Andy is my 5 year old superhero loving, wisecracking big boy. He loves all superheroes, but favors Power Rangers the most. He has a strong sense of justice and wants to be a chef and a soldier when he is older.
Andy struggles with sensory overload and has trouble controlling his reaction to being overstimulated. The meltdowns can be severe and has caused multiple problems in the last couple of years. He was evaluated for autism and we were told he didn't have it. However, since I have been through other evaluations with Sierra and DJ, I disagreed with how the person did the evaluation and we are waiting for his second opinion eval. The other evaluations were a process of different things that lasted a long period of time, but Andy's original eval lasted only 30 minutes while watching him play or asking him a handful of questions to see if he could answer them.
We did learn just before his 5th birthday that Andy has 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 microdeletion, also know as Burnside-Butler syndrome. After learning that Gracie had it, and that it was inherited from their dad, we had Andy tested for it. Burnside-Butler syndrome is connected to several things including: developmental delays, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, autism, among other things. It really explained why their dad struggled so much as a kid, especially in school.
We are still learning about the microdeletion and how to best support Andy. He is such a sweet kid ( when not delivering some zingers with his comments) it really makes the outbursts harder to deal with.
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