Sorry everyone but I have to call this one for Derek today.....

We had a "surprise" snow storm today here in the Portland area and it hit right at the time that I pick Derek up from his CI program. I got a call from my wife that it was starting to snow and that I had to get Derek in the truck in case it got bad...well it got bad.....started to come down pretty hard and it made me late picking him up and we finally left at about 3:30pm, now the trip is 27 miles to home and usually takes about 40 minutes to drive home with afternoon traffic, when we got back on the freeway it had a nice coating of snow on it and while we can drive in rain here in Oregon...snow is another story....traffic was not moving. Now I'm thinking this is going to take awhile and this situation just screams behavoirs...Well taking awhile was being conservative....5 hours...yes 5 hours to go 27 miles but I am here to tell you he had the best time...he had to be the happiest person on the roads today we played...rocked back and forth in the car...watched the snow melt down the windshield...stuck our hands out of the window to catch snow flakes.....He completely blew me away with how much fun he made 5 hours sitting in traffic. So today I have the Best Son with Autism or just one of the best son's ever who just happens to be Autistic.

I, and half the town knew my son had Autism 2 years before the doctor wrote it down. Obviously, your childs doctor is the ruler of decision. I could not get help for my son til the doctor wrote it down, but now it causes conflicts with other parties. My son was BORN with AUTISM, other parties assume my son caught it like a cold,...WRONG, doctors played a testing game that took way too long to diagnose, you dont have to have a college degree to see something wrong with your child. I lost thousands of dollars for the delay. Now I continue to get other programs to assist for money that dont need to be in my childs life. My son is showing great signs of recovery by allowing him to participate in a REAL WORLD, not the world doctors suggest. A doctor is human like you, but ONLY you know your childs REAL needs.

The last two weeks have been amazing.  I almost hate to put this out there, as I might jinx something.   All of a sudden, Luke's behavior has improved.  He's more even-keeled, he's less impulsive, he's more focused and engaged and less aggressive.  I don't know what to "owe" it to - but it's like he turned this corner.  Mind you, life is not "normal" - but, with me as a Mom, it wouldn't be anyway.  :)  But, our quality of life as a family has improved.  We can go places - and actually have fun!  He might have a small tantrum, but not the day-ending blowouts.  Now, most of the time, he seems more like a strong-willed and mischievious almost-4-yr-old.  Anyone else had a similar experience?  He started Spec Ed pre-school for Autistic children in September - he's been making great improvements with school, but does that explain the sudden change?  We've had him on a GFCFEFNF (Gluten, Casein, Egg, Nut-free!) diet for a few months now and have him on doctor-recommended supplements.  Is this stuff helping his behavior?  I mean, he still might have a behavioral "flashback" - but we haven't had heinous days for over two weeks - completely unprecedented.  Any comments?

Lately I've been feeling as though I'm standing on a highway in the middle of the northbound and southbound lanes.  I'm right in the center of all oncoming traffic.  Coming from one direction are the "Cure Autism-Recovery or Bust" groups, and flying towards me from the other way are the "Accept Us for Who We Are-Amanda Baggs and Friends" groups.  What's a mother to do?

Michael and I are somewhere in the middle.  We want to do what we can to help our son develop more towards 'normalcy', yet we want to respect and accept him for who he is - a young man who happens to have autism.

All this fighting makes me nervous, to tell the truth. 

This is a first for me. I have made a comment or two but I'm not your typical blogger! To be honest, this will probably turnout to be one of my venting sessions! I just found out my four year old has autism. Now I have know for sometime he has delays in areas but I haven't ever felt he met the criteria for autism. And as Seinfeld would say "not that there is anything wrong with". I just thought delayed, he'll catch up. I have had Hume in speech therapy, early intervention plans, OT,etc. An outsider would probably think how and why I was so shocked. So hurt. I felt as though I had been kicked in the kidneys!!! Then comes the pouring out of advice! "You know they can cure autism!" said someone I will remain nameless. Well, good grief! What have I been so upset about I thought as I want to just yell "idiot!" to the top omy lungs. I did not. People mean well. I know. Just like some of the blogs on here when some one is having a bad day they just want to get it out there. But someone always writes some words of wisdom of how precious each child is and this and that. We know that! We've had a bad, frustrating, lonely day that no one in this world would get but each other. I love my son. I don't feel I have to prove that to anyone. Sometimes though, I'm mad.

Christmas is by far Derek's favorite time of the year.....He knows that after Thanksgiving I will go to the storage unit and get the decorations but we can't put any up until we pick out a tree. This year we went to our usual tree lot and he is very particular about his tree (and it is his tree) so after doing a coupleof laps around the lot he walked over and tapped the one that he wanted, I recently bought a full size truck and I think that went into his selction process because he picked out a 9ft tree, he had a look on his face like "you have a bigger truck so I get a bigger tree". Luckily we have a space in our entrance way that it fit into but it is the only spot in the house it fits. Next morning I put on the lights then Derek placed all of the other decorations on the tree. By the way you really can't properly decorate a tree without eating Little Debbies Christmas Cakes shaped like the tree.

Couple days after that it was time to see the big guy...Derek loves Santa and may be the only 19 year old that still believes in Santa, we try to get to the mall early in the season so that the crowds are smaller and he can have some quality time with Santa. Now he has been visiting Santa since 02 but over the past 5 years the mall has only had 2 different Santas and the one from 05 thru 07 looked forward to seeing Derek, we would go in before we took him and check on hours and Santa would get up from his chair and ask when we were bringing our "big guy" in to see him he retired after 07 but the Santa that replaced him understood Derek on their first meeting and remembered him this year.  Derek wore his new Santa shirt this year for the meet that says "Believe" above a picture of Santa's face it was like wearing a shirt of your favorite band and meeting them....he is a big fan.  read more »

On slashdot today, there was an article about why programmers are often not paid what they are worth, along with this comment about Larry Wall's Virtues of a Programmer.   

 It struck me this might be instructive for parents of autistics, so here's my four marks of a great autistic software engineer (with apologies to Larry):

 1.  Lazyness- quite often autistic people are accused of this one, for the same reason Larry's great programmers are.  In reality, we're just looking for the most efficient way to get things done without wearing ourselves out; social interaction is so hard and tiring, why should we waste our energy on anything less?

 2.  Impatience- just try to talk to your kid about his latest obsession when you haven't spent as many hours as he has studying it....and you'll really know the meaning of the word impatience.  In computers, though, this means that we don't like bugs and seek to eradicate errors.   Or at least, minimize their effects.

3.  Hubris- yep, us programmers have a tendency to be on the neurodiversity side of things, or in the words of one person on alt.support.autism in the old Usenet days- we have Addams Family Syndrome.  WE ARE NORMAL, IT IS THE REST OF THE WORLD THAT IS WEIRD FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO DO WHAT WE DO.

4.  OCD.  Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder.  Here I leave Larry and his neurotypical engineers behind- The best programs written by autistic programmers will never ship, because we'll never be satisfied that they are complete.  Takes a good manager to work around this problem. 

I noticed my autistic son playing with barbies the other day. He wasn't pretending they walked or talked. He was more interested in the mechanics of their movement and their clothes. My daughter was playing at the same time. She pretended they walked, flippled their hair and talked as though they were from a Hollywood zipcode. So here is the thing......Society frowns on my son's actions but, not my daughters....what is wrong with this picture? I give my daughter a Barbie doll and tell her "PRETEND" to be someone else..."pretend your a princess, pretend your a doctor. "One day she will be old enough to realize her own potential and I will say "Be YOURSELF."

Kid's with Autism are themselves from the very beginning. It's almost like the people who give a pacifier to a toddler to replace the bottle. What is the point in that?? You just gave them another addiction you will have to take away at a later time as well. I am just saying, it shouldn't be a big deal to accept autism. They are antisocial, ignore you and live in their own world....Wow, we could just call them teenagers....

Just my thought, love my son, he is the best gift God has given me.

So here is the thing... I am chattin with a good friend of mine and she came up with this idea. She said "Autism" is just an evolution... "Evolution"I ask... She says "Yes, you know like Darwin." So I proceeded to ask "Like Darwin??"  She said, "Yes" " Intellectually.....So I said " We were apes and now we are becoming Autistic?" and She said "Something like that."  I didn't ask anymore questions but I pondered the idea for a while-Wondering what she meant......I'm still thinking.................

Know that I only write to vent and to have fun. My son is autistic and I love him wth all my heart. I think he is the greatest gift. But, as parents we all want answers-so much so that we ponder every suggestion or explanation given to us like the example above.... : )

Hi I've posted before about starting an autism awareness group for the community here and guess what.  the school disrict wants me to represent parents with specail needs for the state assesment they have.  so here is the delima.  I have two children with autism and one i think i might be pulling out to home school while leaving my other child in.  I got mad when i went into the school that my children go to and was told that i couldn't find out what progress my children were making untill the director was there.  I didn't blow up on anyone, i was thourghly disgusted and simmering on the inside.  I've worked there i unerstand the confidentiality laws i asked for my childrens information only.  i could see the ring binder where they are supposed to keep reports on the daily progress going on.  With that aside I know i can not properly represent the children or parents if i don't know their feelings and how they feel their children are doing with in the public schools.  I feel like a detective, and know that this could go very bad or very good.  In this community change is frowned upon and i am already the black mark for standing ground for not just for my children but other children too.  I wonder if this is to palacate me or if this is the schools way to get the state to see that parents are dissatisfied and a change has to be made because parents realy do care (I care).  I would ask to all those out there your feelings on the schools and the systems, this could potentualy go all the way to the top beyound my state to a federal matter.  lets make a positive change for all those that don't have the voice.

Hi All. I am new to this blog and I am from Australia.My son is 5 and was diagnosed with High Functioning Autism 9 mths ago. He was diagnosed with Epilepsy when he was just 18 mths old. The epilepsy was easier to deal with than the Autism diagnosis.

  I am writing to let you all know that there is a page on Facebook called The Voice of Autism, we speak for those who can't speak for themselves. This page is an online petition so we can take it to the government and let them know how many people autism effects. We would like more funding, more education facilities, more early intervention and more support. We would also like for people to add photo's of their autistic little angels so we can put the photo's on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra and show the government just how many children have Autism in Australia and that these kids need lots of help. 

Please join our Facebook group, even if you are not from Australia. The group is open to anyone from anywhere and you don't have to have a child with Autism to join so pass it onto all your family and friends. 

Blogging is fairly new to me. Actually, it's totally new. I am really excited because my world is now about my boy who is Autistic. He was diagnosed when he was two-he is  now three. I am in the middle a divorce which is taking away too much energy away from my quest to find answers for my son. It has become my second job to find out how I can fix my son. I know it's a condition I can't fix but I know there is an answer somewhere. I research, read and have no idea what to do next. Accepting things for what they are is not an answer. But, I do understand that in quest for finding answers. I  know there are people who are just like me; Wishing there was a key to unlock, Wishing they could have a Jimi Hendrix fix and think outside the box.

I will be writing again just to vent to people who understand my frustration, happiness and life with a special someone.

We're almost done with Hanukah and now Christmas looms, and Jill and I agree that somehow we just haven't yet hit the target with presents for Alex. "I feel like he wanted something this year and he just can't tell us what it was," Jill says.

So far Alex has received, among other things, a model plane to build with me, a notebook and colored pencils, and a plastic leopard and a plastic cheetah. "Leopard!!" he says now on the way to bed, lugging it off to sleep with him.

Alex loves gifts. "Presents! Presents!" he'll cry, and giggle. Presents are right up there with chocolate chip cookies for keeping Alex riveted. Yes, he loves getting presents; sometimes those he rips open are even his own.

But when a kid wants to roll over onto a hard plastic leopard in the middle of the night, how successful are you really going to be when you try to guess what he wants for a present? ...

jeffslife.tripod.com/alextheboy

Despite the fact that this is from one of the further-out conspiracy theorists in the neurodiversity world, I thought I'd post the link to this interesting 10 minute video on what it feels like to be autistic in a neurotypical society.  Also interesting is the fact that this video was produced in response to a cure-side video in which a single mother of an autistic daughter admits to have contemplated murder-suicide in her hopelessness.  The link to the 2nd video is in the YouTube page for the first one.  I think the juxtaposition of a pair of such extreme views is both instructive, and sad- for I see these two extreme views being the primary roadblock to using the experiences of autistic adults in the design of therapies for autistic children; and I feel that such a use would be most helpful.

The Catholic Review of the Archdiocese of Baltimore has run an interesting story on how the church is beginning to deal with parishioner families living with autism. (I tried to show the story to Alex, but he just kept running to the TV to watch “Elmo” and line up his plastic animals.)

This story relates how a Maryland family eventually had to splinter at Sunday services and at Mass when their little boy Donald would, rather than commune with his God, “ball himself up in a pew” or “bark like a dog.” “Throughout Mass, Donald held a video game controller, even in the line for the Holy Eucharist,” the story says, adding the mom’s entry for Understatement of the Year: “Some parishioners … were surprised...”

http://www.yaiautismcommunity.org/blog/?p=196

Ok actually, my husband gifted ourselves, we have our business, and the business makes plenty but we only pay ourselves so much. So the "president" decided to reward the "staff." I being the secretary and head of advertising (not treasury!), glady accepted. I am happy with the wine and chocolate sampler, lets just say that! I gave out our homemade jam to Zares teachers today, OT, Psych, SLP, Teacher, giving his PT jam tomorrow. I was feeling all smug when Zare said "Hi Mrs Sandy!" oh, yeah, paraeducaters count too.

It has been entirely too long since I have been here on this site.  I miss everyone so very much.  I hope to have more time to get back involved here now that my recovery from surgery is almost done.  The twins are doing so well at school.  Michael is saying lots of words including "mommy" and Kaylee is actually doing some pretend play and spewing sentences and actually carrying on coversations now a bit.  It is very exciting to see their progress with language and to have them a little more relaxed.  Michael was recently diagnosed with adhd and we got Kaylee officially diagnosed with autism now.  We still have huge sleep issues, social issues and sensory issues, but the speech growth is just so thrilling.  I hope all of you have a special holiday season.  You are in my thoughts and prayers.

I have a 10 year old son with a DX of Autism, and a 15q12 chromosome duplication. At one time about 5 years ago he was slightly toilet trained at the ABA therapy school he attended, however, he got influenza while there and all that he had learned was wiped out and we have never been able to get back anything he had learned. Currently I am placing him on the toilet every 30 minutes while at home (school does their best to do this too) and most of the time he fights and screams in protest of having to sit on the toilet. He seems to only urinate in the 1 toilet in the upstairs bathroom, so I am guessing this toilet feels more comfortable to him. I have him in underwear with a maxi pad to catch anything that might escape, and he can still feel the wettness with the pad. Poop will be a much bigger struggle I fear...I know when he is going to go because I catch him squatting down and rush him to the toilet and sit him on it...however, he has not ever gone poo in it....he waits until he has sat there for a few minutes, then as soon as I get the underwear on he poops in them...I don't scold him, I just dump the poo in the toilet and have him help me clean himself up, He loves car rides, so we tell him he needs to go potty first, then car ride...but recently, he will forgo the car ride in order to not have to sit on the toilet, so I'm kind of stumped on this. I should mention Sam is completely non verbal, but at times very very vocal in the form of stimming (vocal screams and high pitched screams, he can do this for HOURS without losing his voice, how I have no clue, lol). He is on a GFCF, soy free, sesame free, peanut free diet, and has been for years, so we know it's not diet related.  read more »

My 21 one month old son was just given a provisional autism diagnosis.  He makes sounds but is unable to speak any real words.  I am ashamed to say I am feeling like nobody else understands what our life is like.  Our son can not say mamma, dadda or love you.  Some days are spent with 75% of our time opening and closing doors.  Other days he clinches his eyes closed for 15min at a time, several times a day.  People keep saying he is just slow to talk and that every child likes to open and close doors.  I feel angry and my heart  is hurting.  Will my son ever be able to say love you? 

Recently, Alex kept trying to scoot through an open door in the basement of our neighborhood supermarket. The store wasn’t crowded and hardly anyone noticed me hauling him back to the checkout line except a young lady working the register. I saw her looking at Alex with the small smile and direct eyes that I’ve learned mean: She knows someone with autism. She stroked his head once...

jeffslife.tripod.com/alextheboy

Sitting at the dinnertable, I hear a strange noise from the bathroom and suddenly realize that Alex has been in there for almost the whole time it's taken me to eat half my slice of salmon loaf. "Alex, what are you doing in there?"

He's spinning spinning spinning the roll of toilet paper, until there are two piles on the floor, each up to his knees, and there's barely a quarter inch of paper left on the roll. Then he tries to take the roll off the spool and, I imagine, wants to flush the entire thing down the toilet - an exercise which lately has been the most complete manner by which we have cleaned our bathroom floor before water starts dripping through our downstairs neighbors' ceilings.

Alex whips off the roll faster than a cat on Youtube.

"Alex cutitout!"...

jeffslife.tripod.com/alextheboy

Alex has been receiving therapies since he was a baby living in a hospital, and we wish we’d started earlier, 50 grand be damned. I believe early treatment is to autism as scoring 50 points in the first quarter is to winning a football game: It only makes sense if you want to make your job easier...

http://www.yaiautismcommunity.org/blog/?p=194

See the CNN video that inspired this post.

"When you hear a sound, your brain responds.  When the child with autism hears a sound, their brain responds too, but a little bit later.  What we're seeing is a...split-second delay in recognizing that sound,"  Tim Roberts says.

Ms. Chetry asks, "How does that play out in how children with autism learn and communicate?"

"What happens is that as speech becomes more complicated, we have more and more sounds building up, and these delays cascade on each other leading to a difficulty in perceiving or recognizing the word."

Can you imagine how long it took me to transcribe the above sentences from the video?  I had to see, hear, understand, translate into a visual of the word in my head, type what I saw, while still hearing more, and more, and more! going in.

I was lost after three to five words each time I tried, so I played the video in a different window so I could just listen and type without seeing the heads moving, but the delay in my mind was just too much, and it all became garbled in my brain.  I didn't understand the sentence and didn't "see" the words in my head.  I had no clue what they were saying.  I was so quickly lost.

My typing speed is not the issue.  My preferred form of communication is email, and I write every day, so my typing speed is incredibly fast.  So, I tried another approach based on my experience.

One Source of Input
 read more »

Hi, my name is Jennifer and I'm a mother of twins. A boy and a girl. They are 18 months old. My son seemed to be a normal well developing baby and then at about 12 months old he started showing signs of Autism. He would avoid eye contact with everyone, he would not respond to his name, he would get fixiated on one object, and throw tantrums, he would often stare for a long period of time like he was looking at somthing that wasn't there. One would say he was in his own little world. I took him to a specialist who said he was very young to tell this early, but he seemed fine. But my inner self knew something was wrong. Since nobody seemed to know what to do. But not only me, but my husband and my mother all noticed my sons actions, we had no choice but to pray. I know this might sound strange to some, but I was very desperate to have my son back and I didn't think twice about praying for him. One night my Mom and I put our hands on him and we prayed and prayed and said a blessing over him. And to our suprise the next morning my son woke up and looked at me. He looked straight into my eyes through out the whole day. He was interacting with his toys differently and with all of us. I was soooo happy and I thought to myself is this to good to be true?  read more »

i have worked with autistic children and have had autism effect the people in my family. as i have dealt with this illness i have realized how important families are to the development of their relative with autism. many people believe that professional help is the primary way to help their friend and relative learn and grow. although professional help is exremely important the families involvement can be even more important. some families believe that they are there to cater to the needs of their relative. everyone needs love and support however the strict discipline instilled during professional help is needed just as much during everyday life. autistic people need structure in there life or they will never be able to develop the skills necessary to grow and mature and families need to realize this to help them. if you have any ways in which families can get more involved with the development of their autistic relative it would be much appreciated.

Both Kids are on a tight schedule when it comes to bedtimes, no variations to the rule unless we are at an event that runs long. So all of the televised christmas specials that start at 8pm? Sorry, networks. But I found the charlie brown special at value village for 1.99! Hooray! Thats how I can check my email today!

I apologize if my title is misleading.  Today, I'm not talking about what autism costs all of us in general.  I know the costs associated with evaluations and interventions can be staggering.

Today, I am going to drill down and be a bit more specific.  

You see, I have an 11-yr-old son with Asperger's Syndrome.  We have known this for six years, so I'm no newbie.  But we still find ourselves struggling daily to manage his challenging behaviors.

I can handle the eccentricities.  I find them very endearing.  But what has and continues to be a major problem is the behavior.  At the slightest provocation, he lashes out and becomes extremely aggressive.  In the last month alone he has destroyed some pretty significant things, including a laptop of mine, countless Transformer toys, one door, three TV remotes and several walls.   The cost alone is getting to us.  Not to mention the toll its taken on his three siblings and us. 

Right now, we have intensive in-home care providing us with counseling, interventions and general hands-on help.  We've employed just about every technique in the book.   We have an OT come to the house, we've done checklists, schedules, penny jars, CBT, RDI...the list goes on and on.

Two main problems get in the way.  One, his fuse is so short that episodes can go from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds.  There is no time to defuse a situation, even when we know his triggers.  The funny thing is, once he lashes out he can usually process the event in question by himself.

The second issue is getting his buy-in.  He's learned a million and one coping strategies, but will not use them.  Tools to help him at school are "dumb."  He rips up schedules at the very suggestion of using them.  He won't comply with any sort of sensory diet.  His resistance is huge.  We have tried all sorts of incentives and rewards, but thus far nothing has worked.     read more »

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Did you know that Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability?  It’s true.  More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined!  The numbers are startling!  1 in 91 children have Autism.  1 in 58 boys!  Just think about that for a minute.  Look around you.  You know someone who has been touched by this disability, but I bet you didn’t realize how widespread Autism has become.  And it’s growing every day!  With your help, we can raise awareness!  Your gift of The Puzzling Piece will help support Autism Speaks, the nation's largest autism science and advocacy organization.Help us ‘change the future for  read more »

Some ideas from the communication section of my website:

 Mand-Model Technique-   The Mand-Model technique will encourage communicative competence because it is designed for children who are generally not initiators of communicative exchanges.  This approach is likely to be successful with children when they will be communicating to recieve highly preferred items.  For example, food, drink, and toys are more likely to ensure a high level of motivation. (Mirenda & Iacono, 1988)

Incidental Teaching Technique- Incidental teaching refers to the the "interaction between an adult and a single child, which is used by the adult to transmit information or give the child practice in developing a skill."  All interactions are child-initiated.  However, in order to produce the child's interactions, the adult arranges the environment so that the child must engage the adult's assistance in order to get a desired item.  (Mirenda & Iacono, 1988)
 read more »

My daughter just started going back for Occupational Therapy and they want to start Therapeutic Listening with her, but I am very apprehensive. I don't really want to dish out $145 for a pair of headphones if the program isn't going to work. I would greatly appreciate hearing about people's experiences with the program. Thanks!

Have written new blog post on my website.  Tagged for Autism and Christianity. 

http://www.forthesakeofjoy.com/approaching-expectations/

On a related note - does anyone else find "report card time" to be a bit of a joke? :) Our overall grade, "Approaching Expectations".

 ~Peace

So ive have know for 3 years that my son has austim. He is 6 1/2 years old now. I have support from my parents with him. His dad is involved every other weekend. So  most of the time he is gone on the weekends. Sunday night to friday afternoon he is with me. His routine is been like that for a while. And he knows that on fridays he either goes to papa and grandmas or dadas and sunday he comes home.

Lately I have found myself becoming very upset with Troy. He does such weird corky things. And he testes me alot. He is very stong and when he wants something or he wants something to go his way he will do whatever he can to get his way. Like a melt down or a tantrum. Its very overwhelming. I find myself having very bad feelings for my son. I just keep thinking why do you act like this why cant you just do this your 6 years old. Sometimes i feel so powerless. I love my little man so much. I dont want to feel this way about my wonder boy! I just need some help from parents that understand what is going through the same things with my son.

Im a long time member but it's been awhile. Todd congrats on the new baby honey. See you on Facebook. I'll check in here every so often. It just gets to be a little too much sometimes. I'm really stressed out. Welcome to all the newbies. This is a safe place to vent =)

   Was I in for it today! My 13 year old son, told me I talked too much and he wanted to run away. I weathered the storm and told him I loved him. We're buddies again.

When Derek transitioned from school to his community inclusion program we had alot of concerns about him moving away from all of the people that he was familiar with and that he would be lonely, and at first he kept to himself and then we were told that he had connected with a couple of other clients there but one in particular and it was a girl named Tasha and they really liked each other. Well when your the parent of a child with Autism we are told the likelihood of that child making a connection with someone other than a family member or someone that they have been working with for a long time is rare, but he connected with Tasha right away and they would both light up when they saw each other, neither of them could talk but you could tell that they really liked each other, and when Derek would leave for the day he would touch her head like he does with me and touch her arm and tell her bye...for her he would say bye....They even went on a date and I was priviledged to have accompanied them as they walked the mall together.......We lost Tasha today her fragile body finally failed her and she past peacefully, Derek got to see her in the hospital before they moved her to a nursing home and they had a couple of touch head moments and she gave Derek a card then he said bye and we left. Tasha will always be in the hearts of this family for being in Derek's heart and keeping him in hers.

There was a connection between Derek and Tasha, I can't say for sure that it was girlfriend/boyfriend love but it was a love and it was theirs and they shared it in their own way. While this may not be a typical experiance for everyone I wanted to share that it can happen.  read more »

Inventor wrote, “In school aspie is called nerd, at work, the boss.” This quote is from a discussion on WrongPlanet.net about business owners with Autism and Asperger’s.  As it turns out, for some, “Nerds Rule!” is not just a saying.

Mary, my social networking guru, sparked this post (I’ll get to her in a minute.) when she sent me this link:  Autistic Traits: A Plus for Many Careers (I like the punny humor in that.) where Lisa Jo Rudy wrote, “But autistic people aren’t typical. And neither are the careers for which they’re ALREADY good candidates.”

Then I remembered the episode of House I watched where the “radical” doctor with long hair, a guitar, and tattoos was not hired because, to paraphrase House, the only radical kids were the ones who spent hours in the library studying while the popular kids were out partying.

You have to grow a tough skin to put up with the ostracizing from other kids.  Now, I have friends because high school is long gone.  I also have a business and I’m the boss.  Why?  I invented The Cozy Calm Weighted Blanket.

I’m not unusual.  Evidently, it’s common enough for people with autism and Asperger’s to be self-employed or own businesses.  I have no stats for this, just the accumulated knowledge from being on a lot of Asperger’s and Autism boards for adults–something I noticed.  read more »

Sitting at the dinnertable, I hear a strange noise from the bathroom and suddenly realize that Alex has been in there for almost the whole time it's taken me to eat half my slice of salmon loaf. "Alex, what are you doing in there?"

He's spinning spinning spinning the roll of toilet paper, until there are two piles on the floor, each up to his knees, and there's barely a quarter inch of paper left on the roll. Then he tries to take the roll off the spool and, I imagine, wants to flush the entire thing down the toilet - an exercise which lately has been the most complete manner by which we have cleaned our bathroom floor before water starts dripping through our downstairs neighbors' ceilings.

Alex whips off the roll faster than a cat on Youtube...

at jeffslife.tripod.com/alextheboy

With growing of the internet popularity people are going more interested for work from home,  internet is one source where we can use our creativity to build our business, we can fully concentrate in our work within our own comfortable environment.

People who are searching work from home I recommend them to start blogging, blogging is one such platform where we can utilize our creativity. Most of people waste their time on online chatting on internet, I was also one person that wasted my time in online chatting, when I did not know about blogging, but now I can realize now that by bogging I am utilizing my time some nice work.

When you start blogging first you have to take in mind for develop your blog. Do not think for blogging only for money, yes It is not so easy to make money by blogging, for make money by blogging you have to first improve your blog, should have drive lots of traffic. As a new blogger there are two things you have to take in mind that is content development and link building. What is the content development? Whatever niche you choose for blogging your blog should have lots of valuable content and information so that you can attract visitor to your blog. Do not think for promote affiliate products first on your blog post. You can not earn anything. Just post daily with nice and update content within your niche and make your blog reader base.

After making some post on your blog, you have to promote your blog. You have to build link to your blog so that search engine and other traffic source  come to know about existence of your blog. So how to start? First submit your blog to all major search engine like google, yahoo, msn, bing etc. Submit your blog on major directories. If your blog is good then search engine wil pick your blog and will index on their database. So you have complete some nice step.  read more »

My 3 year old son (Brandon) has had some sleeping problems since he was about 10 months old. Up until a couple of months ago, he wasn't able to have his own room so he was in the same room as me and he took advantage of it! He would fall asleep in his own bed but come in my bed every night- I tried to stop this early but it was very difficult and days turned into weeks, turned into months, and so on. But thats a whole different can a worms that I will handle at another time! Right now we are having major problems with him staying asleep at night. He goes to sleep about 9:30 every night and we have a regular bedtime routine (wash up, brush teeth, bedtime stories). My question is if anyone has dealt with this and has any advice and also I was wondering if there are any foods (besides obvious sugary ones) that we should avoid for a snack before bedtime. I have talked to some people about it and have been given the great idea to take notes when this happens (how long he is up, what time, what went on the day before, etc.)  I really feel that something is causing this and would just like to pinpoint it. I should also add that this isn't usually an everyday thing, but when it does happen it is usually a few days at a time and he is not upset or crying, just wide awake, ready to wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning! I even had to keep him home from school one day this week because he was up from about 4-6am and he has to get up for school at 7:30. Needless to say he wouldn't budge! Another thing to add is he that does not take a nap during the day. He usually wants to at about 5, but by that time it is too late or else he would be up till midnight!  I would really appreciate any advice or suggestions!!

   With everything going on in our own lives, it's easy to overlook when your child has a great day. My son had a great day yesterday and I barely acknowledged it to him. I'll be sure to reward him today and tell him how much I love him.

Today will be the start of Nick going to the Oxford Learning Centre in our local city.  He is struggling with math.  For the last two years this has shown.  Yesterday I had a brief visit at his school and to my surprise the teacher thought that math was his strong suit?  I think the teacher is on Mars now?  If his report cards show the signs, and his assessment (oxford) shows the signs, then you’d think that the teacher would?  He is in grade 5 with levels in reading some at grade 7 levels and some at grade 4 levels.  However math he has a definitive grade level of a grade 1 student?  This is baffling, and I hope we see a increase in his grades in math after the 3 month mark.  He has great teachers, so with this being said, with all of us working together, then I hope that we see a rise in his academic grade level for math!  It is very difficult though considering the math effort takes in holding the pencil for the work and his sensory integration disorder plays effect with this matter.  I definitely don’t want to set him up to fail come time for middle school, I would like to see him succeed to his fullest capacity and knowledge!

   To express autism in terms of being good or bad, expresses a value judgement that few, if any of us, are qualified to make. This world would be a far inferior place were it not for contributions made by those with autism. Examples include Albert Einstein and Michael Phelps. Every individual has talents which surpass all others and weaknesses which are below all others. Most traits are on a continuum between the two extremes. 

   read more »

If you are working with a child with Autism or disability and are wondering if you should change strategies consider the following...

1.  Has the person been feeling well? not over tired or hungry when the intervention was run?
2. Are preferred items being used with the intervention-does the person really want that item or attention?
3. Is the intervention at that person's skill level-how do you know? Have you seen them to the steps separately?
4. Is the person who is running the intervention consistent?
5. Is the person who is running the intervention taking data? and does the data say there is no progress or is it "a feeling" that no progress is being made.-sometimes behavior changes in very small amounts but change is still occuring

For more information, free web based child page, and soon to come parent lounge visit. SkillSprout.com

http://www.skillsprout.com/

I am new today to this site. I have a nine year old son with many issues. But today I thought I would ask about just one. Nobody on the many sites I have looked at has talked about this one so I was just curious if anyone has come across this. My son is very verbal. He actually talks all the time unless he is sleeping. But that isn't it. What my son does is comes up with these stories that with other kids you would think they were just playing make believe. But with him he believes it and no matter what you tell him he will argue with you saying it is true. I first noticed this when he started talking in sentences around 5 he really truly believed he could fly but he was afraid of heights, Thank God. Now he will see a building and say he built that building, he will tell people he got into a car crash, he will see something on TV and believe it happened to him. It concerns me because if he can't distinguish fantasy from reality how could he ever live independently. Can anybody relate to this?

My son has high functioning autism and I am looking for advise on how to deal with the melt downs and the social aspects of the disorder.