to 30 with one teacher. Up until Christmas, she had said about three sentences.
“Since being diagnosed she’s had one-to-one support and has been given her own desk.
“It’s given her a sense of identity, too, as she knows what’s going on in herself. She will say: ‘Hello, my name is Miley and I have autism’.”
She added: “She’s a superstar. She wrote her own book two years ago and in 2016, she went from not being able to swim to swimming a mile.”
To share her experience of living with autism, Miley has launched her own campaign in schools to mark the start of World Autism Awareness Week.
As part of the campaign pupils were encouraged to make their own posters and give a presentation about autism.