10/9/09 1 out of 91

wow.. I cannot believe how fast time is going by, I'm just not finding time right now to update the blog which means I sometimes forget so many good things to tell you. First things first..we've begun potty training Tyler based no the method the school uses which first means potty charting. Tyler actually did go potty on the toilet at school the week before last, yeah! They following the method of an expert at U of M who is also doing a seminar at teh school later this month so Steve is gonna go to that so we can get up to speed on everything we need to do to get Ty potty trained and hopefully it will work for Ben too. They'll be 4 years old in 6 months! Tyler did very well at speech this week, I'm always amazed at how much he's willing to tolerate there. We got him to say "up" a few times. Kinda hard to explain and since I was involved I coulnd't video it but basically he lays down, head in my lap and then she pushes on his chest, he starts to make noise, I make sure to keep it in his throat (not his nose) so when air starts coming out his nose, I plug it and it goes back into his mouth. The only sounds we make through our nasal airways are "mmmmm" and "nnnnn" so we want to encurage the air/sound to come out. He also has a habit of making sounds iwth the make of his throat and we are showing him how to move those sounds to the front of his mouth. So ok, she pushes on his chest, sounsd come from the back of his mouth, once he is used to doing this, then we start moving his chin up and down and he'll start making new sounds. I did have one video of her workign with him on the couch, basically you just get to see him pick his nose.. ha! Both boys have had colds off and on since Ty started school and we pinch his nose closed a lot during speech and it tickles him.


http://www.medicalhomeinfo.org/health/Autism%20downloads/AutismOct5parenthandout.pdf This link will take you to an article about autism from the american academy of pediatrics which indicates that in the US, the statistic is now 1 out of every 91 children have autism. Used to be 1 out of 150. So so so so scary.. It is so damn frustrating that it is that prevalent and the statics as seen in this article are that 3 - 25% of children can improve so signifcantly with treatment that they no longer fit the diagnosis and yet insurance does not cover hardly anything. We just received our official "denial" that in our insurance will not pay for Tyler's speech therapy which costs us $320 a month for essentially 4 hours a month (1 per week). It just is so frustrating. If I had my way, Ty would be in school until early afternoon, then have 2 hours of speech, then work with a behavior analyst for the rest of his day, eating, etc. until bedtime. Yeah, a lot of work but the thing is.. Tyler wants to work, he wants to learn, he's so super smart. He brings me his flashcards all the time which he could easily look at himself, he knows how to open them but he wants me to work with him, I make him make sounds to get each card and we work on different sounds. We've been focusing more on sounds lately than signs.

Anyway, we are going to add music therapy soon, the autism collarboration center at EMU will he having a music program added soon, in fact I think Amy said they are shooting for monday afternoons so we hope to rush him off to music therapy after speech. http://www.annarbor.com/news/like-many-parents-kelly-van/ One of the littel girls in the picture/article (gillian) goes to Tyler's school and also was in splash camp with him this summer. It's amazing how large yet small the autism community is once you get into it. Everyone tries to help everyone else, it's truly amazing how many people have helped us get to where we are.