Posts
http://1in150.wordpress.com/
"No two autistic children heal in exactly the same way. And in her new book, Jenny expands her message to share recovery stories from parents across the country. Mother Warriors, shows how each parent fought to find her own child’s perfect “remedy of interventions” and teaches parents how to navigate safely through the many autism therapies."
I can't wait to get it! Those stories are always so inspirational and help keep us going.
On another note, we've been busy lately which is why I haven't really written much in the blog, sorry about that. We tried some new things this weekend. We went to a new indoor play area which seemed to go pretty well although it doesn't seem as nice as some others we've been too. However, I did talk to the manager about their policy where you can't bring in outside food or drinks and she said it would be fine if needed to do it for Tyler in the future. so that's always a bonus! After we left there, we had picnic in the car, which was intended to be more of a tailgate but the beez were awful so we ate in the back of the van, just picked Tyler's stroller rightup and put it in the car (he can't hold still and eat on his own). So then we planned to go to a parade and since we had started eating lunch when the parade began, it worked out perfectly. Tyler can't hold still so just having him stand and watch a parade is impossible. We took him in a stroller and brought many hands on, musical toys for him to play with. We weren't sure how he'd handle all the people or the loud sirens so we wanted very stimulating toys to keep him engaged and comfortable sitting still. For the last few minutse ofthe parade, Dad just pushed TYler around in teh stroller as we had run out of things for him to play with. The great news is....Ben got to see the whole parade! We realized its a much more succesfful trip if we catch the end half of somethign rather than the beginning half. Ben feels like he got to see all of it and we are able to keep Tyler occupied for small amounts of time. Everyone is happy!
Our current goals for Tyler are to get him touching and experiencing new textures, etc. but also I'm going to come up with a plan for us to really work on a "come here Tyler", routine as well as a "stop" routine, and sit. I need to lay out a plan and then give it to Grandma, Dad, and daycare so we can all follow the exact same routine structure until he becomes familiar with it and expectations. It's too long of a story to type how I'm gonna do it but I think these will be great skillls for him to have before school as well as at home or when we are out in public. I'd love to be able to stay "stop" when Tyler runs ahead of me on a walk or at the mall and know the he'll follow my request.
Our daily goals are to just work to make him a more independent boy, put on and take off his own cltohes, wash his hands independently, brush his teeth, eat independently, etc. We also work to expand his receptive language and helpign him to communicate with Ben.
I'm still trouble shooting the whole Ben being scared of Tyler issue. Ben hugged him twice this weekend, yippe. And I did witness somethign pretty exciting. I went to the kitchen on Sat a.m. to clean up breakfast and left Ben and Tyler playing in the living room. Tyler was playing with a wooden train which he really hasn't showed much interest in until recently, apparentyl Ben wanted the train because i heard a huge loud scream from Tyler and ran in there and Ben was backing up. So Mr. Ben tried to steal Tylers train (which he only does when I'm not in the room) and instead of biting, pinching or pushing, Tyler yelled. It was great, he communicated verbally his displeasure. I went to Ben and told him that was the way Tyler says "no thank you" and that when Tyler was finished, Ben could have his turn. I'm going to now work with Tyler on using his hand as a stop and then toning downt eh scream to hopefully a polished "no" at some point. But also help ben understand when Tyler says no aand the possibilty of offering another toy to Tyler in exchange for the one he wants. Sharing is hard at this age for typically developing kids so we just watn to make sure that no one is getting seriously hurt and that B en and Tyler have a way to understand eachother even if they don't agree :)
An another note, Tyler had his monthly evaluation at U of M this morning. Steve said he did pretty good but of course struggled with the imitation play. Steve did comment on how there was another boy in the waiting room with them who was around 7 and was pretty severly impacted by autism which caused Steve to reflect on our journey so far and made him quite happy about where we are with Tyler.
He also started back up with speech adn OT this week as they had been on summer vacation for a couple of weeks.
Tylers angels is no longer in 1st place :(
