Fragile X Awareness month - Day 9

If you want to find out more about FX you can go to the Fragile X Association of Australia website. I will be sharing our families story.

Merryn is a 5 year old girl with Full Mutation Fragile X. She is diagnosed with communication delays, mild autism, sensory sensitivity, anxiety, eczema and sleep issues.

We were very fortunate Merryn was accepted into the Early Childhood Development Program from a young age because of her diagnosis. This meant that from the time she was 1, all the way until she started school she got to go to ECDP once per week. The class was small and they worked on letters, numbers and lots of other skills to help the kids. It was a wonderful program and gave us huge insight into what she would need when she started school.

The Federal and State Governments have slowly dismantled the ECDP program and it will no longer exist at all in a few years time. That means that special needs children who can't find a daycare or kindy that can support their extra needs will miss out on any sort of early support. Unfortunately there are a lot of daycares and kindies who won't take special needs kids for a variety of reasons.

http://fragilex.org.au