FAE or something else?

I know I don't go into big details about Brandon, but there has always been something a bit off about him. No necessary in a bad way but in a way that makes you stop and think.

Anyway we went to a seminar yesterday about FASD-Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Basically this problem is very broad and very hard to diagnose. So there (FA groups) are advocating to get some legislation to help kids. This is a disease that is not curable or fixable. It is brain damage from in-utero. Woman taking drugs or alcohol during pregnancy. Which is quite common in EE countries that we have adopted from.

These types of kids cannot process things the way we can. They have to learn everything for every situations and have to learn it over and over again. Telling a child not to talk to strangers is not good enough. You have to go to parks, museums, schools, playgrounds and repeat this over and over. They dont' get it they way you or I would. They live in a dream world which is how I would describe it. They can't grasp reality.

Luckily for us, Brandon is not as severe as some but not enough for the "average" person to figure out something is not right. So currently he is going through school about average. I think after being at this seminar, I am going to see this slip as time goes on. From what I learned. I think his services will go up and they will wonder why he used to get it and now he doesn't. I already talk to the school and I get a smile and a aha.. from them but they don't see or understand the depths of it. They don't disagree there is an issue but how bad or severe it is won't be known until later in life.

For instant, this am Brandon was going on and on about how his brother would not change the channel on the TV. He told me that he had asked his brother nicely and said please but Josh would not change the channel. So I explaine that if his brother is watching a show and he came in after it started his brother didn't need to change the channel. And that if he was watching TV and his brother came in and asked him to change the chaneel he would not have too either.

So in his mind he said that he didn't need to change the channel when his brother asked because he would remind him that when he had asked nicely his brother didn't change the channel so he won't have to change the channel. Not quit grasping the situation, or why his brother didn't have to change the channel. It is not about because his brother didn't so he wouldn't have too. It is about what happen before you came in the room. That is the part he doesn't grasp. Even with repitition. And before all kids are like that, it is different and if anyone has dealth with an FAE child they would get it. It is not the same.