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1 week from today, April 2, will be World Autism Awareness Day. The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62/139 in 2007 and it is one of only three official disease-specific United Nations Days. Yahoo.. I think that's pretty impressive. So please help us spread awareness about autism and make the world a little bit more understanding of our boy. I ask that everyone that reads this, please tell someone one fact about autism on autism awareness day. this blog is filled with facts so I'm not gonna bore you with a lot of details but here's a staggering statistic that a lot of people don't realize 1 out of 94 boys in the US, are diagnosed with autism. YIKES. A lot of people also don't realize that many affected by autism cannot speak. Someone was shocked the other day to hear that Tyler can't talk, even though this person knew a little about autism. So please help educate someone, anyway, about autism. If you want any other info/facts/tips, etc. please let me know cause I'm happy to share the knowledge. You could also talk about insurance bills and that the one in Michigan just went to a new committee withs ome modifications for the better and there is a lot of hope this year that it may be sent for a vote, new mexico just passed insurance, yeah. And although this may be too much to ask for, why stop at doing this just one day. April is autism awareness month, why not share information every day in April. Send an email to friends, tell a neighbor, talk about Tyler, whatever, just start talking :) My co-worker and I will once again be wearing t-shirts every friday of the month of april to help create awareness. (there are many many really cook shirts on cafepress.com) We made ours last year but they didn't last long so we ordered nicer onces this year and that way we can wear them for other functions too such as runs, walks, rally's. Mine says "my son has autism, see the potential" and her's just says "autism - See the potential" I love this saying.. Tyler has sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much potential and with early diagnosis and intensive intervention, the sky is the limit for our guy. Ok so now I'm getting a bit joked up cause I just thought about something... see next paragraph please...
Tyler has a backpack for school that has a folder in it that he carries back in forth which includes his daily actvities at school as well as any informatino the school wants to give us or anything we need to fill out, etc. So last night after we put the boys to bed, I sat down on the couch to read a handout. It was from the gym teacher (2 pages) I looked at the first sentence or two and then turned to see what was on the next page and I saw a special olympics symbol in the upper left hand corner and I started to cry. I couldn't even tell Steve what was wrong at the point cause I really didn't know what was wrong. I'm not embarassed of Tyler or his conditino and I never have been. It's not a shock to me that he is disabled, I've known for a long time, in fact i was the one trying to convince others that something was wrong. So why that symbol bothered me, I don't know. I just never thought my son would be in any sort of activity that would be sponsored by the special olympics.. it never dawned on me.. until last night. Dont' get me wrong, I think the organization is great and it's purpose and all of those things are fine and I'd be proud of Tyler to be a part of it all.. It was just really hard to see on paper.
Ok so I'll move on to something happier, the boys were fantastic last night. We got to go outside since it was nice out (see photo from Steve's phone, Tyler was really intersted in Ben swinging and they both were laughing, ahhh I love seeing them be like normal brothers. Playing on swings makes it really easy to work on signs with both ben and tyler. So we worked on the sign for swing and more swing and ball since we also played with a ball. And we worked on these with Ben too as we are trying to encourage Ben to sign so he can understand Tyler and this may help them bond a little. I don't want to push him though so we try to make it really fun when we teach him signs. Anyway, we are really hoping that this is our summer of fun. We both agreed that we think it will be possible this year to go in the backyard with just on parent, we've never been able to do that before. Still probably can't go in the front yard since the road is so close and Tyler isn't necessarily afraid of the road yet (this comes much later in kids with autism)but being able to have just one parent outside will be really really helpful for the whole family. Clifford also enjoyed it as we were able to give him a little attention which he desperately needs.
I also ask that anyone that plays with Tyler, talks to Tyler, etc. take opportunities to make Tyler sign for something. He won't sign if we all anticipate his needs before he communicates them to us. Here are some examples, Tyler and I were reading a book and the book fell off our laps, instead of picking it up, I said, what do you want, he then signed book. Same with the books he can't quite get off the shelf I use that as an opportunity to say, oh, do you need help? He'll sign for help, and then I say ok, what do you want as I reach for the book and he'll sign book. It's easy to know what he wants as you see him struggle trying to get one book out so I cuold easily grab that book and hand it to him w/o him asking for it, but I don't, I use it as a learning opportunity for him and a chance to enhance his communication skills and social interaction. Another example is when he wants down from the table, He grabs my hand and throws it down, I say, oh, are you all done? And then he signs all done? Now...I'm actually prompting him to sign all done, the goal would be for him to sign all done without me saying it but we'll get there.. he also has his all done sign upside down right now so we need to get that cleaned up first. We are all working on new signs from the new signing time video... some of them are really fun like zebra and others are just weird like grass.. doesn't make sense to us.
Just wanna touch again on how much we think proper behaviorial reinforcements make a world of difference to Tyler. I think it's why we don't have a tantruming miserable kid on our hand. Example: We were outside just befoer bedtime and needed to come inside. Knowing this would be hard to get the boys in from outside, I put in a signing time video to play when we got in, I gave the boys a 5 minute warning, a 1 minute warning and then a 5 second count back (will talk more about this later) for Tyler. Ben came in no problem, such a good boy, and Tyler started to wimper and then cry. once Tyler was in the door (we also work on a route of taking off our shoes and coat in a certain area each time we come in the house)I grabbed his hand (he's crying) and walked him to the table. I did not look at him, i did not address the fact that he was crying, I didn't do anything but do what I had asked him to do which was go to the table and take off our shoes in coats. However, a video was playing in the background (started before he got upset, starting after would be a big no no) which I knew would help with the transition. He never resisted walking, sitting, or taking off any of his gear. once he stopped crying I told him I was going to go get his milk and he was fine. So in that example, we put many supports in place including having an activity inside that is rewarding (video), multiple warnings that we were going to be changing activities. But we kept our expectations the same.. we were going inside when we said we were and we were going to walk to the table to take off our shoes and coats and that's what happend. We just helped Tyler with the transition, he got upset, sure, but normal kids do too, it's hard to come in from outdoors when you are having fun. In the past, Tyler would have banged his head, kicked up his feet refusing to walk, etc. He didn't. He got through it, just a little upset. So that is my pitch for the day of why behaviorial therapy and living it on a daily basis really really makes our life so much easier, even if it seems a bit rigid.
Ok, I think I've rambled enough for teh day.. 1 week, autism awareness day..don't forget!
