If you're not watching NBC's new drama Parenthood yet, head over to Hulu.com and catch up on both the Pilot episode and Man Vs Possum.

Tuesday night's episode, especially, showed a great portrayal of a set of cure-side parents vs a neurodiversity-side therapist.  The cure side parents were high strung, and it showed in their parenting (keeping a color-coded card catalog of resources, doing whatever they could to avoid teaching coping skills or understanding their son, who was going nuts in the background- I would too if I had such pushy parents).   The neurodiversity-side therapist on the other hand, when handing down the official diagnosis, was quick to point out the positives and try to give some hope, but also gave the best piece of advice I've heard yet for parents of a special needs kid:  "Enter into his world, learn what he's about.  Find his talents and polish them.  Then when HE is ready, you lead him out into the real world". 

Thats an Ivars joke for you. Google "keep clam" if you have nothing to do online. Anyway, Zare got all his points and got to get something from the treasure box at school. A Klutz book, how awesome is that! Castle Building Cards! So cool. Well the next day we spent an hour working on it, and then dashed out to school. So... thats not good for the Zare brain I guess because he had a 40 minute meltdown and the school psychologist was calling me in the middle of it! Today we kept it calm and he had a better day. So now we know, light reading in the morning, nothing intense.

I post everthing into the experience section. This post might go into help or ideas. But reading the help or idea section gives me a headache because people like to make things BOLD and UNDERLINED.

And then they start a new line that looks like this! And it is not a link to anything!

Great, now I can't get out of bold, I will post again in a minute. All I wanted to do was vent and look what happened.

Alot of times parents have a huge problems teaching their children with autism go to potty and get them out of pull ups. I know this can be a very traumatic event for both parent and child. I have learned that there are several reasons why a child would have a problem going to the potty. Some of the biggest problems kids encounter have been:

Fear of the flushing noise

Fear of the suction when you flush the toilet

The sensation that they you experience when you have to go to the bathroom

Fear of falling in

I have tried and tested some of the following techniques which will help all parents help the children to go to the potty.

1. Consistency. You must always be consistent with time for the child. Try and keep a schedule and keep to it. With us it has been every two hours.

2. Praise. Whenever the child goes to bathroom you must praise them. Whether they go or not. Remember A for effort!

3. Reward. When the child actually goes to the potty you should reward them. I try stickers. Very inexpensive and the kids love them.

 4. Tell other people in the home that the child went to the bathroom and have them praise the child.

 5. Once they think that they might be ready go buy them a pair of underwear that they might like. For my son it is his glow in the dark spiderman and my girls my little pony and disney princess.

If all fails try to bribe them. I saw 2 cases where this worked.  No matter what never give up be patient and persistent and remember that sometimes they might have accidents but when they do tell them that it is ok and have them help you clean it and keep on trying.

Zare is fully verbal. Although sometimes in frustration he resorts to grunts, whines or pantomines. It just cracks me up when he is on a long topic of his. Its hard to write it out on paper because his words have a start. stop. pattern to. them. But the words are there, which I am greatful for. So I need to be better about writing down what he has said, because every day he cracks me up. Tonight before we put him to bed we asked what would he like for sunday morning, pancakes or waffles?

"waffle-ish pancakes"

"um, okay, how do we do that?"

"you take food coloring and draw a waffle pattern on the pancake."

I kid you not, our boy has it all planned out, we shall see how this works tomorrow! You better believe he will remember it too!

Today I had to take my 11 year old son to the psych unit for suicidal ideations.  It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  They admitted him and I had to drive away without him.  Feels like I failed him.  Has anyone been through this and have any encouraging words?

I’m not a box.  I don’t think in one or outside of one because with autism/Asperger’s, the thinking runs through a different maze in the brain than neuro-typical people.  Oh, I haven’t a study to quote to “prove” this, because the proof is all in my head.

Before I was diagnosed (as an adult) I knew, and other people said, that my thinking was unusual.  I spent time analyzing how I think and mentally observing myself thinking.

“Observing” is the right word, not “hear” or “knowing” or “feeling” because I see my thoughts in pictures.  Temple Grandin had it right with the title of her famous book, Thinking in Pictures.  Often I don’t see the thoughts as they are coming together, but the end result is always a visual.  I’ll give examples.

I go to an adult spelling bee once in a while at the 331 Club in Minneapolis.  The emcee always calls me The Speed Speller because I spell the word so quickly.  The reason is that I see the word in my head then just read off the letters.

Doing art is a passion of mine I wish I could indulge in more.  I already see in my mind what the next picture is going to look like, even with the new medium I will be using.  When I do the art, it’s like connecting the dots or paint by numbers on a blank canvas.  It’s very satisfying to see with my eyes what I have enjoyed in my mind.

When the concept of mind mapping became popular in the eighties, it made sense to me because I already thought that way.  People said I was creative with my wild ideas that worked.  I didn’t put two and two together because it didn’t happen that way in my mind.  read more »

Part of the process of having your child screened for ASD is talking about your family history.

It’s a medical history, and psychological history, and experiential history, and just the kind of general questions you would expect before embarking on a journey of 90 different tests, visits and assessments with 14 different doctors and agencies.

They will ask if there has ever been any autism, ASD, sensory issues or other problems in your family. Maybe there are obvious cases that you know about, and you’ll give them the information.

Or maybe you’ll say no.

Then maybe you’ll mention the history-taking process to your actual family, and all hell will break loose.

My dad didn’t speak a word until he was almost 4. “It wasn’t any big deal. And by the way, your refrigerator is about 6 degrees off square.”

My mom’s cousins all call her Twinkle Toes because she walked on tiptoe
until she was 6.

My husband didn’t speak until he was 3. No one thought anything of it. They figured he didn’t have anything to say.

I can’t understand what people are saying unless I am looking at their face, and my mom and I have both been known to hang up on people mid-conversation, only to have them call back – “Is there a problem with your phone?’

“No, I just thought you were done talking.”

I go crazy at the sound of static. I remember seeing the movie “As Good As It Gets” and thinking, “OK, so that’s not normal?”

We are a long line of self-employed, anti-social, artistic, math-brained musicians with OCD, dyslexia, ADHD, and a host of other undiagnosed issues that none of us would consider at all off center.  read more »

Someone is over-diagnosing autism.

It’s me.

Every screaming child, every awkward adult, myself, my parents, co-workers, high school classmates, new acquaintances.

In the waiting room, at the grocery store, in a meeting, at the park.

Any anomaly in a kid’s behavior triggers my concern. Does he frequently have tantrums? How is his speech? Is he afraid of Elmo? Hand flapping? Block stacking?

I see adults who are fidgeting and rushing to get out of a casual conversation. Maybe it’s Asperger’s!  Are they making eye contact? Arguing minutiae? Are they trying to escape, yet standing too close?

Here’s the thing – chances are good that very few of my autism predictions are accurate. And even if they were, it’s not any of my business.

But here is what I’ve taken away: If a kid is having a tantrum in a store, and it is apparent that he has ASD issues, we’ll all be more likely to cut him and his parents some slack.

But if a kid is having a tantrum at a store, it may outwardly look like he wants a toy, but maybe it is because his dog just died, or he has moved into a new house, or someone picked on him at school or he’s just hungry. Maybe his parents should have dealt with it before it got to this point, but maybe they are consumed by trying to figure out how to make $20 buy enough food for the week.

I’m trying to take the compassion and understanding that I have developed through my experiences with my own child and extend them not only to children and adults with similar issues or disabilities, but all kids, all issues – no matter how small – all adults, no matter how aggravating they may be.

I have never been that kind of person.

I think seeing autism in everyone has been my way to recognize the vulnerabilities in other people, their thought processes, and how it causes them to react for better or for worse.  read more »