TerryW Wrote:I was doing some online research and found this forum, maybe you can help me figure out what to do.

I'm the mother of a 20 yr old young woman who mentally did not mature with her peers. She started socially at about the 5th grade, became more noticeable in the 6th grade. Couldn't keep up with the school work, didn't understand much of it. In 6th and 7th grade she was still pretty much under the protection of her teachers, which I was always in close contact with all during her school years. 8th grade though was a different story, there is was sink or swim and she was sinking fast. I had had evaluations done all through her elementary school years, was always told she was enough above the level to keep her out of special education. She did get special help with math and reading in the 2nd and 3rd grades. She was very slow to talk as a toddler, could not pronounce full words, had a hard time controlling her tongue for the L, D, G sounds. She started speech therapy in kindergarten (actually I had her going to a speech therapist at age 3 at the hospital, didn't help though). She had a very good speech therapist in first grade, which she repeated. This all put her behind in learning to read, she was in speech therapy through the 4th grade. In 8th grade I moved her to a charter school that had very small class sizes and lots of one on one help, they had her evaluated again and this time she was diagnosed by the school district psychologist as emotionally disabled and she then qualified for an IEP which is something I wish she could've had starting early in elementary school. She did struggle through high school, was picked on by other kids, did not fit in, did not think like they did, because she has remained very childlike in many ways. And this is the way it is now at age 20. If you talk to her long enough you would see that in many ways mentally she has not matured, her voice even still sounds like a little kid. If you talk to her on the phone you'd have no idea she's a 20 yr old woman. She does not drive, has no desire to, and at this time I would fear for her life if she were driving. She was able to get a job working 6 hours a day weekdays bathing dogs at a groomers, who is an old friend of mine otherwise she was unable to get a job just through normal job interviews alone. As during her school years, I have to take and pick her up from work (we live 10 miles out of town). She wanted to work at a child daycare center and had applied to them all, she relates very well with very young children. She got teary eyed during one interview.

So now that you have a condensed version of her background, my question I guess is how can I get a true diagnosis - that doesn't cost and arm and a leg. I feel her brain didn't fully develop, like it stopped at a certain age, one of her teachers at the charter school explained that her brain is wired differently. I did some research on dyslexia and she fit many of the symptoms. We put her through a week long Davis Program through a facilitator in Sedona at the beginning of her senior year. It helped some, it cost $2000. I'm looking at EFT (http://www.emofree.com) and also sound therapy, anything to get the brain rewired to allow her to be her age.

I get very frustrated, she drives me crazy a lot of the time, I know she can't help it but you get tired of being a mom after you've done your time!

Any suggestions? I'm getting desperate. I want her to be able to be her age, not locked in this childlike state of being. I want her to be a happy normal independent adult with a future, to be able to carry a conversation with someone her age on the same level. I'm not going to be around forever, at this point in time I can't imagine what would happen to her if something happened to me. She has only one friend.
She needs help and I don't know where to find it.

Thanks for reading and any comments or suggestions are much appreciated!
Terry