Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone.

For the first time, Tyler went to school today without crying, yeah! Dad sent me an email and then the teacher also sent me an email which said the following:

"He is so happy this morning!! Dad said he came in with absolutely no tears, and he has been smiling and laughing since. Of course we are all ecstatic and making sure we are keeping him happy and finding his reinforcers. This morning I got some great eye contact with him while playing with this toy we have in the room. He wanted me to push the button, so he made a sound for me and put my hand on the button, I waited for him to look at me and as soon as he did I pushed the button. Quite a few times, he looked right at me when he made the sound for me to push the button. It was really great!"

Things seem to be going very well for him at school and they are also very supportive of the diet and our beliefs in putting organic products on his skin, etc. It's really great.

When I dropped Tyler off yesterday they told me he's starting to pedal the tricyle on his own, yippee. We did get them tricyles at home too so we can practice. Ben just likes to push his but TYler will ride on his.

well tonight's the big night. Last year was pretty stressful for us so we are thrilled that grandma will be here to helpt his year. I'll take lots of pictures . We are hoping Tyler will go around with us to a few houses, we'll see :) Then since Ben's been begging to go to the zoo, we are hoping to take everyone on Saturday morning. Maybe Tyler will enjoy it a little more this time around.

Love to all

10/27/08

Tyler is doing very well at sitting. I took a quick video this weekend so you could see. As I stated in an earlier blog we have been having the boys eat at their picnic table and working on getting Tyler to sit while eating on his own free will rather than be strapped to a booster seat. when we say it's time to eat or when Tyler sees the food being prepared, he is beginning to automatically go sit in his spot :) He's doing really well and not getting up until he's done eating and he's really eating well to and for the most part feeing himself, including using a spoon. Usually we'd haev to put something on the spoon and put it in his hand but this weekend he was reaching for teh spoon on his own and scooping up his yogurt and eating it w/o any assistance, yeah! In the video, you can't clearly see Tyler eating because he's actually chewing a pretzel, however, you can see how still and good he's being compared to Ben who is all over the place.


Although the video I'm showing is of TYler sitting at the picnic table, I did test him this weekend at sitting at the big table in a regular chair to see how he'd do. Overall it went pretty well. I used books as supports to keep him sitting. I think he got up from teh table twice while eating and I would just say sit down and put him back in the chair and he handled it all fine. So we are going to slowly remove that video reinforcer which keeps him sitting and give him less motivating support items such as books and toys as we've done int ehp ast but that was when Tyler was strapped in, now he's free to get up and down when eh choooses so it's a big trickier. He's doing great though!

The boys got new tricyles chis weekend. Tyler has been practicing this skill at preschool so we figfured it's time to practice at home too. Ben is more intersted in pushign the tricycle right now than riding it and Tyler likes to ride but not necessarily peddle (we got bikes with handles so we could push) so hopefully in time they'll realize how fun it is to pedal and go on their own.

Other than that, we are going to work on trick or treating this week and hope to get TYler ready for the big day. We are trying to teach him the sign for candy and practice opening doors and getting something in his pumpkin. We are hoping this will help him understand better what is happening on Friday. Grandma is coming down early for the weekend to help us with the halloween festivities which was a bit of a struggle last year trying ot take ben around, hand out candy and keep tyler from running away.

102308 Update - good news

Tyler had a wonderful day at preschool today! When Steve picked him up he was happy and smiling. The teacher said he cried for about the first 10 minutes after I left and then after that he had fun all day. She said he's beginning to understand the routines and what everything means and he sat on his own/without restraint during circle/music time today. yeah. SO we are very very happy about that and it will make it a lot easier to drop him off tomorrow. Steve said he talked to one of the other parents while waiting to pick up Tyler and she was saying that her son is about to be "undiagnosed" i.e. by their doctor, she attributes it to the amazing preschool. She said the school is just amazing. So we know we made the right decision.

102308

I know everyone is wondering how preschool is going so here's the scoop. Day #1 went really well according to the teacher. But as the week progresses and Tyler is starting to understand thath e goes everyday, it's getting harder. He had a rough day yesterday. Steve dropped him off and Tyler melted down and didn't want Steve to leave. Throughout the day yesterday, Tyler struggled with transitions. He also fell asleep after lunch. Typically Tyler sleeps for 2 to 2.5 horus in the afternoon and struggles to go to bed at night, now he's getting 1.5 nap and it's a bit later than normal so he's just adjusting to going to sleep earlier at night and getting less during the day. Anyway, so yesterday was a grandpa pick up day. Steve met grandpa at the school to pick up Tyler since it was grandpa's first time picking him up. Tyler was crying when they picked him up, again just struggling with transitions. So I knew sicne yesterday was a bad day, the drop off today was going to be quite difficult and today is my drop off day. I made sure to get tehre right before class started insetad of early so he wouldn't have to hang around thinking about it. he started crying as soon as I unhooked his seat belt. I held him and gave him hugs and kisses and sang to him as we walked in the school. When we got inside the school near the class, I sat down with him and waited for the doors to open to teh classroom and the teacher came over and talked to me about his transitions and I gave a few suggestions on thing sthat we know help at home. i.e. counting so say 5 more seconds and you are all done with that car adn then cuont down for him. Also having Tyler put the toy away or have a speciric role to end the activity rather than just stopping and moving to the next activity. As he gets used to the classroom, people and the activities, in general things will get easier but for now they are gonig to try to put as much supports in as possible. Also the teacher told me that they are going to start off with swiming for him today which he really likes to really try to reinforce how fun school so he'll start to want to come. So all and all things are going as expected for a autistic toddler who is going through some pretty major changes in schedule and environment but it's not easy for any of us. Today, the teacher said, ok I can take him into the classroom and she picked him up from my arms and hugged him and took him intot he classroom as he's screaming/crying and not wanting to leave me. SO TOUGH.. it took every ounce of restraint I had to hold back my tears until I got into the car. I just kept telling myself, this is the best thing for him and it's just going to take time to adjust and stay strong for the little guy.

10/17/08 Big Boy!

Our big boy will be starting preschool on Monday! YEAH! He will be attending preschool from 8:35 - 1:45 /5 days per week. The teaching methodology used will be Verbal Behavior. He'll be in a Level 1 classroom to begin which is the most intense out of the 3 levels. The hope would be that he'd gradually move up to Level 2 and Level 3 before joining elementary school. I visited the classroom and met with the teacher yesterday and am really excited for things to come. They are all highly trained and educated on the principles of verbal behavior/ABA instruction. Tyler will be the 7th student in the class and there are 6 adults assigned to the classroom so that most instruction will be one on one even though it's a group environment. Speech and OT are all done in that classroom. They adhere to all of Tylers dietary restrictions and have an entire food program dedicated to sensory issues with food and an order at which they introduce new foods/textures. They make sure to use all Gf/CF food for these items as many kids in the classrooms are on the diet. They also have their own potty training program based upon the principles of Judy Coucovanis, potty training 'expert' at UofM. They have an upcoming training session for school/parents that we are going to try to attend. One of the mothers I spoke with said the school had her child potty trained 6 months prior to him being trained at home. They also have support groups for parents with child care provided on a monthly basis. We could not be more excited about our new endeavor. ABA recommendations are 40 hours per week so we'll still be supplementing at home as we can.

Anyway, Dad took Tyler into the classroom today so he could become familiar with the people and setting before being there for 5 hours on Monday and while having parent support. So the picture above is Tyler at school today:) He's the one in the plaid shirt since it's kind of far away

As for the transition to the classroom, as you can imagine, I am quite anxious. Even though he is in the best possible hands I still get very anxious about other people caring for him. I would have no problem with dropping Ben off at preschool as I know he'd have the time of his life adn would be great. But when you have child that can and will injure himself when frustrated, well that's just nerve wrecking! I'm assured by parents and teachers that they first two weeks will just be a big spoiling session essentially where they make sure Tyler thinks the preschool is the best place on earth. They do a play profile to see what interests him and what they can use as reinforcers later. Luckily on Monday, Dad is the one dropping off Tyler and I'm picking up. Tyler has no trouble at all when Dad drops him off at daycare but when I drop him off, he doesn't ever want to let go of my hand and sometimes he doesn't even want to get out of the car so the first day of school may be tough for him if I"m doing the drop off (and me too!!!). So that's it, our little guy now has his own backpack and lunch pail as he'll be eating breakfast and lunch at school.

101508

The boys will officially be 2.5 tomorrow!! Happy Half Birthday Boys.

I forgot to mention one of the really cool things Tyler did yesterday morning. He was on the floor playing with some of the autism speaks play sample toys (has to be specific toys) and losing interest in whatever he had, so he went back to the table that had the cars on it and started making "bubububub" motor sounds! it was great. This come naturally to many kids at an early age but making appropriate sounds and playing with a toy functionally can be tough for kids with autism. I'm glad we were able to get that on video.

Parent education class went well. I didn't learn anything new really since it was a recap for the new families, however, it was great to be able to meet the new families and have new playmates for Tyler in playgroup. I also like that networking aspect of being with other families. We all do dfiferent things for our kids and one of the parents has a newly diagnosed child so I think it's part of our responbility as parents to share our experiences and help out wherever we can, so it was really good for that.

On Friday, I'll probably update the blog with our ABA plans as I'll have it all worked out by then hopefully. So until then, let me just leave you with the name of a woman who has been a godsend to me. Her name is Amy Sanderson. Amy is amazing and I truly believe she is my guardian angel. In fact, without Amy, I'm not sure we'd be on the same track that we are now which I can't imagine going in any other direction. It may sound weird but she is the voice of reason, support, and hope that my grandmother would give me if she were alive. In a strange way, I feel my grandmother is watching out for me through Amy. THANKS AMY!

101408

Tyler did fantastic sitting at dinner last night. The only times he got up from his seat was when we had a surprise visitor and mom had to step away. It was a good test though cause now I know he knows that if I'm not there, he can get sneaky! Breakfast this morning, however, was not quite as successful but he's not always supermotivated to eat breakfast anyway so that could be part of it. Tyler s really doing a great job of usung vocals to get something he wants. It's amazing to me how far we've come. Remember at the beginning we were just trying to get him to look at us. Now he automatically makes sounds w/o being prompted.

As for words/signs. He said uh-oh again this morning. In fact i wish I could remmeber all he said when I got him out of bed because he said uh oh and then I said another word and he used that same sounds even though he couldnt get a world out. He was really doing a good job of immitating me. Also today when we were reading a book (while being videotaped) we came accross a tiger and unfortunately my sounds for a tiger are the same as lion. So I said Tiger and made a "roar" sound and he spontaneously signed for lion, yeah! So I said yes, lion says roar, this is a tiger. That gets me back to me needing to learn more of the jungle animal signs, I mostly only know farm animals. But I was ssooooooooooooooooooo excited that he did that on his own!

Tonight I have a parent education class (we have these monthly) and I'm excited because I think two more families are joining playgroup/parent education and I know one of the families so it should be a good night to get more of a group environment.

On a side note, I can't wait for Tyler to get to know Ben better. Ben is so funny. He makes me laugh all the time. Last night he was killing me on our walk. He was singing Old MacDonald to me and was using a rhinoceros as his animal, so funny. oh, and we ran an errand last nighta nd on the way back I was at a stop light and although I was kind of talking to Ben, I was doing it for Tyler's benefit as I was saying the light was red, we have to wait until it turns green to go. Ben said, "I know that Mom!" Oh my... he's already a teenager. So cute.

Oh, I left one thing out of the blog when referencing Jenny's book. The only "father" warrior in the book was talking about how you kind of lose friends and family when you are in a battle with autism. Not only is all of your spare time and thensome used up by autism but, everything else in life that seems so important to other poeplejust begins to feel pretty insignificant in comparison. So this dad joked about a friend telling him about re-doing his kitchen and this dad was like, "I don't give a shit about your kitchen". I laughed outloud because just recently I had went out for a drink with some coworkers. They were all older than me and talking about hte economy and how it's effecting their retirement and changes they should make, etc. After about 20 minutse of this discussion, I finally said, I am trying to find a way to pay for Tyler's biomedical treatments and diet and not lose my mind with all this scheduling, I could give a shit about my retirement fund. So don't take this literally, I honestly welcome conversations that having nothign to with autism or anything else going on in my life, it's refreshing to give my mind a break once in a while. It, autism that is, definetly brings all the selfless people to the forefront in our lives. We can't afford to give much back to family and friends, emotionally or physically at this time in our lives and we appreciate all of you that continue to give your love and support to us unconditionally. One day, I promise, we'll be able to be there for you again too!

101308 - 2nd post

Got good feedback from speech today so thought I'd share that too:

Another very good session today. Tyler was making lots of sounds today. He was very interested in my toy animals. He requested the sheep by making a “sh” sound. He loved the dog and made a breathy “ah” sound to imitate the dog pant I was making. He loved the horse and ‘’’’wee wee” sound. He tried to make it with an “ee” sound.
He continued to name all the feather colors by a distinguishable vowel sound to make a choice between two of the feathers. He imitated an “mm” sound I made for a tractor noise. He did very well with the zvibe as well. Tyler was very attentive and stayed with the activities very well. I am very excited for him! I am actually having a hard time remembering all of the good things he did today. Oh, this is so cool…he said “qwee” spontaneously while leaning against me to request a “squeezie”!! That was awesome!

101308

I had a million things running through my head last nigh that I wanted to put in the blog, so excuse me if this at all seems scattered. Just remember as you read all blogs that Ben is doing great, he's such a great little boy and is just a joy to be around most of teh time. H e had a ball this weekend at the appleumpkin festival and was such a trooper when it was time to leave. Many kids were screaming and kicking whenthey had to leave the kids zone but when I told my guy it was time to go he came right to me and never made a peep. He's so good :)

I'll first comment on some successes Tyler had over the weekend. He said uh-oh after I said uh oh, that was pretty exciting as he hasn't said it in a while. we also have successfully gotten him to eat a table w/o having to Be strapped to a chair (he still eats in a booster chair). Since we have not yet found a good sturdy instructional table for him, I decided to bring in the kids picnic table from outside. I brought it so it was backed up against the couch so he could lean against the couch as a real chair. As I learned in the verbal behavior workshop, I did reward him with a video for sitting and eating. When he would get up, I would stop the video, say sit down and put him back in his chair. He would get pretty squirmy at times but overall did very well and never once had a screaming fit like he did when we first started to stop the video to get him to sit. So by Saturday at breakfast I think he only got up from the table once and by dinner time on Saturday he was going to sit at the table by himself. This is a huge success for us! So the plan is to get him sitting through the entire meal w/o me having to make any corrections. once we do that, we'll fade out the video and put something less motivating in as a support such a books or a toy. Once that is going well, we'll try to move him back to the regular table in a regular table with the same support, once he's doing that then we'll slowly remove the books toys. It's all a process but having the kid sitting and eating on his own free will is pretty big for us.

which brings me to my second update. For the first time this weekend, Tyler told me he was hungry! Ben hadn't had a very good breakfast but Tyler did. Ben asked for crackers so I put him at the table with a bowl full of crackers. Tyler jumped up in the chair and looked (and gestured) at Ben's bowl and made a sound. I said, oh, are you hungry? So I got him some pretzels. he got upset at me that Ben had something different in his bowl. Up until this point we've never had an issue with giving ben things tyler couldn't have because tyler didn't erally seem to care or notice. So I'm thinking...shooot he's asking for food for the first time I want to reinforce this but he can't have those crackers and in fact I haven't been able to find any crackers that Tyler can have that he likes. So i brought him out some pop corn and a cookie and hoped that one of those would suffice and thank goodness it worked. when we are in the car or out and about we make sure to give Ben GFCF snacks too since there is a greater risk of cross contamination and it's harder to wash hands, etc. but at home as long as Ben is at the table he can have things Tyler can't. Eating at the picnic table does create new challenges as well as Ben rarely eats GFCF food and not so much that Tyler wants Ben's dinner food as of yet but we worry about crumbs, etc. getting into Tyler's food. So we have to keep a close eye on them at the picnic table. Much easier when both parents are there, we don't want to make Ben sit at a different table and feel like he's in trouble or not as special so we just do the best we can to keep Tyler's food safe.

Ok, sorry again for the long post. So we had the walk yesterday which was great and I was much happier with the set up this year than last year. The boys had a great time in the bouncers/inflatables they had there. Also, during the opening ceremony, Tyler's Angels got a shout out since we were one of the top fundraising teams, yeah! Thanks. I was thinking last night just how much preparation went into us just being at the walk and how much discussion occurred to make it successful and wondered if people realized how much has to happen so i decided to share. We have to pack all of Tyler's food and drinks when we go anywhere because there are very few things, if any, he can eat or drink at a typical event or restaurant. So I packed up all the food the night before, including all of Tyler's supplements. We discussed how we were going to get Tyler to eat, i.e. we should take the stroller cause it has a tray and we won't be able to sit him in a regular chair (although we are working on it as i mentioned above). We also discussed how it would be best for me to be in charge of Tyler most of the time as I can typically handle him better in public since I've been trained more and we agreed Steve would just follow my lead and help me with anything I needed. Of course there would be times I'd want to play with Ben but we'd make sure Tyler would be engaged in an activity during those times. We also had to discuss diaper changes as Tyler really struggles with diaper changes in a public setting. With all of that planning, things went off w/o a hitch. No one probably had an idea how much of an effort went into making it a success, but it was definitely wonderful!

So last night I had the pleasure of reading Jenny McCarthy's new book, Mother Warriors. Thanks Grandma! It contained stories of parents who had children with autism and the battles they fought. Tears were flowing throughout most of the book, however, one of the last stories really really got me. I haven't cried that hard in a long time. It was the story of a little boy who started having seizures the day he received vaccinations and long story short, after many attempts to stop the seizure including an induced coma, the boy passed away. I cried for the pain that family felt and the guilt that they must feel and it just opened up a bunch of guilt on my part. I try not to go to the "would of, could of, should of" feelings and focus on the future, however, occasionally those thoughts pop into my head especially when I reflect on just how sick Tyler was after his 12 month and 18 month vaccinations. The 18 month vaccinations really upsets me because at that point i knew my son for sure had autism and I was only 1 week away from reading Jenny's book and learning about biomedical treatments and their theory on autism. I knew that people were concerned about the links between autism and vaccinations long ago, however I didn't know the biomedical argument which is that some kids, those prone to autism have lower immune systems and cannot tolerate those vaccinations in the same way a normal kids can. I knew or was at least worried that Tyler had autism very early on and yet here I was, still letting them inject all sorts of things into his body without question. I wish beyond wishes that at 6 months when I talked to the pediatrician about concerns I would have gotten a hand out that said not only are these the things to watch out for but here are some things you can do from a nutritional standpoint to help your son. Here are some things you need to be aware of. The fact is, pediatricians aren't given any of that info. In the book Jenny talks about her pleas with the American Academy of Pediatrics to listen to the parents that have helped their children to listen to the DAN doctors, many of which are actual medical doctors about what they are seeing in kids. Anyway, I could kick myself cause at both 12 month and 18 month vaccinations I was certain they were causing him to get ill and I did nothing but look for therapeutic ways to help him, not nutritional. Anyway, once I got over my guilt, no looking back, I had an incredible amount of strength come over me (thanks Jenny!) it was just the surge I needed to forge ahead. Some of those mother warriors have it much harder than me, and I'll be damned if I let my little boy succumb to autism. Even if he never recovers, he can improve and he has improved so much already.

10/10/08

Oh how life can change in one year. I know I often reflect back as to just how much our life has changed in a year, but as we approach our walk weekend, I feel it's necessary to do it once again.

Last year was the inaugural SE Michigan walk now for Autism, held at the Detroit Zoo. Although it may seem like an eternity, at this time last year Tyler had not yet been officially diagnosed with autism. In fact, this Sunday, Walk Day, October 12, will mark the 1 year anniversary of Tyler's diagnosis. I cannot think of anything I'd rather be doing on that day than supporting autism speaks and all the other families and children in this battle against autism. You all saw the presentation and the dramatic changes in our son in the past year. I believe the diagnosis was a blessing, without it, Tyler would not be where he is today. He wouldn't have been accepted into the ESI study that helped us build a foundation for learning and training that will stay with me/us for a lifetime. I know it seems hard to believe, but at this time last year I did not know anything about biomedical treatment. Crazy as I feel our life pretty much revolves around it now but until I read Jenny McCarthy's book sometime last fall, we didn't even know what a DAN Doctor was, never heard of them. Wow.. I just had to take a moment to appreciate it all. As Tyler's Angels embarks on a very important journey on a very important day, I'd like to thank all of the angels that have gotten us to where we are. Some of you may not know the order of how everything played out so here it is

6 Months Old - Talk seriously to pediatrician about concerns

9 months old - Pediatrician tests for genetic disorders at Christmas (full 2 weeks to get results)

10 months old - Pediatrician refers us to U of M (behavioral pediatrician)for more testing as well as early on for develompent delay assessment. Pediatrician puts a diagnosis on paper of microcephaly which if you look this up online, it's quite worrisome!

12 Months - Tyler is very small for age, only eating two types of baby food and vomits at sight of bottle. Early on refers us to a speech pathologist. Chris Dowd gets our son to eat, she was a godsend.

15 Months - Tyler is evaluated at U of M and scheduled for MRI, hearing test, and basic neurological tests. We are referred to the University of Michigan Autism and Communication center for their First Words/Toddler Project. Which would provide us with free standardized autism testing as apart of the study.

16 Months - U of M autism and communication center gives us a report at basically said everything we already knew but did not diagnose him one way or the other. MRI and hearing and neurological tests all normal. We are begging someone to tell us where to go to help start to treat our son. We are referred to Early on which we were already doing and the Play Project. The Play Project was gonna cost around $4000 which would be a 1 x per month consultation/training to show us how to work with Tyler.

17 months - Developmental Pediatrician is concerned Tyler hasn't gained any weight in 2 months and asks that we start adding oil, extra milk/formula, etc to his diet. We raise $4000 for Autism Speaks walk. Less than one week after walk and one week before having to pay for the Play Project, we are referred to a new study at U of M which would provide in home training at no cost and they would occur 3 x per week vs 1 time per month! The study was sponsored by Autism Speaks.

18 Months - U of M officially diagnoses Tyler with autism and we get enrolled int he Early Social Interaction study based on the SCERTS model of therapy. This saved us $4000 and opened another door for Tyler. We hear about a book by Jenny McCarthy talking about her son recovering from autism which we did not know what possible. i get the book right away. We find a DAN doctor right away.

19 Months - we start B12 injections and see improvements and are really beginning to believe in the whole idea of biomedical therapy.

21 Months - we see significant progress in Tyler thanks the study. Carrie was truly a blessing in our lives for both Tyler and Ben.

Most of you know the rest of the story as this is about the time I started the blog. But as you can see, one thing lead to another and lead to another and got us to where we are today. Please, everyone that reads this, please cross your fingers and toes and send us all your well wishes that the next year will prove to have just as much of a positive impact on our lives as last year. We truly need all of your positive energy as we embark on new journeys, struggles and triumphs.

On another note, we got good feedback today from the speech pathologist so I thought I'd share...

Tyler did lots of “talking” today. He really liked the cookie jar activity I brought. It is a cookie jar with plastic cookies that have numbers on one side and colored m & ms on the other side to count. He loved the numbers so I had him sign “cookie” each time to get a cookie from me. He did this repeatedly because he wanted them all! He vocalized each time as well. Some of the vocalizations were even an “o” type sound rather than “uh”. He continues to love the feather activity. I now hold up 2 different colored feathers to have him choose one. I will say “do you want blue or green?” He will then vocalize a vowel sound and I give him that colored feather. He is looking at me and looking at the feather he wants and his vowel-vocalizations are sounding differentiated so I can tell he’s trying to say even hard words like “yellow” if it is just the “eh” part. This is neat to do with him.

100908 - 3 days until the walk!!

Tyler's Angel's is still in 4th place for the SE Michigan Walk Now for Autism, yeah!!!!!!!!! Great job team. We are well over $5,000!

we got some good feedback from Tyler's OT today so I thought I would share:

Hello Melissa, today in OT I noticed Tyler was very vocal and signed open a lot. Before I got there Karen had been dancing and jumping with the kids and playing Simon Says. We moved and bounced on the therapy ball, did some songs with finger plays. He put the 3D train puzzle together himself and moved it while I gave the choo choo noises (very fun). He is popping the packing bubbles very well now while I sing “pop goes the weasel” and the “popcorn song” (shows finger strength), we have been doing lines that go down, to the side and circles on the wipe off board and he did the horizontal lines independently today (yeah) this is the first time he seems interested in the drawing (visual motor). We did the pennies, pegs, blocks on a stick ( he is doing most of them independently now), and shape sorter. I have noticed that he does not even want to do the ball and block “in” toys now and prefers the higher level toys…very cool he is gravitating to higher level entertainment!

This morning I spent some one on one time with Tyler prior to occupational therapy at OT and he was was imitating a few of the sounds I made while reading an alphabet book from Grandma Wilson. It has a letter on each page and he would point to it, i'd say the letter, then he'd look at me and make a sound and then I'd make the sond of the letter. Sometimes he wants to hear it again so he'll make a sound again and I'll make the sound again (he's looking at me the whole time). So today when I got to S, he made the SH sound and did that with a few other letters. I'm trying to get him to more make the sound of the object vs. just saying "uh" which he has a habit of doing when he knows he needs to talk in order to get something. I do this by just reinforcing a change in his "uh" for example if we wanted him to say "on" to turn the water on, I'd do it a few time and then when he said "uh" i'd say "on", he'd say "uh" and I'd say "on" again and then eh realizes I'm looking for something different and he'll change the way he says it. Then once/if he gets it right or an approximation of teh word, we know he can say it so then we only give him what he wants when he says it that way again.

Tyler is getting a kick out of the sign for cookie right now. We were looking at a picture book with a cookie in it and I was signing cookie and then helping him sign cookie, he was all smiles (last night). So this mronign we did it again and he remember quite a bit of how to sign it.

Ben's teeth/gums are recovering and he's a ham as normal. He really likes to say, "I'm having a hard day" which is just to cute.

10/08/08

Poor Ben fell and hit his front teeth on the hardwood floor at daycare on Monday so it kind of messed up our typical week in terms of working with Tyler. Our schedules got changed around a bit but the good news is, Ben is ok and there wasn't any permanent damage to the root or the permanent teeth and he was a trooper at the dentist! Never cried once and said "thanks guys" when they were all done. Good boy Ben.

Tyler had his monthly evaluation today at U of M and did great! Steve took him and said he saw some improvements from last month. Tyler was very attentive and aware of the surroundings and looked in the direction that the woman asked him to look as she pointed. He also played with Big bird and fed it a bottle. We worked on this skill at home and rewarded him with a fun barking doggie that he loves. I bet he was wondering today why there was no barking dog after he feed big bird!

we often work on stop and go with Tyler. We use this technique when he's running in circles so we can make it a game isntead of him just wearing out the carpet. We also use it in the stroller/wagon. It's great because Ben says stop and then we get tyler to say go (which is really just an Uh sound). That way both boys are engaged and we still get the poor dog a walk. Anyhoo.. Tyler is used to having to make a sound in order to be able to go. he's generalizing this to the car. It's so funny. Anytime we are at a red lighted traffic signal, Tyler is in the back gonig "uh" like go mom go. We tell him that light is red and as soon as it's green we'll go adn then we say "go" as soon as it's green. Hard to reinforce him for talking on this one cause we'll be breaking the law if we went when Tyler wanted us too. But it's great that he's generalizing the skill.

We also have been working on getting Tyler into an ABA program. We should know in the next couple of weeks what the plan and schedule is with that and then we are going to reevaluate his needs/services through school district to make sure everything is in place.

Much more to follow in the coming weeks, sorry the blog's been light lately.

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If any of you are interested in knowing the side by side comparison of the presidental candidates and their platforms on disabilities, etc. here is a good website. http://www.olrs. ohio.gov/ prescompare. htm

As for us, our weekend may change a bit. Grandma is not feeling well and may not be coming down this weekend. We have our annual open houe at the fire department on Sunday and I'm scheduled to work. We had planned for Grandma to take Tyler to the hands on museum right next door so dad could bring to the open house where they haev face painters, robots, and lots of fun stuff. So at this point, I'm not quite sure what fun/learning activities will have planned.

10/2/08

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, seems that I get so far behind, and then I can't remember everything that we are doing. So this past weekend was very unique. Dad was away at a conference and Ben went to his Aunt Susie's to get spoiled for the weekend so I could spend some time with Tyler and get some things done around the house. We were able to purcahse the tv we needed to use as reinforcer for Tyler, however we weren't able to find a good table yet so that created some issues, as did the tv eventually. What I wanted to work on last weekend was getting Tyler to sit at a table. Currently, he cannot sit unless he's strapped in his booster chair at meal time, other than that he doesn't sit unless he's drinking his milk and tired, he's always on the go. So we were going to apply the verbal behavior approach and get him sitting at a table for short periods of time (on his own free will) so that we can prepare him for instruction settings. So the remote to our new tv was giving me such a hard time, and it's hard to reinforce good behavior with a video that won't play when you want it too. But Grandpa came to our rescue, Grandpa found us a new, better working tv at Sams and came down and installed it on Tuesday. Tyler and I tried it out this morning and it worked great. He's not sitting through an entire video, but he'll sit now for a good 10 minutes and maybe only try to get up a few times. Once he decides to get up and stay up, he just doesn't get the video any longer. I was able to get him no video sitting today. It may not look like much but it's huge, beleive me. Usually he's standing on the armoire nose to tv for an entire video. Oh, and we are still working on a table. the one you see is quite flimsy and eh can easily push it around while he's fidgeting so we are hoping to find something much nicer soon and hopefully it will be one that moms tush can fit in too!

Over the weekend, Tyler said Da-Da on his own when looking out the window. He also started to use a gesture to get down from the table when he's done eating. I was really excited about this. Typically he gets frustrated, starts shoving food away and if you don't catch these signals, he'll bang his head. This time he was using a very distinct down gesture adn wans't upset at all. So I rewarded his request by letting him get down even though he hadn't had enough to eat yet. I just followed him around later giving him a snack and some milk. I immediately told Steve to make sure to watch for the gesture becasue we want to continue to reinfoce it, even if he hasn't had enoguh to eat yet. Once we think this is a regular part of his communication, then we can start pushing him to eat a little more (if he hasn't had enough) before we let him get down, but for now we just really are focusing on reinforcing his communication.

Since we had so much time alone this weekend, I also worked on our skills being out and about. Having both Ben and Tyler out in public with one parent can be a nightmare, especially if Tyler breaks down, but having just Tyler, we can really focus on skills so Tyler and I ran a lot of errands together this weekend and he did great with all the people, lights, sounds, being the car, etc. We also went to the park which is the first time I've really been at the park with just Tyler and it was great! Even when there are other adults around, when Ben is there, I'm also making sure that everyone is safe and getting attention, etc. and never feel like I'm 100% with either kid. It was nice to be able to just relax and have fun with Tyler. Don't worry, Ben gets alone time too, Mom took just Ben out to Big Boy last night and he had his first sundae and discovered how fun salt and paper shakers are!

We are also working on some fun new bathtime routines, we turn the water on and off, upon Tyler's request, and that seems to be fun. At first, he had a hard time ending the game but he's doing much better now. We also play row row your boat inteh tub which he asks for by getting into a certain position. We are trying to get sounds now intermittently through the row row boat song.

From a biomedical standpoint, we made a decision to not implement a completely yeast free diet. After much research we realized that we would not have enough food options for Tyler if we completely eliminated yeast (and sugar) so we are going to limit it where possible, i.e. found bread, ketchup and syrup replacements already, get juice with splenda which we already water down. and see how that goes. We'll also still use the anti fungal medication to rid his body of yeast. Once he gets older we may implement a 100% strict yeast free but for now we just don't feel he'd get enough nutrition.It's a tough decision but one that we feel is best for Tyler right now.