by Mary on December 5, 2009
For the past few days, we have been schedule freaks. OK, everyone except Dale Jr. He does what he does, when he wants to do it! For everything else, we have pre-planned, pre-made where available, and pre-decided, all before the kids get out of bed in the morning, or after they go to sleep at night.
The J-man’s teacher (hi Mrs. Jennifer!) and his OT (hi Mrs. Jamie!) came over on Tuesday afternoon, and had some good, solid, concrete suggestions about his current sensory issues. The suggestion that we all thought would be the best was to use a picture schedule at home like they do at school. I mean, we already had what we thought of as “routines” but those routines seemed to leave a lot of downtime, and downtime is NOT what the J-man needs right now.
So, man, have we kept him on track! And it seems to have helped, to a certain extent. We’ve still had the “stop, drop, and flop” happen a few times but there has been less stimming and random screeching. WAY less putting hands over ears. I am, however, tired of Pinky Dinky Doo, since we can only have the TV on during the scheduled TV time now, and that’s all the J-man has wanted to watch. Thankfully, he asked for Rachel today. YAY for Signing Time!
We’ve added an enormous amount of brushing. It seems to calm the J-man immensely, and he really likes it. I think if he could request it, he would. In fact, sometimes when we’re done with the “brushing and squishing” routine, he hands the brush back to get whoever is doing it to start again – and so we do.
We’ve changed our eating style – we used to eat in the living room, on tray tables, watching the evening news. My mother will be pleased to know that we now eat at the table, together. This means I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the world right now, since, as I mentioned, if the TV is on, it’s Pinky Dinky Doo. I don’t stay up late enough to watch the 11 PM news. Tim is up that late, but it’s because he’s working. With all of the hands-on parenting, he’s not really getting any work done during the evening the way he used to. Yeah, our schedule still has some kinks to work out (like, when to MAKE DINNER for the parents) but I’m hoping we figure something out soon because otherwise, Tim just doesn’t sleep, and that’s bad.
Last night, it all came together because Dale Jr took a nap right about the time I needed to put dinner in the oven. The J-man and Tim were outside, swinging, and I scurried around getting everything ready. Right before dinner was ready, Dale Jr woke up, so while I fed him, Tim got dinner out of the oven, then I finished everything off and we sat at the table. The J-man finished his nuggets and applesauce quickly, then asked for “sticks.” When I gave him the container of sticks, Dale Jr was starting to get fussy sitting in his high chair.
Tim and I have given up talking during dinner because we’re shoving food in so fast, but we weren’t anywhere near done at that point. The J-man calmly picked up his container of sticks, walked around the table, sat down at the chair beside Dale Jr’s high chair… and stayed there, looking at him while eating. Since Dale Jr ADORES his big brother, that was enough to make him happy, at least for long enough for us to finish eating. The J-man saw someone in trouble, thought through how he could make it better, and did so.
That action brightened our day. It was just a little light, a match struck, but it stayed lit long enough to light a candle. I look forward to many more candles burning brightly.
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.
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by Tim on December 11, 2008
To preview what Goosie Cards are, visit their web site at GoosieCards.com.
As we’ve chronicled in recent posts (see “My God, He IS Reading!”, “Roy G. Biv”), our son is all about his flash cards lately. They’re not going to displace the Sacred Wooden Letter Blocks of Steadfast Security and Comfort anytime soon, but flash cards are a cornerstone of many of his most important learning activities.
We recently discovered that – at age 3! – he can read many sight word cards (see above posts and “The $64,000 Question…” – and note that he’s trying to read people’s t-shirts now), so Mary and I are all about finding as many different kinds of cards as we can to build on these wonderful skills he’s suddenly developed.
So, in what proved to be a timely e-mail, I was contacted by Tom Stein, COO of Goosie Cards, who asked if I would be interested in trying out some of their cards and reviewing them. This was right up our alley and a great opportunity to try something new with the J-Man, so of course I agreed.
I looked at their web site before the cards arrived and was immediately intrigued (go look now if you haven’t already) but you can’t really appreciate what you’re getting until you hold a Goosie Card in your hand. Once you do, you know immediately that these are light-years beyond the flash cards you get at the store.
Goosie Card (left) next to other flash cards of two other brands.
The cards are practically bomb-proof. The card stock and lamination are of a quality, thickness, and durability unparalleled by anything I’ve ever seen. I think the only way to make them more durable would be to manufacture them out of slate or paving stone. While nothing is technically indestructible in the hands of a toddler, I don’t know whether anyone – child or adult – could put even a nick on them without using scissors or a hacksaw.
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by Tim on November 15, 2008
If you’re trying to figure out the ins and outs of picture schedules and picture boards, get some actual pictures to use, get a home learning area or classroom set up, find some ideas for home art projects, come up with cheap but good learning activities, or keep saying to yourself, “is there someplace I can download and print something like that?” (whatever ‘that’ is) there’s a good chance that Do2Learn is the place you want to go first.
Their web site is a gold mine. You can wander around it for hours and regularly find yourself saying, “Wow, they have that too!” I found all kinds of stuff we needed, but I also came across things I wouldn’t have ever thought of needing until I saw they had it. How cool is that?
Best thing – most of the resources on their site are free. There are some products for sale, too, that look both good and affordable if you decide you need them.
This site is geared toward serving a broad range of special needs, not just autism. What they provide is brilliant. Here are just a few of the resources I found:
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If you live in North Carolina (like we do), there’s a fantastic resource called Generations-Tadpole that a few people and a couple of therapists mentioned to me. We haven’t used it yet, but I’m sure we will.
The best way I can think of to describe them is like Netflix for assistive and augmentative technology. If you live in North Carolina, you can borrow something out of the ‘library’ for a couple of weeks, try it out, and then return it. The best news – unless I’m missing something (and I asked around and looked on their site) – is that for NC residents it doesn’t cost you a thing, not even for shipping. Of course, you actually have to return things on time.
Obviously, one of the main issues with assistive technology in general is that there’s no easy way to try it out without spending tons of money on something and likely being stuck with it if it doesn’t work for your child. This stuff is way expensive (makes me think I’m in the wrong line of work) and not something you try out on a whim usually. Our local Early Intervention office has a lending library of their own, which we’re going to try to use before our time in EI runs out soon. From what I gather, it gets a lot harder to get loaners from the preschool system just because their inventory is always checked out. At least that’s apparently the case in our county.
Our primary interest is in ‘augmentative communication’, or ways to help J-Man better communicate with us and others. They also have a bunch of other resources such as learning and literacy aids, devices to assist with daily living, loads of educational CDs and DVDs, computer software for kids, and more learning toys than you can shake a stick at. There’s a bunch of other stuff too.
After reviewing Tadpole’s inventory, I noticed one issue that our developmental therapist gave us a heads-up on – augmentative communication devices often talk for the child through pre-recorded phrases assigned to the buttons, so partially-verbal kids whose verbal skills are improving (even if very slowly) may derive little or no real benefit from these devices.
If an older child with a very limited spoken vocabulary needed to ask certain kinds of questions that they couldn’t sign or communicate non-verbally, provide certain responses to questions also not easily communicated non-verbally, or generally needed to interact in some fashion independently of someone who could ‘translate’, I could see the real value in this. If a child got lost and needed to say “My Mommy’s name is Jane. Her phone number is 555-3333,” then a programmable device like this could really help. Since some of them can also be reprogrammed or significantly customized, they are quite adaptable to different situations.
But that brings us back to the original problem. J-Man can point to a picture for a handful of things (mostly food), and often say something that approximates the name of that item while he’s touching the picture. This really helps clarify what he wants. The pictures are a stepping stone to expanded speech. They do stand in for the speech itself sometimes, but it feels like the available technology is largely on a different path right now from where we are. While it would be entertaining to get more complex things from him than ‘cup’ (just waiting for a recorded version of “Daddy, you smell like a baboon’s butt.”), it seems like digitized phrases aren’t yet a part of the path we’re on at the moment.
That said, the yes/no switches might be worth playing around with. I’m willing to play 20 Questions with him if it helps better narrow down what he wants (and assuming he gets the point of it), but I’m uncertain about how well that fits into our current plan. It’s free for us to try, so we’ll play around with their inventory to see what we see.
I think a gap in the range of these devices comes on the lower-tech end. A more portable, configurable, extensible picture system – without all the programmable recordings – would be a real benefit to us. I know a simple, small photo album works for some kids, but J-Man doesn’t seem ready to flip through something. He needs to see all of his choices at once. Given what I’ve seen, I may have to sit down and actually design one that works for him. It’ll give me an excuse to go to Lowe’s if nothing else.
If anyone knows of other lending resources, feel free to comment or e-mail us!
