by Mary on January 13, 2010
When we first heard about Signing Time [affiliate link], it was because I had read about teaching a baby to sign – that it reduced frustration for them to be able to communicate before they could speak. I ended up thinking that all of those children had to be BRILLIANT to be able to learn to sign, because even though the J-man loved watching Signing Time, he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) sign. He didn’t have the fine motor skills to pull off doing any sign that had finger movement or shaping.
The only sign the J-man ever used was “more” and I’m still not sure that he understood what he was asking for. The only time he ever used it was when we were playing a game where we carried him around and stopped suddenly, and he had to ask for “more” before we would move again. So he understood that we would start running again, but I think he just thought the sign meant something like “go.” Once the J-man was able to actually say the “g” sound (for GO!) he stopped with signing “more.”
In the span of something like 5 minutes, I just taught Dale Jr to sign “more.” He was sitting in his high chair eating (also something new this time around), and I asked if he wanted “more” or “all done” – signing each thing. (Our “all done” is like an umpire making the SAFE signal at home plate, because the other way to do “all done” looks too much like stimming for the J-man to ever differentiate.) Dale Jr would open his mouth like a baby bird in a nest, and I would pop in another Gerber Puff, each time signing “more!” before.
Suddenly, when I asked if he wanted “more” or “all done” he clapped his fists together. “MORE” I shouted, and gave him another puff. “More or all done?” Again, he clapped his fists together. “MORE!”
Then, before I could ask the question, Dale Jr looked at me pointedly, and clapped his fists together. “MORE!”
I called Tim downstairs to make sure I wasn’t reading more (heh) into the situation than it warranted, and Dale Jr showed Daddy that he could sign “more” with a bit of resignation – all, “I just want the dang Puff, people, so could you give it to me?”
And, we celebrated.
by Mary on March 23, 2009
When I was growing up, I had 2 grandmothers. (I know, most people have 2 grandmothers – or more – but mine were still living then.) One of them liked me a lot. The other didn’t. There was never any doubt, and everybody knew nothing could be done to change the one who didn’t like me. It wasn’t just me… she only liked one grandchild, although I do feel there was a special “non-space” in her heart for me based on our differences.
So anyway, my grandmother that liked me (let’s call her Mozelle, because that was her name – cool name eh?) was a do-er, a maker, a “we don’t have much money but we can show we love you in a different way” kind of grandmother. When I was sick, or just needed a mental health day, I could spend it on her couch, watching The Price is Right and her afternoon “stories” on CBS. She let us cook in her kitchen, and I’m sure we made HUGE messes. There was always some sort of snack for us in her kitchen, whether it was fresh parched peanuts, or baked sweet potatoes, or even just saltine crackers and homemade butter. I have 14 first cousins on that side of the family (Tim says that getting married to me was a lot like My Big Fat Greek Wedding except with Southerners) and we used to play in the yard at her house while the adults sat around and talked after Sunday dinner. She wasn’t this goody-goody kind of grandmother – there was always that little zing of mischief.
I was very sad that Mozelle wasn’t alive when I married Tim, nor when I had the J-Man. I have an afghan she crocheted for my first marriage, and I pretend it’s for this one – you know, the real one. I bet she did too. I have a pair of baby booties she crocheted when she knew she was dying… so that each of the granddaughters would have a pair for our first child. We framed them, and they hang in the J-man’s room. By that time, she could only crochet for about 5 minutes at a time before her hands would fall asleep, and I can’t imagine the amount of work that went into them.
I had a dream awhile ago. I was sitting on Mozelle’s front porch (as opposed to the side porch) rocking, and watching the J-man play in the yard with his cousins. She sat in the rocking chair beside me, and we just talked. She saw how great my kid is, and kissed him all over, just like she did with all the great-grandchildren born when she was alive. We didn’t talk about anything major, or earth-shattering, but I knew she knew I was happy. That was enough for me. I like to think she’s somewhere out there, smiling down at us, even though I’m no longer her “Little Miss America.”
[click to continue…]
by Tim on February 22, 2009
This is Part 2 of our series “What’s Your Autistic Toddler Like Now?”, a journey through what’s happening these days in the life of our autistic 3 1/2-year-old son and sequel to our very popular original article, “What’s Your Autistic Toddler Like?”.
Note: Wherever you see “DSM-IV” below, this means that attribute is part of the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Fourth Edition or DSM-IV. In medical terms, a specific combination of those DSM-IV criteria is what brings about a diagnosis of autism.
Same obvious disclaimer as before: We are not advising you on how to evaluate your child. Go get them evaluated by professionals with extensive experience with autism. Don’t just rely on some random people on the Internet – namely, people like us.
If you haven’t already, go back and read Part 1. If you have, let’s continue on!
Characteristics That Are Significantly Present (continued)
Difficulty with social awareness (a bit better but a lot to work on) – I don’t know whether this has an official meaning, but I think of social awareness in a very broad sense as being aware that there are people around you and that they can be engaged with at some interpersonal level. For some time, we referred to other kids in the room as ‘part of the furniture’ as our son didn’t interact with them much differently than any other object in the room.
School has helped him in this regard in that he has regular time every school day with the same children and is involved in activities with them on an ongoing basis. You still get the sense that he’d usually be content without them, but often the emotions of an autistic toddler are inscrutable.
He does enjoy watching other kids do funny things, but watching rather than playing with children is one of those possible signs of autism, and this is a fairly accurate description of where he is right now.
That said, it is nice to see that he’s aware that other people have names, and he can use a name to refer to a person, though usually now that’s only with some prompting.
Continue on with Part 3! [click to continue…]
by Tim on February 20, 2009
Many times over, our “What’s Your Autistic Toddler Like?” post is the most read article on this site. It’s also the post people most often cite as the reason why they write us and become regular readers of our blog. We are gratified by your response to our story about our son and hope all this has been helpful to you and your family.
In celebration of the 1st Anniversary of our blog, I decided to write a multi-part series, revisit that popular post, and update it for what the J-Man is doing now almost 9 months later. The original “What’s Your Autistic Toddler Like?” gave you a snapshot of what an autistic toddler might be like – or at least what ours was like – about three months before his 3rd birthday.
[click to continue…]
by Mary on December 17, 2008
Didn’t those words strike fear into your heart as a kid? Even when you KNEW you had been pretty much perfect the entire year? And that you were already making straight As in everything?
Yeah… it’s worse for the parent. Maybe especially for the parents of a special needs child.
We knew how awesome the J-man has been doing at home lately. We saw his interactiveness at Christmas with the cousins. We know he’s reading. We see how much more he tries to draw us in to what he’s playing with (instead of the other way around). We know, we know, we know.
And yet… there is always that question in the back of your mind. Do the teachers KNOW how hard he is working? Do they recognize that some of the stuff he is doing is WAY beyond what a normal 3-year-old can do? Do they know how he struggles with stuff that a 1-year-old can do?
The J-man’s head teacher told us he is a gold star. That’s the term she used – “gold star student.” He’s meeting some goals already, and is working towards others. There aren’t any goals that he’s not at least trying to meet. (Getting him to “try” new/difficult things was harder the first interim period.) Next session they will have him start doing more independent things, like checking his own schedule, instead of being handed the next picture. They will be working on eating more foods – something we can’t wait for! He’s working on being more interactive with his peers in general, but he’s already meeting/exceeding the goals for working with the teacher!
We were already proud of him – we’re always proud, no matter what he does. Now we see that others are proud/impressed too.
by Tim on December 7, 2008
I think Mary located a brief window in time where the thought of cooking meat didn’t make her want to barf, so she ‘celebrated’ by cooking everything in the house. Thanks to between one and many gallons of spaghetti sauce, gumbo, chicken chili, and chicken and dumplings (yum!) and a giant freezer, we have enough ready-to-reheat food for weeks. Yay!
We are generally pretty (or very) lazy people when it comes to food. I really don’t like to cook at all. The inertia we have to overcome for either of us to come up with something for dinner is often too great to result in a real meal, especially if it involves any real degree of cooking. So, we tend to eat poorly, to put it mildly. Now between all this freezer goodness and a decent pile of vegetables hanging out in the icebox with them, we might have half a chance to eat well for the next month. Go Mary!
My role during these big cooks is primarily to keep the J-Man from introducing his own brand of danger and excitement into the cook-fest and do random kitchen things when she needs me to. So J-Man and I tried various ways of entertaining each other and catching up on some father-son time. I also took a few hours – mostly after we put him to bed – to clean up the wasteland our downstairs had turned into (thanks to He-Who-Makes-Wastelands).
A leaf blower would have been a better tool for this. Between our kid’s fascination with paper and dumping every container of everything into the floor lately, it looked like our house had been ransacked by angry, starving mountain goats. (I have no idea what goats actually do when in that state, but it sounds like a promising analogy.)
I sorted endless numbers of blocks, shapes, puzzle pieces, flash cards, cars, little people, and stuff I didn’t even know what it went to. I decided to pre-emptively prepare for the next time he felt the need to do all this by putting away the things he doesn’t really play with anymore but rather just leaves all over the floor. We’ll see if that works.
All this reminds me that sometimes you have to force yourself to take a day or two and try to restore at least some order to some even small part of your life, even if the rest of it stays a mess. Our living/kitchen area doesn’t feel like a total junkyard anymore, and we have food to eat that didn’t cost much to make. There are plenty of other things we’d rather have been doing obviously, but this is something you have to do every now and then to stay sane.
We even squeezed in a bit of sleep and a nice visit with the grandparents. All in all, not a bad way to spend a weekend.
