Mum fights to get help for boy with autism
A Greymouth mother says it took seven years for her son to be correctly diagnosed with autism, but he still isn’t receiving the help he needs.
Some West Coast children have had to wait up to eight months for help as chronic recruitment and management problems plague the region’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).
The mother, who did not want to be named, said her son, now almost 11, was first referred to CAMHS in 2010.
‘‘He was non-verbal until he was 31⁄2. He has a hard time in school, lashing out, trashing classrooms. I was getting constant phone calls to come and bring him home,’’ she said.
He attended child-led play therapy appointments twice a week for about six months when he was 2, but she withdrew him from the service in 2011 when her grandmother was going through a terminal illness.
‘‘They didn’t explain what they hoped to get out of the therapy and I didn’t see that it was making any difference.’’
He was referred back to CAMHS in 2016 by his school, but it took eight months before he got an appointment.
He was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in late 2017 and prescribed ritalin. ‘‘I wasn’t happy to medicate my child. He didn’t seem to fit the box. He could sit still and he could concentrate,’’ the mother said.
The boy was suspended after biting a teacher, but the school’s commissioner decided he should not be permanently excluded until the school tried more ways to help him.
‘‘He didn’t have a teacher aide, which I had been asking for all year. He got a teacher aide and I put him on medication, but it didn’t seem to make a difference – it just made him lethargic,’’ the mother said.
‘‘He went back to school, but within three days, he’d lashed out and trashed a classroom. He got permanently excluded and I stopped the medication.’’
He was placed in another West Coast school and continued to attend CAMHS. He responded well to an occupational therapist, but she left the service and no follow-up appointments were made until he saw a psychiatrist for a review in June 2018. The psychiatrist said he did not have ADHD.
A letter obtained by The Press from the psychiatrist says: ‘‘It is not clear [ADHD] explains all the features, and today I questioned his diagnosis . . . It is likely this medication is not efficacious, yet has side effects, chiefly because he likely does not have ADHD. I am changing his diagnosis formally to him being on the autistic spectrum.’’
The mother said she had not heard from CAMHS since the new diagnosis and her son had not had a needs assessment.
‘‘It takes so long to see CAMHS and when you do there’s nothing there. They should be helping me help him how to teach him social skills. I’m just winging it. There’s no consistency of care. You never see the same person twice,’’ she said.
Autism New Zealand chief executive Dane Dougan said there were ‘‘massive issues’’ with children getting autism diagnoses in New Zealand.
‘‘I have heard of children being turned away . . . or waiting three to four years before it gets picked up. We are advocating this Government for better processes.
‘‘We know early diagnosis leads to a much better chance of children growing up to live their full potential,’’ he said.
West Coast District Health Board said it would not comment on individual cases.