Joy's Autism Blog

I talked with Dave and Heather on the All About Autism Podcast. I just talk a little bit about Adrian, autism, and some of our experiences: All About Autism Podcast

I have a few links I wanted to share that I’ve been emailed about this week.

This first link is about a young man who has Aspergers Syndrome, Zach Henry. He talks about some of his challenges and his family talks about some of their challenges and how they were able find joy in his goals for his future. So here is the link to that short 5 minute video.

Next I have a link from a young man who has Aspergers/PDD-NOS, his name is Scott Lentine and if his story doesn’t encourage you and uplift you about your child with Aspergers/PDD-NOS, nothing will. He’s a graduate of Merrimack College magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Religious Studies with a Biology minor.He is currently an
office intern at the Arc of Massachusetts in Waltham, where he tries to persuade lawmakers to pass key disability resources legislation to improve the lives of people with developmental disabilities. He’s a poet and a blogger so go check out his blog here!

Here is one of Scott’s poems for you to enjoy:

The Ode to the Autistic Man

Try to understand the challenges that I face

I would like to be accepted as a human in all places

Where I will end up in life I don’t know

But I hope to be successful wherever I go

I would like to expand my social skills in life

Making new friends would be very nice

Stand proud for the autistic man

For he will find a new fan

I hope to overcome the odds I face today

Increased acceptance will lead me to a brighter day

By the age of 20, I will have made tremendous strides

I know in the future, life will continue to be an interesting ride

I have made new friends by the year

I will be given tremendous respect by my family and peers

I hope to get noted for bringing the issue of autism to the common man

So that autistic people can be accepted in this great land

Stand proud for the autistic man

For he will find a new fan

I hope to overcome the odds I face today

Increased acceptance will lead me to a brighter day

And lastly I received an email from an autism podcast. I hadn’t heard of them before and I was excited to listen to them. The podcast is called All About Autism Podcast and you can listen here, the hosts are husband and wife and they are fun to listen to. You can also find them on twitter, so definitely check them out.

First the shameful part. I haven’t found a new dentist since we moved to our new state. I “meant” to do it all this summer but morning sickness, exhaustion, and crazy schedules overtook and I didn’t get around to it. The plan was to start scheduling appointments now because I’m feeling better.

On Saturday Adrian came up to me and asked me to pull his tooth out. The problem? He was asking me to pull out a permanent tooth. Upon closer examination I spotted another permanent tooth coming in almost directly on top of the other permanent tooth. Sadly both of the teeth are almost completely sideways. His teeth are so crowded and just…well a mess frankly, turned every which way. They’re clean of course and he’s never had a cavity but they’re just extremely crowded and crooked.

So I’m sure this tooth coming in is causing him some discomfort so I had to find a dentist ASAP.

I did a lot of searching on line for dentists trying to figure out who would be special needs friendly. I decided to go with a pediatric dentist and I got them called this morning. I asked her if the dentist is comfortable and/or experienced in working on a child who has autism and she said “Oh yeah, it’ll be fine” So that really put me at ease.

Autism just puts on an extra nice layer of anxiety and worry when you’re trying to find new medical professionals.

So Wednesday it’s off to the dentist to figure out what needs to be done with this teeth situation. Prayers for a smooth appointment and not too much pain for my boy would be greatly appreciated.

I haven’t been responding to much blog wise and I have a lot of stuff to take care of (including shipping off the winners of my last book giveaway!) but it has been a crazy couple of weeks.

My husband had a car accident, everyone is ok. Nevaeh was the only one with him. Our only transportation was totaled. I was just thankful that nobody was hurt but there were some major things to plan and figure out since we have to have a car to get around. Well we got a vehicle last week and now all that’s left is to register and title and all that fun stuff. Hooray for waiting at the DMV right?

My Crunchmaster Gluten Free Crackers Giveaway ends today and I had 3 entries. I used RaffleCopter for the first time for that giveaway and I thought that was pretty cool. RaffleCopter lets you click “choose a winner” and it just randomly picks a winner. And the winner was the first comment which was Jordan!

Family and Autism-The Rollercoaster Journey of Raising Children with Autism gave me an autism blog shout out today. I’m humbled that she chose my blog to share on her first of many Autism Blog Shout Outs. All links relating to my blog or my featured posts on other blogs can also be found on my Contact Me page.

This book, A Full Life with Autism is written by Chantal Sicile-Kira and her son Jeremy Sicile-Kira. The very first book I read about autism is written by Chantal Sicile-Kira. Back when I knew pretty much nothing about autism I headed into Barnes and Noble in search of a book about autism. I thumbed through every book they had about autism and I ended up with her book simply titled Autism Spectrum Disorders. It really helped me in the beginning to figure out exactly what I was dealing with so when I was contacted to read Chantal’s new book called A Full Life with Autism I jumped at the chance.

How many times have we all heard that there is too little focus on adults with autism and the transition from a child with autism to an adult with autism and what we as parents are supposed to do to help our adult children make a smooth (well as smooth as possible) transition into adulthood? You hear it so much because it’s true. I didn’t know where to start as far as preparing Adrian for adulthood. This book is amazing in outlining resources and strategies for preparing your child with autism to become a happy and fulfilled adult.

This book has not only advice from Chantal who’s son Jeremy has autism and mostly communicates through his ipad but it also has invaluable advice from Jeremy himself. I love that Jeremy has the ability to communicate his advice and ideas about autism and how to help people with autism become everything they dream to become.

I’m thankful that I read this now when he’s at 8 years old so I can guide him in the right direction young because I know I personally baby Adrian at times and I cannot do that if I expect him to become a functioning independent adult someday. Reading and re-reading this book are going to help me help him now and in the future.

As you can tell I highly recommend this book and I’m thrilled to be able to give away two copies of this book to two readers. I’m keeping it very simple, leave me a comment on this post and you are in the drawing to win. Continental United States only please. I would like to keep this giveaway open through the rest of April so hopefully anyone who wants in the drawing will get a chance to comment and get their name in there. In exchange for this review I was given a copy of the book for myself but all the opinions above are my own.

You also have a couple more days to enter my other giveaway so click here for details.

These are the movies that have characters with autism in them or are documentaries about autism. These are only the movies that are available on Netflix Instant Watch. I’ve added what I thought of the ones I’ve had time to watch and will edit this post as I watch more of them.

Documentaries:

Loving Lampposts-I did a giveaway of this movie last year and it’s a really good documentary. It shows how unique people with autism are and interviews lots of adults with autism. I really enjoyed this one.

Frontline: The Vaccine War-This one has Jenny McCarthy and most people in the autism community have strong opinions one way or the other as far as vaccinations go. This movie has the potential to have you steaming mad or nodding in agreement depending on your vaccine stance.

Her Name is Sabine

Unforgotten:Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook This is a pretty horrifying documentary about how some people with special needs were treated at the institution of Willowbrook.

Fiction:

Ben X

Chocolate

Fly Away is about a young woman with autism and the struggles that she encounters and the struggles that her mom encounters as she grows up into adulthood. I liked this movie, I thought it was well done. Adrian and Sanura sat and watched the whole thing with me.

The Horse Boy

A Child is Waiting

Imagination

If you see any I missed message me and I’ll add them.

Here is a list of posts from my blog from last April that I thought might be useful to someone:

Guest Post:Baby Sign Language-Good for Child, Good for Family

PBS Autism Now-All Six Parts of the Series

Guest Post: Pictures and Autism: Using Pictures to Teach Creative Language

Autism Charities

Links to Share Including All the Articles from Goody Blog Voice of Autism

Also don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you’d like to have a chance at winning a copy of The Golden Hat:Talking Back to Autism. There will be 2 given away and you have until April 14.

My blog was listed on Healthism Blog’s list of Most Inspiring Blogs from Parents of Children with Autism, I’m honored to be part of the list so check out the other blogs on that list.

And just to update on Adrian’s leg, the limp seems to be gone so hopefully whatever it was is all healed up!

If you haven’t heard of the book The Golden Hat yet this video is a good place to start:

When I was first contacted to review this book I wasn’t sure if I wanted to and I’ll tell you why. I’m not big on celebrity. Celebrities do not impress me and I wasn’t interested in having a book of celebrity pictures. I went ahead with it because I watched the video above and it made me realize that I shouldn’t write someone off just because they are a celebrity. While I wouldn’t care if it’s Kate Winslet or Joe Shmoe doing this book, it’s really a great book.

This book starts by telling you about the special relationship that Kate developed with Margret Ericsdottir and her son who has nonverbal autism Keli Thorsteinsson. Margret and Keli are from the documentary A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism. You get to peak inside all the email commentary shared between Margret and Kate and it’s really touching as you see Margret celebrate her son’s accomplishments with Kate and you get to see the whole idea behind The Golden Hat Foundation and this book come to fruition.

Next is my very favorite part of the book and it’s a portion entitled “First Words” and it shares portraits of individuals with nonverbal autism in the famous hat of course and some of the first words they communicated. These were the first words they were able to communicate after years of silence through various communication methods. I can’t even describe how touching these pages were to me. I tear up just thinking about them.

After that you see portraits of the celebrities sporting the hat and sharing a quote for their page of the book.

And in the last pages of the book you’ll find poetry written by Keli. He uses a letter board to communicate and is a true poet.

You’ll want to read this book. It’s a good one.

I am giving away two copies to two lucky winners in the continental United States. To enter into my drawing please leave a comment on this post and make sure you leave behind a way to contact you either via email or facebook. This giveaway will run until April 14 and on April 15 I will randomly draw 2 winners. In exchange for writing this review I have received a free copy of the book but the above opinions are all my own.

There are a few phrases that Adrian gets stuck on and he’ll say them several times a day. I’m not complaining, I love listening to whatever he has to say to me!

Lately it’s been “Tell me a secret!” and then I’m supposed to make this “pst pst pst” sound in his ear. We do that at least 5 times a day.

The other thing that he says often is “Are you happy?” Anytime I get upset with him about something like when he was in a very bad mood one morning and was refusing to get on the school bus. I sternly told him that he needed to get on the bus and he says “Are you happy?” or any time we say anything sternly he will go through the emotions “Are you happy?, Are you sad?, Are you mad?” That one he has taught to Lincoln and both Glen and I laughed, and looked at each other, and wailed a dramatic “Noooooo!”

Speaking of Mr. Lincoln…he is talking so much better. It’s really amazing how far he’s come. I’ve said it too many times but Lincoln’s development mirrors Sanura’s in so many ways. Sanura turned out ok with no intervention so the fact that Lincoln’s development looks like her’s and he’s getting intervention really puts me at ease.

I checked out a book from the library about manners and Sanura and I are reading it together during our homeschooling hours. Today we talked about introducing yourself to others, introducing your friends to each other, and shaking hands properly. I’m so glad I have opportunity to work with her on things like this. We had some good laughs when I made her pretend that we were strangers and introduce herself to me. She’s a really fun kid.

So far there are only 2 entries to win the one year membership to LessonPix so you have a good chance of winning so head over to that post and leave a comment if you want in on that one.

I was contacted by the writer of the blog Autism Light and I am being featured on the blog today. This website is amazing and I hadn’t heard of it before so I wanted to share with my readers what it’s all about.

This website features diverse heroes in and for the autism community. It’s a positive blog that can really encourage those of us who may need an uplifting read. Autism light has featured 168 people so far including parents who are raising and advocating for their children with autism, doctors who are helping people in the autism community through research and hard work, and lots of wonderful people who are doing great things who happen to have autism as well.

I’m humbled to be a part of Autism Light and I look forward to seeing what else Autism Light has to share in the future. You can check out Autism Light on their website, twitter, and facebook and for future reference Autism Light will be linked on the right hand side of my blog under the heading Autism Blogs.

Fire prevention week was last week and I am doing a fire safety unit with the girls during our homeschooling day. I realized in the process that I had not really talked with Adrian about fire prevention and safety very much. I’m not sure if he will get it but I definitely want to put in the effort.

I looked up autism and fire safety and sure enough there was a nice article here that I really wanted to pass along.

I just wanted to encourage everyone to check your smoke alarms and do practice fire drills with your kids with autism especially so they know what to expect if an emergency like that happens in your home.