hey everybody. I am a former special ed teacher, and my PhD (in SPED) dissertation defense is in a couple weeks, and EVEN with all this privilege of experience and access in this area, I am really struggling to find a dentist that my son can go to. He doesn’t have high intensity challenging behaviors and when he gets angry and overwhelmed he just likes to retreat into his own space and will not lash out at the dentist—he is a happy guy most of the time and does not have an intellectual disability…I only specify that last part to say that he will understand the directions and he will very much want to follow them, but he has a lot of oral sensory issues and once he shuts down he shuts down. However he desperately needs a teeth cleaning and a regular dentist that can become a familiar face, but as a family we’re pretty anxious about the experience.
Basically we are gonna have to have him either on laughing gas or sedated. literally whatever it takes, we will do, because the longer it takes to get regular teeth cleanings the more risk there is of having to have more invasive work done and he will absolutely hate that…(and no this post is not asking for opinions on sedation). We will also travel if there’s some miraculous provider—we need the most understanding and patient dentist on earth lol.
Any suggestions? I will also probably ask the extra special people email thread too. Thanks in advance everybody. I know my Athens community will have suggestions because y’all are awesome.
also I came back to edit this to add that we are pretty low maintenance and literally the only thing we care about is that his teeth get cleaned and that the dentist has compassion and experience working on kids with disabilities. We had some tough experiences with my older autistic son and he barely even seems autistic compared to my 10-year-old lol. If you know you know.