Questions, Answers, And More Questions

After months of waiting we finally got the results of the neuro-psych exam that Jorden had taken. What the test consists of is different measurements of cognitive and verbal abilities. It's really all scientific and whatnot so I'm not going to bore you with the details and just get to the good parts.

The results show that although Jorden has a normal range of intelligence. She does not show any signs of having Asperger's Syndrome nor is she on the autism spectrum. What the test results do show is that her short term memory is severely affected by her hyperactivity. No, she is NOT like Dory from Finding Nemo. The difference is that she indeed has one but her brain just can't slow down and sort the information coming into her head. Imagine this: Say you're washing laundry. The clothes are pieces of information, the washer is the memory process, and you are the brain. You take the time and sort the pieces of information into appropriate piles and put them into memory. Now imagine taking just a big pile of clothes directly from the hamper and throwing it into the washer. That's how Jorden's brain is working.

This is why you can tell Jorden something, whether it be a piece of information (such as a word or a math fact) and she can't remember it 30 seconds later. Then she'll randomly talk about something that she did a month ago. The bottom line is that now we have some idea as to what's going on. Unfortunately we don't know what to do next. We have more doctor appts lined up and there's probably more testing to come. The one thing that we want most of all is to have a school year where we see success. Lord knows she works hard enough and she deserves it.