Appointment with Mary Camarata

[Anonymous]

I just scheduled an appointment to take my daughter to Nashville to see Mary Camarata. Any suggestions on what to bring for her and what to expect. Was the trip worth it? I don't know anyone who has gone to see her and would love some advice.

[Anonymous]

We went to see her husband and my feelings were mixed. He was great, and I think she is in person too from everyone i know who has gone. For the price, I think its better to go than do a local evaluation. They get language kids far better than most. We had issues with the written report.

Trip is easy. We flew a direct flight to Nashville, rented a car and stayed downtown but we were going to the university not Mary. There is a really nice science museum for kids that is worth seeing. Downtown the city has a nice museum of historic stuff I really liked but our kid had no interest (it was free). We didn't see any music shows.

If in doubt and want direction, its worth going. For a written report, I wouldn't count on a great one. She will be good at teasing out things. She will be GREAT at connecting with your child, who most likely will feel comfortable with a few minutes (my child took really well to Dr. Camarata). She will be able to give you personal advice (parenting, activities, therapies) that others probably will not as she's had personal experience as a parent and a professional. She's very warm, from what I hear (her husband is). Its one of those things if you don't do, you will regret it. For us, since we were on the right path, it wasn't particularly helpful except to hear our thoughts and direction was correct vs. other advice we had gotten locally.

Just know, they are both pro-homeschooling but supportive of kids being at the right school environment. They have very strong opinions but expect you to make the choices best for your child and will support your decisions. They also don't have a lot of local resources, which surprised me that they would not keep a list given how many families here go see them.

[Anonymous]

Get on some of the Facebook pages for speech delays, MERLD and late talkers. Some families have been multiple times and can give you a lot more advice there. If you've reached the parenting worry/stress breaking point, that is when you go.

[Anonymous]

I've been a half-dozen times over the years.

For us, who have a child with a lot of complex learning and language issues, seeing the Camaratas was the best thing we did for our son. We had him tested starting at 2 years old in Child Find, then transitioned over to school based special ed preschools at 3. But no one really understood what was going on with him. Our home life was so stressful as we tried to force our child to behave. He seemed to understand us at some times, then not at all at others. We just thought he was being willfull. He was tantruming and angry and frustrated and hard to handle. Finally when my child was 5, I convinced my husband to take a trip to Vanderbilt to be assessed by the Camaratas (this was about 10 years ago). They understood him so much better than anyone who had seen him, and told us things about him that were true that they had no way of knowing. The evaluations were night and day from what we'd had before. Everybody else looked like a total amateur. The Camaratas "got" our kid.

We walked out with a road map and a lot of good information on moving forward. The tension in our home plummeted and our son became happy again, because the Camaratas gave us concrete ways to work with him. When my son started kindergarten, Stephen and Mary helped us fight to keep him mainstreamed -- the school wanted him in an autism program, even though the Camaratas and other evaluators had said he was not autistic. At the end of elementary school, the social worker told me she could not believe how far our son had come, and that he would have made nowhere near the progress he'd made if we'd listened to the school district and put him in the center-based autism program.

Our son's issues are severe enough that he did not grow out of the MERLD, as I've seen most kids do our our Facebook and earlier message boards, and among my local friends who had kids who saw the Camaratas.

The diagnosis DOES matter. The school setting DOES matter. The therapies for ASD and language disorders are NOT always the same. And after the school's constant nagging, we tried a summer autism program -- and it was a big failure. It did not move him forward one iota. So we sent him to a one-on-one summer program instead, as the Camaratas suggested he learned best one on one.. THAT moved him forward.

The Camaratas will be the first to tell you they are not always right. And sometimes as a child ages, they see other issues come to light, such as my son's learning disorder that the language disorder initially masked. So my son's outcome isn't as positive as the Camaratas first thought it might be, given the strength of his IQ and reasoning skills. But he's in a far better place than he would have been if we'd listened to the other "experts" who saw him.

As for tips for the visit:

-- Bring snacks and something to drink for your child. The testing can be long.
-- Bring a recorder. You will be flooded with information and it will be more than you can process.
--Bring all your questions written down, and make sure they are answered before you go out the door.
---Have Mary print out the test scores for you before you leave. The report can take a while to get to you.

You can stay near the airport to save money, or in the Baymont hotel that's right near her office. We have also stayed near the mall and the Grand Ole Opry. Nashville has a great zoo and good kids science center, too.

Let me know if you have other specific questions.