Daughter Vail Reflection

Today, I spent the afternoon shadowing the Ellison family and their four year old daughter Avery. The Ellison family had traveled for an hour and a half from the Marshalltown region of Iowa to reach the CDD today. This was Avery’s first visit to the CDD and she was scheduled to see audiology, speech therapy, and to have an autism screening. Overall, Avery is a very energetic and happy four year old girl. Avery’s parents seemed very accepting of Avery’s current speech development delays, but are very concerned with the potential diagnosis of autism and this is only coupled by the unfamiliarity of the CDD and the Iowa City area. The afternoon started with a visit to audiology. Avery was exposed to a basic hearing screening that conditioned the child to put toys in a bucket every time they heard a series of beeps. The audiologist created a very friendly and non-threatening environment that made this test run smoothly. Avery’s parents were also at ease during this time, as they expressed they had no concerns about Avery’s hearing from their day-to-day experiences. Avery showed the normal range of hearing for a child in her age ranges and she …show more content…
Once the physician entered the room there was a definite change in tone of the interaction. The physician was extremely friendly and personable, but I believe the thought that in the next few minutes Avery could be diagnosed with autism weighed heavily on the Ellison’s. Throughout the conversation the physician gently prodded about Avery’s behaviors and Avery’s parents thought carefully about each of their responses. It presented an interesting dichotomy of wanting to be honest, but not wanting to feel like that we are talking as if our child has a problem. Interestingly enough, Avery spent the majority of this time coloring and exploring her