Sally, the mother of 4-year old Sienna*, had seen five GPs to discuss her concerns about her daughter’s development and behaviour.

Sienna had always had difficulty regulating her behaviour and would often experience meltdowns at home. She struggled to communicate and was unable to express her feelings or what she needed.

Her preschool teachers reported increasing challenges with Sienna following directions or complying with rules. She required constant one-on-one support to settle and had to be heavily encouraged to join in with group activities.

While the GPs were sympathetic, Sally was told she had nothing to worry about and Sienna would likely ‘grow out of it’.

Sally was thrilled to learn Royal Far West’s Healthy Kids Bus Stop would be visiting their town and providing comprehensive health screenings for preschool aged children in order to identify developmental issues and provide a pathway to support children in their transition to school.

During the multidisciplinary screenings, which included speech, psychology, dental and audiometry sessions, our specialist paediatric clinicians found several red flags around Sienna’s sensory processing, fine motor skills, lack of attention and empathy, and difficulty in following instructions.

The clinicians identified a need to have Sienna further assessed for a potential diagnosis. Sally submitted an application to have Sienna enrolled in our intensive residential Paediatric Developmental Program, and to her relief, Sienna was offered a place and will attend her first visit to the Centre for Country Kids in the coming months for a full assessment, diagnosis and comprehensive therapy and support plan.

*Names and some elements of the story have been changed to protect the privacy of our client families.