Kathleen's Speech

Kathleen is 5 yrs old and she is more than moderately Autistic. She also has mutism.

Lately though we have noticed that she is trying to formulate words and if you listen closely, you will find that she almost has a language of her own.

She can say yeah on a regular basis and she uses nah for no also regularly.

She says mama, or mummy, depending on her stress level.

Occasionally she says juice but that is not really frequent enough to count.

She has what I call a patter.

It is her very own language that she uses on a regular basis and it doesn't seem to mean anything. It has no discernable words.

She has a kind of sing song melody along with her patter. We do a lot of music therapy with her at home and she will often wander around the house singing songs with different tunes that she makes up accompanied by her own words. It seems to please her and she appears happy at these times.

We have tried her with multiple musical instruments but her attention so far has not been great. She prefers to be held and have you dance and sing and will often initiate these contacts.

If the CD player gets turned on, she will make a beeline for the counter and sit and wait for you to be ready to pick her up no matter where in the house she is or what she is doing. And when she has had her fill, she will move away.

I am more likely to get tired than she is.

She actually has a very tuneful voice. She sings beautifully.

She also attends speech 2x a week during school sessions.

If we could get more speech from her, I think that a lot of her Autistic behaviours would reduce as most of them appear to be borne from an inability to communicate and the frustration that develops as a result of this.

An Ability To Show Concern Even When Autistic

Nathan is moderately Autistic. He also has mutism in addition.

He is currently 8 yrs old and will turn 9 in August.

Nathan is undergoing NAET treatments under the care of a chinese herbalist in Glendive. He has treatments approx once a week.

Since he started his treatments, he is more inclined to talk on a regular basis. He will answer questions, when he wants. He will also add his two cents to a conversation.

He is more inclined to stay out of his Autistic world and willingly participate in family games and general tomfoolery, at which time, he stays completely with us and doesn't retreat back to his world.

He is also noticing more what his brothers and sisters are doing at these times and attempting to emulate it. He is aware that they throw comments out at different intervals depending on what is going on and I have noticed that he is forcing himself to do the same.

For example, with the karate or wrestling games when someone makes contact, inevitably an oomph or an arrgh will be heard. Nathan is now doing the same.

Yesterday I had the mother of all toothaches. I was reduced to tears on multiple occasions, the pain was worse than labour. I would have liked to rip my jaw off as the pain was that severe.

Finally I ended up going to the ER in Glendive and they gave me pain relief and antibiotics.
It finally kicked in at 310 this morning and I can honestly say, since then, I have had no pain and all I am taking now are the antibiotics.

Nathan spent the evening visiting me at intervals after I returned from the hospital. Looking in my eyes and smiling at me and stroking my arm and hair.

He saw my coffee cup in front of the microwave that I had put coffee granules in while waiting for the water to boil and while I was elsewhere, he poured my water from the jug, added milk, and brought the coffee to me in the bedroom where I was supervising the girl's baths.

He had never done that before.

When I was laying on the floor getting jumped on by the girls and Eric, Nathan came and stood beside me and when it looked like someone was getting too rambunctious, he put his hand on their arm and held them, as if to tell them, to take it easy.

When I lay down on the bed to tell the girls a story at night, Nathan lay down beside me until I had finished and got up then he left too.

He stayed up until 4am. At which time we were both able to get some rest.

Nathan has always been close to me. My ex-husband used to joke, if there was a fire, you lead and Nathan will follow you, the other kids will just follow Nathan.

Even though Nathan doesn't speak much. It is almost like we have a special way of communicating. He will look in my eyes and it is like he is telepathically trying to communicate with me.

I believe it is entirely possible that my son, despite having Autism, sensed my level of distress and responded with empathy to help alleviate it as much as he could.

He is such a sweetheart. A teddy bear with a good heart. That's my boy.

Kathleen is Evolving Again

My 5yr old nonverbal Autistic daughter Kathleen continues to be an enigma.

She is on the AIM program and apart from loving her and spending one on one time with her, she is currently not recieving any other treatments.

Kathleen goes through periods where she improves significantly for a week to 2 weeks then plateaus and seems to regroup.

Currently her focus seems to be asserting herself and she went at that with gusto.

Ordinarily Kathleen would take a back seat and go and amuse herself if the other kids didn't want her to play but now, she looks for opportunities to join in. And will.

I had a talk to Rachel and Sarah about Kathleen. I explained as best I could about the Autism and how Kathleen really wanted to play with them but sometimes didn't know how.

This is where I can honestly say that my 6yr old daughter Rachel is a one of a kind.
She asked me questions and volunteered to help teach Kathleen the right way to ask people to play which she is endeavouring to do.

Kathleen responds very well to Rachel and I have often seen her trying to mimic things that Rachel has done. Not always at the same time but later when she is by herself.

She is also babbling in a sing song kind of way and some of it sounds like words.

We do a lot of music therapy in my house. I love to sing and it acts as a great stress release for me. I encourage the children to sing and dance as much as possible and even Nathan will come out and dance with his mum.

I am hoping that with all the extra hugs and time that Kathleen is getting this week will see her improve more in social skills.

I know that if we could get more speech out of her, we would improve her behaviours as she gets frustrated that we don't seem to understand what she is trying to tell us and I know that must be difficult for her.

John's ADHD Herbal Treatment

There are so many objective things that have demonstrated that this herbal treatment for John's ADHD is working.

In the last week alone he has started to gain weight and he is not constantly eating.

Anyone with children who have ADHD will tell you that their hyperactivity burns an awful lot of calories. It is difficult to get the child to maintain a decent weight without using supplements.

John has not only gained weight, he has also cut his intake.

Having Autism and ADHD is quite a combination. I have a son who flaps vigorously. Or should I say, I HAD a son that flapped vigorously.

His flapping has reduced significantly. It is now possible for him to watch his favourite movie without the hand movements and the jumping up and down. It certainly makes watching television more pleasant for everyone else.

Transitioning has always been a problem for John. If he was concentrating on something and you asked him to do something else, you would get him screaming, slapping the back of his head and a nasty meltdown.

Since he started week 6 on Friday. I can honestly say that I have not seen a major meltdown from John. Occasionally like when the power went out tonight while he was watching a DVD, he objected verbally but when I explained about the lightning storm and asked him just to turn it back on, he did. There was no screaming, nothing.

I asked him to help me take out the trash on Monday night. He asked if he could play on the swing on the way out and I asked him to wait until we had done the trash.
He did!

Not only that but when I asked him to come inside 10 minutes later, he hopped off the swing and followed me in without a murmur.

Subjectively, and this is probably the odd one and I will try and download the photos from my camera in the next two days and post one here, his smile changed.

Ordinarily when I have taken a photo of John, I have got the mouth full of teeth "Cheese" smile.

I took a photo of him on Saturday and it was a regular smile. It makes his whole face look different.

Even his respite worker thinks that he is improving so it is not just my view point.

As time goes by apparently with this herbal treatment, his behaviour will continue to improve and it also works on the symptoms for Autism, so the flapping will improve as will the social skills and the eye contact etc.

It all looks great so far and there have been no side effects.
Later.

Treatments For John's ADHD

Well, we are currently just passed week 5 of John's herbal treatment for ADHD and I have to say without a doubt that it is working.

We had a swingset put in at the end of the week and unfortunately due to the rain, the kids have not been able to play on it.

I explained to John on Friday that it had been set in concrete and we had to wait for it to dry.

He asked me what concrete was and accepted my explanation and went off to find something else to do.

In the past this would have led to me getting screamed at and slapped and him smacking the back of his head and pulling on my clothes. It would also have meant that there would have been multiple assaults on the windows leading to the backyard and him trying to pick the keys out of my pocket for the rest of the evening.

His flapping has seriously decreased to the point where he watches his favourite program and is just sitting there with no movement.

He came and asked me today if I would help him bake a cake which we did together but the best part was when I pulled it out of the oven and asked him to wait until it cooled so we could ice it.

HE DID!!!!!

Woohoo.

A few minutes ago he asked his sister Rachel if she would play garbage trucks with him.

It is a role play game that he made up from watching a Backyardigans movie. He Made It Up.

Unheard of for an Autistic kid with the degree of Autism that he has.

He is doing absolutely bloody marvelous.!

He looked outside and saw it was raining this morning and said "Guess that means we can't play on the swing set today, oh well".

How sweet is that!

At last, a little light at the end of the tunnels.

It is not only dealing with his ADHD but also with the Autism symptoms.
Yahoo.

Good Days and Bad Days

Kathleen was fairly convivial this morning but she threw the most major tantrum at lunchtime.

She was at the table with her sisters eating then decided that she didn't like me to sit at the side of the table where I was feeding Eric, she wanted me to sit at the top.

So she pushed and climbed up on the chair behind me and shoved me with her feet and screamed some.

When I finished feeding Eric, I moved to the seat that she wanted me to sit in.

All was well for a few minutes then she noticed that there was a dining room chair in front of the computer so she got up to bring it to the table.

She couldn't get the chairs to go into the table together and started to get very frustrated and started screaming. Our attempts to help her to get the chairs to fit failed and she just went bright red and then she started biting her arm.

She did this a couple of times before finally giving up and running off.

It was one of the saddest moments of my life. Never had I felt such despair and I began to wonder if this was it.

If this was the best that we were ever going to have.

Even now as I type this I am crying again.

I just want so desperately to help her and she was doing so well and has come so far with her Autism over the past year and now to start biting herself. Where does it end?

I am more than a little despondent at this time.

No doubt tomorrow I will pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. But for today, I think I will allow the tears.
Later.

Looking for a Natural Cure for the Symptoms of ADHD

In addition to his Autism, John has ADHD.

What a combination!

A hyperactive child who doesn't pay attention to what is going on in the real world around him.

I have tried meds for the ADHD without any success.

I tried coffee for the ADHD without any success.

That is not to say that either of these treatments won't work for ADHD. I have friends whose children's symptoms are controlled quite nicely using these modalities.

I think that each of these children respond to different treatments.

Currently I am using an herbal remedy that is meant to lessen the Autism symptoms and another to help with the ADHD.

Being herbal, it will take several weeks to kick in. We are currently on week three and he is having good days and bad days. I think that his flapping has decreased somewhat and he is doing some nice school work but it is still too early to tell if it is going to be effective or not.

This morning he decided that he was not getting in the car to go to school. We attempted to jolly him along knowing that if he was allowed to go back inside, the tantrums would increase in magnitude the next time he decided that he didn't want to go.

I can hardly wait to read today's report from his teacher.

I am thinking that I may drop in to the school this morning and see how he is doing.

They are using a lot of heavy sensory input at the school also.
Later.

Children with Autism Don't React Well to Change

Naturally enough that comment depends on the level of Autism that the child has.

Kathleen does not respond well to change.

The three nights that I spent in Bismarck were hard on her.

She went from a little girl who would jump in the bath tub and spend ages in there playing to a screaming mess each night when I would either start the water running or she saw the signs that I was getting ready to bathe them.

There is nothing that may set them off. It is simply the change in routine but if anyone has read the prior post on Kathleen and bathing, they will know that it took me probably close to 8 months of intensive, concentrated work to get her to the point where she would enjoy her bath and tolerate having her hair washed.

The night after I got back I realized that I would have to practically do it all over again.

It was a little sad to have my little girl back to screaming and wailing when the bath was turned on.

Fortunately she would agree to get in but was wailing the whole time and she would hang her head over the side of the tub.

It has taken her this long to figure out that I didn't want anything from her but to have her sit in the bath and wash herself or agree to let me do it for her.

Last night she jumped in the bath wailing but was prepared for flight at any time.

I leaned on the counter and asked Rachel to hand her the face cloth and indicated to Katy that I just wanted her to wash her face which she did.

All of a sudden she stopped the wailing. She would occasionally lean over the tub to reach for the towel to wipe the tears from her eyes but the incessant noise had stopped.

She looked over at me and gave me a quick smile and sat in the tub.

She had Rachel and Sarah in there with her and I instructed them to stop being mermaids for a wee bit which they agreed to do.

Kathleen just sat there for about 10 minutes. Occasionally she glanced my way and gave me more smiles and I got one giggle from her.

When she was ready she hopped out and we played the cuddle game which she loves.

Hopefully tonight she will be better again. It just takes a lot of time and patience and of course with children with the degree of Autism that Kathleen has it may take a little while so you just have to persevere.

I would rather have the children want to do a task than force them and have them hate every second of it. It can be done.

Later.

Summer is Coming

Less than 3 weeks till summer vacation.
I have to come up with some neat stuff to keep the inmates from getting bored.

It is hard to organize play dates for children with Autism. Not a lot of other parents think of inviting your children to their houses to play with their kids.
It is kind of a shame really as John would like to play with other children but being Autistic, he doesn't have the skills to initiate a freindship.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough of the other parents around here to develop a relationship with them that would foster reciprocal visits.

Yes it is true that my children being Autistic have a few idiosyncrasies but they are not leppers and they are not dangerous, they just sometimes do somethings differently.

They love to kick around a ball, they love to ride bikes and they love to play tag.
Just like any other kid.

They may not talk as well as some of the children around here, but they are not mean spirited and they will not say hurtful things. They are just children plain and simple who by an unlucky draw of nature have Autism.

I hope to get a swingset set up in the backyard before summer comes and I will call as many parents as I can think of to see if any of them want to send their children over here to play and hopefully that will break up the monotony of the long summer.

Sometimes it is hard to get things done around the house as I am only one woman and unfortunately I don't have any menfriends who can do things like fix bikes and the such. But I try to do what I can.

Hopefully my friend's husband will bring a mate to help set up the swing set or it is going to be a very interesting day I am sure.

And of course, there is always the play pools.
Later

Noise Sensitivity for Children with Autism

It is difficult to determine how much noise really affects children with Autism but, it certainly seems to have an adverse effect on a majority of them.

When Kathleen first started showing signs of Autism, at first, I thought that she had a hearing deficit as she wouldn't turn her head when I called her name and if I banged two spoons together behind her, she didn't get startled or look to see where the noise originated from.

When she started stacking blocks and lining up all the animals in the house however, I had my answer.

A number of children with Autism can't stand the noise of common things like vacuums and lawn mowers leading them to have massive size meltdowns when these activities are being performed. It is not so hard to adjust your schedule around the needs of your child but it is a little difficult to try to explain to the people two doors down that your child can't handle the sound of their lawnmower and could they please warn you in advance so that you can plan for the inevitable meltdown.

Sometimes desensitization can enable your child with Autism to cope a little better with the noise.

When they were smaller, I kept a radio running 24/7.

At first, it was only on very softly and of course it was on an easy listening channel not something that was designed to shock their ears. I kept this up for several months before turning the volume up just a wee bit higher. This continued in minute increments for some time and I am pleased to say that usually normal noises do not bother my children.

However, currently we live fairly close to a railway track and that took some getting used to as it is a busy line and trains travel through town frequently throughout the day and they blow their whistles. Really, really loudly!

To start, the children would get upset and scream when outside when the trains blew their whistles. I found that if I heard them coming and covered up the children's ears, that helped a wee bit but not really enough so it was back to desensitizing.

First off they were kept inside. We can still hear the trains from inside the house but it is somewhat muted.
Then I cracked the kitchen window open a bit. Once again, a little muted but louder than before.
This went on for a bit and the window kept getting opened wider and wider and then I advanced to the back door.

Now I am pleased to say that none of my children with Autism are bothered greatly by the train.
My 4 yr old is still a little shy of them but she doesn't run to me as often now to hold her ears.

Assembly time at school is a little trial for John. There is a lot of noise and the gym echoes. Some days he handles it better than others. Ear phones were trialed for a while.

The nice thing about John is that he can now tell you if it is too loud and request to leave. This avoids potential behaviour problems and is a lot more comfortable for him.

Last year I took him to the Halloween party at the elementary school and I will say that the music was too loud even for me. He walked in there, covered his ears and said "mum, I can't handle this, there's too much noise. Can I go home?"
So he was taken immediately home.

I don't know if it the volume of the noises so much as the fact that there is just so much going on and it is too busy when you add volume. I know for a fact that John can hear what people say when they are standing next to him, meanwhile he is also hearing what people are saying standing apart from him and also what others are saying a distance away, all the while hearing all the environmental noises. A regular person can block out all the other noises and just listen to the one conversation while still being aware that there is other things going on.
An Autistic person seems to hear everything at the same time and to try and process that all at once must be really mind blowing.

Desensitizing takes a bit of time and energy but for the Autistic child's comfort, I think that it is well worth it.
Later.

Conference on Autism

On Monday and Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending an Autism conference run by the Anne Carlsen Center in Bismarck.

It was presented by Dr Stacey Goresko who has an Autistic son.

The focus of this conference was to present a treatment for Autism that was developed by Dr Steve Gutsein, a psychologist, who himself apparently has ADHD.

His theory is that the children with Autism deserve a "do over".
Their social development comes to a halt when they become Autistic and if they are taken back to the same time, this is a little hard to express, but basically they need to learn the social skills of babies or toddlers.
They need to go through a stage where they discover for themselves that they can learn from their mentors or guides. (parents or caregivers)

From what I could determine, it is a social basis for the child to draw on.
ABA teaches children to remember things by rote e.g. if I do this then this happens.
That is nice, but the world is not in black and white. If you throw something out of the ordinary at these children, they can't cope with it as they may not have a learned behaviour for it.

I can see what Dr Gutstein means. His consultants teach the parents/teachers who teach the child with positive dynamic interaction to think about why things are happening rather than giving them the answer and expecting them to learn it.
This way, the child has something to fall back on and also, this can be built on so the child has more episodic memories to draw on.

It teaches them to think for themselves.

I think that some of this can be used with my three children and will probably attempt it several times a day to see how it works.

The consultants, once they have done their initial face to face assessment conduct the rest of their coaching via videos posted by the parents on a website.

To contact them www.RDIconnect.com

I really missed my kids while I was gone. I had a couple of good friends who stepped in for me. I think that the kids were happy to have me back too. Thanks so much to those who helped me attend this and to West River Special Ed for providing the opportunity.
Later

Nathan

Nathan is 8 yrs old now. I would think that he is moderately Autistic with little speech.
I will add that since he started the NAET treatments, we have seen greater clarity in his speech and today I think that there was a little bit more intonation to his speech.

Usually he speaks in a kind of monotone. It sounds almost like a deaf person. But it has improved significantly.

He is also starting to become a little more active. He is running more now and it seems that he is becoming more inclined to walk off.

I am unable to determine where it is exactly that he wants to go but, he just meanders off. He is not upset or angry when he is brought back so who knows, maybe he is just enjoying the sunshine.
After we get back from his NAET treatment tomorrow, I think that I will take him for a walk and see if that does well for him.

The more progress that I am seeing with his NAET treatments, the more excited I am about going to them. The last 3 weeks, it seems that everytime I go, I have something new and exciting to tell his practitioner.

I believe that we only have about 15 more treatments left so I remain very hopeful that we will see a significant difference in regards to his Autism by the end.

Nathan's NAET

Well this morning we headed off to Glendive to do Nathan's NAET treatment for his Autism. It was his 17th or 18th treatment and I was pretty excited as the DVD's I watched on the NAET casestudies showed the five children started to talk after their 15th treatment.

While we were waiting for Kay to see us, Nathan and I were discussing stuff and I was tickling his tummy.
The day before we had gone through all the christmas words I could think of e.g. christmas eve, christmas tree, christmas presents etc.

Since October something had been bothering me and I was about to have a revelation. I just didn't know it at the time.
Nathan would stand at the windows and look out and say something that sounded like "critisize".
It bothered me that he would keep repeating this negative sounding word over and over.
It came out a lot when it snowed and I just couldn't see how or where he would have picked it up and why he would have retained it.

While I was sitting there tickling his stomach, he turned to me and said as clearly as I talk, "Christmas time".
Then he added "Christmas Day".

There was my revelation!

He associated snow with christmas time, he wasn't saying critisize, that is what it sounded like when he said christmas time.

It brought tears to my eyes. The NAET seems to be taking forever to complete but if I ever needed confirmation that it was working, well there it was.

When Kay and Shirl came out, I told them and I was just so happy and grateful that my little boy is showing signs of getting his speech back.

The NAET had started improving the clarity of his speech but I was just so impressed with Christmas time. You could not have been able to tell that he was impaired if you just heard him say it.

Awesome, I fully recommend this treatment to anyone whose child has Autism.
Later.

My Thanks To My Brother Niall

Hats off to this guy today.
He was going to paint his house and took the time to chat with us on webcam.
Not enough, well wait till you hear what happened.

I bit the bullet and made the twenty dollar investment for a webcam on Thursday but had to wait until today to try it.
It has a built in microphone and so Niall can hear us when we talk.
The girls were having a blast.
They could see their relatives and talk to them at the same time.
Yay for modern technology!
John came by and said hello to his Uncle Niall and cousins and then went off.
The big achievement came when I called Nathan over to say hello.

I had been tossing around for a while the possibility of videotaping the children at play and then playing it back to them.
I got this idea because of their overwhelming positive response to a video that I had made of the boys pre-autism.
Even Kathleen had found it fascinating.

I wondered if it was possible that by staging different play settings like throwing a ball and running and different things that they would learn by watching themselves as they seem to be extremely visual children.

Anyway, back to the webcam.
Nathan came over and noticed that his picture showed up on the screen. He repeated "hello, uncle Niall" after I said it.
Then he positioned himself correctly so that he could see himself in the camera.
Niall waved at him and Nathan waved back.
Niall gave him the thumbs up and Nathan gave him the thumbs up back.
Niall gave him the okay sign and Nathan just about turned himself inside out because of the position he was in to place his ok sign in front of the camera.
Nathan then recited his alphabet.
Niall said that it was a lot clearer than he had heard him previously.

Then Niall and Nathan proceeded to spend the next five minutes poking tongues at each other and pulling faces.
At first, Nathan was copying Niall then he started to branch out on his own creating his own expressions, never once for a second taking his eyes off the computer screen and his Uncle Niall's face.
After a while he left, a smile on his face.

That was not the end of it.
Nathan returned to the loungeroom and proceeded to talk.
He was in there by himself throwing out 4 or 5 word sentences.
He repeated the same ones a bit. It almost seemed like he was trying to work on his pronunciation as he got clearer as he went on.
Then he also started throwing out one or two words.
He went into the bedroom and this continued.
He kept this up for over an hour.

Nathan has mutism in addition to autism. He has very little spontaneous speech but he seems to experiment with it at intervals.

Later he came out to the kitchen holding his ear and I was afraid that he had an ear infection. He is prone to them. It kept him out of the pool last summer as he was constantly on antibiotics trying to clear this up.
I asked him if I could look at it and he let me have a wee peek.
Then I noticed that he had a scratch on his ear and asked him what happened.
He replied, "cat".
Then he walked off and as he did so said, "ouch".

I intend to see if we can do more webcam sessions and see if indeed this does help his speech a little.
If this does indeed show improvement in his speech then I will go ahead with the video.
Maybe it can be used for social skills too.
It could have all kinds of possibilities.
Later

Kathleen Kisses

Young Kathleen was in a marvelous mood today.
She laughed and played with people all day.
When it came to bathtime she washed people's hair and laughed at them as she poured water on their heads, she was just having a good old time.
In fact there were few signs of autism she exhibited.
Prior to going to Marlene's place, we turned on the CD player and danced to some NZ music.
Dancing basically means that I carry her and dance and she smiles and looks into my eyes.
I also sing along to the songs and today for one whole song, Kathleen kept up a tuneful babble.
It is almost like she is singing but doesn't know the words so she makes up her own.
It was fabulous!
Just before getting into the bath, she was having trouble getting her jeans undone and I asked if she wanted help and she replied "yeah" then she said "yes".
The speech was very clear.
She finished off her bath with her new routine of putting a little water on the bathroom floor and sliding up and down it.
Our bathroom is a good size and she can get a good momentum going.
I let her go at it for a couple of minutes then call her out.
As soon as her nappy is on, it is time for cuddles and she climbs up onto my lap and laughs and smiles at me.
Today as I was looking at her, I said kiss and kissed her on the lips.
She looked at me and then she puckered up her lips and we repeated this another 5 or 6 times.
Then Rachel came over and Katy hopped off my lap and Rachel gave her a hug and a kiss.
She had done this a couple of times before Sarah had to come over and try it.
Katy laughed and laughed and she was having a good old time.
We were so happy.
In the past, one of Katy's autism symptoms was that she was a biter.
She has a very good set of teeth and sometimes she would latch on and draw blood.
You would never know if she was going to bite until it happened and I had numerous bruises and teeth marks in the old days.
A couple of years back, we were watching tv one night and Katy was just coming out of her lay down in the same spot and scream uncontrollably days and was starting to interact a little with us.
She came over to the couch where I was sitting and climbed on my lap and put her arms around my neck.
I was excited as I thought that maybe she was starting to get more affectionate and returned her hug. When I felt her mouth on the side of my cheek, I thought she was going to kiss me.
Heck no!
Within a second those teeth had sunk into my cheek and she was hanging on for dear life.
I disengaged her and burst into tears.
Not only did it hurt physically, but also emotionally.
Now she is kissing us.
How cool is that!
She may have autism but, she knows we love her and towards the end of the night, instead of us initiating the kisses, they were coming from her.
Life is great.
Later

What is the future?

You know it occured to me that some of you reading this may have stumbled on this and may not even know much about Autism.
Autism currently affects 1 out of 150 children.
Wow, what an astounding figure huh!
Incredible to think that for some of you who have not known about autism previously you may come into contact with someone who has it within the next few years.
Currently the incidence of autism amongst our children is increasing at an alarming rate of 10-17% each year.
Autism in children is outranking childhood diabetes as the number one illness.
Too many.
If it keeps increasing like this, who is going to be around to look after them all.
And no one can say without question yet, what causes autism.
So when you have a child, is it going to be a bit like the lotto?
Hopefully you win it and your child is okay.
You know, I had read a lot of comments posted by people on autism.
My favourite stupid one would have to be the one that says "don't look on it as a tragedy, embrace the children, you don't have to fix them"
A number of times I have noted that these comments are posted by people with great ideals who have nothing to do with autism.
Just because my children have autism does not mean that I think of it as tragic.
My children are aware that they are loved by me.
But that sure does not mean that I am not going to do everything in my power to reduce their autism symptoms.
These people have to understand, maybe the child is quite content in their own world, knowing that their needs are being taken care of.
But, the big picture is, these children are going to outlive me.
Who is going to look after them when I am gone?
I need to try to recover them. I need to make them as self sufficient as possible.
Afterall, isn't that what you try to do to regular children?
You teach them life skills and you send them out into the world.
You are there for them to fall back on if they need you.
I can't depend that someone is going to want to take as good care of them as I do.
And think about it, in 20 or 30 years, unless this epidemic is brought to a halt, there will be too many of them.
I have been successful in reducing some of their autism symptoms.
They are all able to get something to eat or drink when they need it.
I am trying to teach the older ones how to go to the store to buy things.
The more repetition that they have, the easier this is becoming.
I am teaching them that some of their autism symptoms are not appropriate in public.
The autism society of america has a listing of autism symptoms.

Know the Signs: Early Identification Can Change Lives
Autism is treatable. Children do not "outgrow" autism, but studies show that early diagnosis and intervention lead to significantly improved outcomes.
Here are some signs to look for in the children in your life:
Lack of or delay in spoken language
Repetitive use of language and/or motor mannerisms (e.g., hand-flapping, twirling objects)
Little or no eye contact
Lack of interest in peer relationships
Lack of spontaneous or make-believe play
Persistent fixation on parts of objects

That came off their website at www.autismsocietyofamerica.com

They have some other helpful information and it is worthwhile checking it out.
I know it is easy to go into information overload, but, knowledge is power.
Later.

Three O'Clock In The Morning

Sounds like a country song doesn't it.
John is currently singing the national anthem.
Luckily it is not loud.
While he is making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
He sat bolt upright at 1am and asked me if it was morning yet. When I replied no, he needed to go back to sleep it was still the middle of the night, he found himself unwilling or unable to go back to sleep.
After 3 stories and many back rubs, he is still up and judging by the occasional laugh coming from the loungeroom, it will be that way for a while.
Wouldn't be so bad but young Kathleen didn't go to sleep until 1230am and I was just enjoying the little bit of peace and tranquility when he did.
Then, resigned that I am not going to get to bed this night, I went to make my 6th cup of coffee only to discover that I have only enough left to make one more cup so I decided to leave that until closer to morning and go with the decaf.
Then, luckily I was in the loungeroom with him when he turned on cartoon network to see a man being impaled multiple times with flying scalpels, so, I changed the channel quickly and told him that it was over and put it on a documentary.
I set him up with books and apart from the fact that he is reading them out loud, I hope that he will remain content for a while.
I doubt that he will be going to school in the morning as by then he will probably be tired so there is no point sending him.
Hopefully if he nods off by morning, I will be able to let him sleep till 12 then put him to bed at 10 tomorrow night and we should pretty much be back on schedule by Wednesday.
Since I put the boys on the Melatonin, nights like this have been few and far between thank goodness.
When they were smaller, the boys used to take turns staying up. It was almost planned, infrequently was the times when they would both be asleep so we would have to take turns staying up too.
Got into the habit of making do with one or two hours here and there but these past two weeks between the kids being sick and such, it is starting to rear it's ugly head.
Pity, I was getting kinda used to my bed.
Oh well.
Later