Joy's Autism Blog

On Tuesday night when I was ushering the kids up to bed I noticed Adrian was limping. I figured his foot was asleep or something and I wasn’t worried about it. On Wednesday morning when I was taking him out to the bus I noticed him limping again and then I was worried.

When he got home from school yesterday Glen and I started looking his leg over. Not seeing any obvious signs of bruises or scrapes or anything that would indicate what part of his leg was hurting him we started asking him questions.

While pushing on his ankle we asked “Does this hurt?’ Adrian says “hurt.” “Adrian, does your ankle hurt?” Adrian says “Ankle.”

Moving up to his knee and pushing on it “Does your knee hurt?” Adrian says “All done” and tries to leave.

“Did you hurt your leg at school?” “Leg hurt, all done”

That was all he would tolerate with the questioning.

It’s hard. We have no idea what happened. The plan is to wait a couple days and see if he’s still limping since he’s not crying about it and when he stims he’s still jumping up and down on it so I doubt it’s a serious injury. I just wish he could tell me.

Adrian’s school was only having a half day today and then all the kids are off for Christmas break. Adrian’s old school had early dismissal every Wednesday and a few other times through the year and it was never an issue so I never thought to have a talk with him about it. I was pretty surprised when the teacher called me this afternoon saying she couldn’t put him on the bus because he was kicking, screaming, and crying because he did not want to get on the bus.

I went to pick him up and he was totally fine. Apparently after all the kids left he understood and started saying “I missed my bus!”. When I picked him up he asked me “Are we done with school today?” and I said “Yes we’re all done with school today” and he said “Ok, I want to go to the store” So we did!

I let Adrian get a candy bar from the checkout and he saved a bit of it and teased his siblings and dad when he got home. Pretending to offer them a bite and then telling them no! He said to Glen “You want some?” and Glen said “yeah” and reached his hand out and Adrian said “No! Don’t touch it!” The girls took the teasing in stride but Lincoln was really mad. I brought Adrian over and said “Look at your baby brother. He’s sad. Maybe you should share your candy bar with him.” And he broke it in half and gave it to Lincoln. Proud mommy moment not only for the sweetness but the teasing is also a pretty cool thing for him to understand so I’m just proud of him even if I could have considered this a “rough” day for him I actually see a lot of silver lining.

For Edition 11 of Best of the Best over on SOS Blog the topic is family life. It’s to share about a funny or loving story about family life. because after all, our kids with special needs bring us so much joy, happiness, and love. This is my dream topic because I feel like this is pretty much what I write about except the times when I’m going through hard times but our funny and happy moments are my favorite things to share. Adrian is absolutely full of personality and love, contrary to what a lot of people think of when they think of autism. To see the entire group of Best of the Best bloggers share about their family life check out SOS Best of the Best Edition 11 which will be published on October 15th.

I long dreamed of Adrian communicating to us in a meaningful way. Slowly as his personality has started to emerge through more effective communication I have noticed a disturbing trend.

He thinks if he communicates it well then he will get what he wants!

Much like the time he came home asking to go to Universal Studios Orlando via a wonderfully written letter, today he came home with a letter.

He drew a pumpkin today with oil crayons at school. I thought he was showing me the pumpkin but no, he turned the picture around and on the back was a note.

The envelope he put it in when he got home:

The Pumpkin:

The note:

Translation of the note is basically that he wants me to take him to the store and buy him an Iron-man Halloween costume.

This communication is more then I could have dreamed for him a couple years ago. What an absolute blessing to be able to celebrate these accomplishments as a family. Perhaps a trip to Target for an Iron-man costume is in our near future?!

I take my kids to the park almost every weekend because #1 it’s free, #2 it gets the house quiet for my hubby because weekends are not his days off, #3 it burns off energy and gets them out out of the house. Pretty good reasons right? Many weekends we run through Sonic during happy hour and I get the kids slushies to cool off after playing and they look forward to that.

Today was no different. Off to the park we went. After about 10 minutes there a lady came with her little one, maybe 2 years old. All the kids were pretty good with her. Lincoln was kind of “in her face” a little bit but he kept his hands to himself. Adrian on the other hand wanted to pat her head every time he walked by. I kept telling him to keep his hands to himself, it didn’t seem to bother her and he did it only a few times being that he was mostly preoccupied on the slide.

After we left the park we were waiting at a stoplight on our way to Sonic. There was a lady at the stoplight next to us who was probably about my mom’s age. Here is the little conversation I heard:

Adrian: Hi Grandma! Look it’s grandma! Hi Grandma!

Me: Adrian that’s not Grandma.

Adrian: Hi Grandma…Grandma! HI!! (knocking on the window)

Sanura: Adrian that’s not Grandma, that’s a stranger.

Adrian: Hi there stranger! Hi stranger!!

Wow, who would have thought I’d be hearing all this from my Adrian?

Adrian has been drawing a lot of pictures that look similar to this:

I figured he’d seen it at the beginning of movies and he seems to really like the little things they play at the beginning of movies so I didn’t think too much of it. Well yesterday he came home from school with this fairly dirty envelope with “MOM” printed on the front in Adrian’s hand writing.

I figured it was a mother’s day note or something because his teacher always has him bring home something for mother’s day. Then I opened it and found this letter:

Oh if only it were that easy buddy!

I really love sign language. I think it’s a great and convenient tool to help babies and kids with autism to get that communication ball rolling. Some of Adrian’s first communication WAS sign language and I think that really helped him make that connection between words and objects. I am excited to share this valuable information and this free resource for you to use in the future to learn some signs and teach them to your babies and children! This guest post is provided by babysignlanguage.com and for future reference you will find their link in my side bar under “communication resources”.

Can baby sign language really help children with autism? More and more parents and educators are saying yes, it can. Not only can it help the child, but it can help the entire family.

But first, for the child:

Communicating with sign language has been shown to increase vocalization attempts in children with autism. While some mistakenly assume that learning to sign will prevent a child from learning to speak, the research does not support this assumption. Signing actually helps a child learn to talk. The same area of the brain is activated during speech and during sign, which suggests that the development of both could go hand in hand.

On a more practical note, sign language can help alleviate frustration. When a child wants or needs to communicate something, it is very helpful if she has a sign that matches what she wants to say.

Signing with your child also facilitates eye contact and promotes social interaction. You have to look at someone to see them sign, and she has to look at you to make sure that you understand her sign.

Now, for the rest of the family:

Some parents shy away from signing because they themselves don’t know sign language. This is sad, because it is so easy to learn a few signs, especially when compared to learning everything else that one must learn about parenting.

You don’t have to be fluent in sign language in order to start signing with your toddler or preschooler. You can learn and introduce one sign at a time. Is there a word that your child could use often? One that might alleviate some frustration? Then teach her that sign. Just start there. It will alleviate some frustration for you too, in those moments when you don’t understand what your child needs.

Making sign language a household event gives other children a job to do, a way to help. Teaching and learning signs quickly becomes a family affair. Other children in the household usually jump at the chance to help, especially if it means interacting with a sibling.

Many parents choose to hang baby sign language flash cards up in their home, to serve as reminders, not only for the sign itself, but for the task at hand. For example, hang up the flash card for the sign for “wash,” near the bathroom sink to remind everyone to wash their hands before leaving the bathroom. Or hang up the sign for “shoe” by the door to remind everyone to take their shoes off.

Make signing a bonding experience for the whole family! Most things are anyway, right? With baby sign language, or signing at any age, the more the merrier.

This article was provided by babysignlanguage.com a website featuring digital resources including a baby sign language dictionary, baby sign language flash cards, and baby sign language wall chart 100% free.

I’m excited to present this guest post written by Becca Jarzynski, M.S., CCC-SLP. Becca is a pediatric speech language pathologist who specializes in treating children with autism spectrum disorders. Her blog, Child Talk, can be found here and it will also be listed on my sidebar for future reference under “Communication Resources” and check her out on facebook too!

Pictures and Autism: Using Pictures To Teach Creative Language
Over the past ten years of working as a pediatric speech-language therapist, I’ve found that pictures can be a highly effective tool for working with children who have a diagnosis of autism. Children with autism are often highly visual and concrete learners; pictures have a way of slowing language down and making it more concrete. I use pictures in a wide variety of ways, but today I want to share with you how I use pictures to facilitate two-word phrases with children who are just learning to use language creatively.

Most children with autism use echolalic speech. We think that this is because their brains process information as whole chunks—something we call being a gestalt learner. As a result, many of the children I work with have learned whole phrases that they use without actually understanding that each of the words in the phrase has individual meaning. For example, I’ll often see young children with autism say, “do you want to swing?” when they actually mean “I want to swing.” They do this because this is what they’ve heard asked of them when they were standing in front of a swing that they wanted to swing on. Not understanding that each word has specific individual meaning, they just repeat the whole phrase they heard in an attempt to communicate what they want.

One of my strongest beliefs as a speech-language therapist is that we need to teach children with autism that they can create meaning through putting words into a wide variety of short sentences. This is the generative aspect of language that makes it so that we can all create sentences we have never heard before, and it’s an essential aspect of language development. Without it, children are left to memorize sentences for specific situations and this highly limits their language skills.

As a speech-language therapist, I will use pictures to show relationships between words in phrases so that children can actually see how changing words changes meaning. The actual pictures and words I use with a child vary depending on that child and his interests, but the general process I use goes a little something like this:

First, I find a situation where a child needs to create specific two-word phrases to communicate his specific wants. I look for a situation that is highly motivating for a child, one in which each specific phrase would be important to that child. Take, for example, a child who *loves* to play with a ball and hammer toy. His ball and hammer toy has a green ball, a red ball, and blue ball, and a yellow one and he knows which ball he wants. Given this situation I would:

• Make a picture to represent “ball” as well as pictures to represent each of the colors.
• Place a Velcro strip on the front of a binder, and put Velcro on the back of all the pictures as well.
• Get out the ball and hammer toy and place it on the floor next to the pictures.
• Hold up the balls and allow the child to reach for one so I know which one he wants.
• Quick create the phrase on the Velcro strip that matches the ball he wants. Say, for example, he wants the blue ball.
• Point to each picture as I say the word in the phrase (“blue ball”).
• Have the child imitate me.
• Give him the blue ball.
• Repeat the process, exchanging the color word on the velcro strip to represent the color ball the child wants.
• As quickly as I can, I back off of prompting him and let him create the sentences on his own.
• And, as quickly as I can, I get rid of the pictures and let him just use his verbal words.

The ball activity is just one of hundreds of activities where something like this would work. You might use this strategy to teach your child to create the phrase “eat + (food item)” or “watch + (movie)” or “play + (name of computer game)” or “go (location).” The key lies in finding an activity that allows you to teach your child that he need t o mix and match words together to create his own sentences that have meaning to him. Once he understands the power of creative language, he’s well on his way to being an advanced communicator.

Thanks to Becca for this valuable information, to read more great articles on getting communication going check out Child Talk!

I was reading blogs and twitter etc one day and someone who has a son with autism mentioned that their son used whole packs of copy paper in no time. I can’t recall where I read it but it really made me laugh because that is one of those things that I forget that it isn’t normal! Adrian uses whole packs of copy paper and packs of pens like it’s nothing. I recycle but I still cringe at the thought of all that paper being used and Adrian will want to use a piece of paper and only write “Adrian Goes Camping” or “THX” on it and then he wants a new piece. I encourage him to use the whole paper, both sides.

I buy loads of Magna Doodles and white boards which do last for a time but Magna Doodles break after a little while and white board markers dry out. When I was shopping for Adrian’s birthday in March I came across a white board and white board crayons by Crayola. I thought “this is perfect!” Well he did use them for a few days and then he wanted to go back to pen and paper.

Adrian drew a picture the other day that really made me smile.

Adrian informed us that it says “Adrian Goes Camping” there at the top. I thought the radio with the little music note coming out was funny and the expressions on the boys faces are hilarious. These are two boys from school according to Adrian. I think the one in the middle is Adrian.

So even if I have to cringe about paper usage, this is a really great way for Adrian to communicate with us and he really enjoys drawing, a lot!

I got the chance to call Adrian’s teacher today and we talked quite a while.

First I asked her if she got my message about the vest. She had and explained that they had tried a weighted vest last year, I hadn’t known about this. Anyway, when they tried it last year he would cry and say “I’m stuck! Get me out of this thing!” so I guess the weighted vest is not something he cared for although they have one for classroom use that we can try again if we decide to.

I asked how Adrian’s day was yesterday and today. He did have one time out yesterday and one today but it was not for being aggressive with his teachers so I’m very happy about that. Adrian’s recesses have been much better. They’re rewarding him with ice cream when he comes in properly and it seems to be doing the trick. She said that she is seeing improvements with what they’ve been doing and she sounded really positive about everything today and commented how Adrian’s communication has been unbelievable, I concur with that because he’s been talking a lot at home. She said he’s even talking with other students in the class. When I saw Adrian after school he ran up to me and said “Mom! I was good at school!” so I think he’s proud of himself and knows what he is suppose to do.

I have discussed something else I thought of last night with his teacher too. I’ve been thinking about ways that he could express that he’s feeling angry or frustrated without physical aggression and I thought maybe these emotion cards could really help him so I’m going to be a set for his classroom and a set for home. Then maybe he won’t feel like hitting is the only way to get across his emotions. I’m not sure if he’ll use the cards but I really think it’s worth a try. I do really believe he is testing his limits and this is not a sensory issue. That is how his teacher feels too, we could be wrong but time will tell

I’m feeling really good after talking with his teacher today and I’m just hoping the behavior gets better and better.

Nevaeh loves to talk. She talks almost constantly when we drive in the car. Yesterday on the way home from her school I was listening to her chatter. For some reason she started talking about teenagers, I have no idea where it came from but this is what she said:

“There are good teenagers and there are bad teenagers. Good kids like me turn into good teenagers, and bad kids turn into bad teenagers. Sometimes a bad teenager can make a change and be a good teenager though”

Then she went on to tell about a sand castle she built at school and how it was her friend.

Yep, four year olds are pretty cool. There is something about having a child who struggles desperately with communication that really can make you appreciate the conversations you have with all your kids.

I don’t think I ever posted about Adrian’s day yesterday, it was not a good day. He bit a teacher again and more of the same spitting, kicking, hitting, etc. I’m going to ask the teacher about the weighted vest this week and see if we can get our hands on one to try. Meanwhile, if he’s bad at school then he’s grounded from the computer at home, so that’s the deal. I’m hoping today will be better.