This is taken from our Blogger blog (www.perspectiveadventures.blogspot.com) and was origially posted on December 29, 2009.

When we sat in the room receiving the report on Jacob’s diagnosis our first question was, “what now?” It was a little disconcerting when the response didn’t include a list of our next steps. It seemed that adjusting some medications, joining some support groups and hoping for the best was the course of action, and I wasn’t at all comfortable with that.

Thankfully, somewhere along the path of creation, God invented Google. I set to work in search of our support groups and came across the Autism Society of MI. This organization correlated back to one on my list of potential resources that was given to us by the diagnosing psychologist and I gave them a call. After paying the $25 obligatory joining fee I was given free reign to fire my million questions at the very patient and understanding experts. I hung up the phone that day feeling that I had even more questions, but it was oddly reassuring that these questions were specific and could likely pave our way more efficiently than the swirling questions I had before the call.

I continued to make phone calls based on the contacts that I obtained through the Autism Society and was able to connect with a therapy center that was recommended over and over again. I found that “real life” people such as co-workers and family members had heard of this center and all had heard of positive experiences. Matt and I, with the help of the therapists at the center, decided that Jacob would begin Music Therapy and Social Groups Therapy next week. We also have calls into a karate studio that works with children that have ADD and ODD and the Asperger’s Society of MI highly recommends them for children with Asperger’s and anxiety too. Since that essentially describes Jacob, we’re going to give it a try.

As a carrot on the end of a stick to keep Jacob plodding along the therapy road, I also promised to enroll him in drawing classes. It turns out that as excited as I was to have professionals confidently tell me that there was a lot that could be done to achieve a successful outcome Jacob wasn’t nearly as excited. In fact, the socially anxious child actually thought it sounded pretty darn awful. Huh.

So, here we go! Our schedules and our budget are about to take a huge blow, but it beats hoping for the best. Now we need to hope that Jacob’s very fussy and rather rigid private school is willing to bend a little to accommodate him.