Excuse Me –That’s My Son You’re Talking About

Chris R. autismspoke.blogspot.com I can see it very clearly. I’m pushing a shopping cart through a store. In the cart rides Matthew, my four year old son with autism. He’s making the sounds he makes… Sometimes when he’s happy, the sounds he makes are loud. You might say they are screams, but happy screams. When he is happy and loud, we do what we can to keep him somewhere below an F-16 on full afterburner. It’s not that I’m worried he’ll ruin ten seconds of someone’s shopping trip … it’s that I worry what I’ll do if someone says anything cross, or gives me a look that can’t be taken in any other way. You see, I’m always in full-blown autism dad alert mode … just waiting for some parent with “perfect” kids to trip on the wire and have the autism awareness grenade that is me explode and rip…

Early Ignorance

Karen Velez solodialogue.wordpress.com My son was diagnosed with autism in April of 2010.  He was almost four years old when we received this news.  It was not the shocking blow that I’ve heard other parents describe.  For me, that blow came at Christmas 2009. To me, my son was always a “sensitive” child.  I never baby sat and, literally, had no experience with children.  I knew no one with autism.  I knew no one with children with autism.  I was, truly, the epitome of autism ignorance. For the first three (nearly four) years of my son’s life, I had rearranged my own. Previously a trial lawyer working 45-60 hours a week, I cut back my hours to 9-12 hours a week. I thought this was “normal” for new mothers. My son was obsessed with space. I bought every book on the planets. I ritualistically pointed to Mercury, Venus, Earth…. at…

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PPD-NOS and DSM5

Jon Brock www.crackingtheenigma.blogspot.com/ Some cases of autism are obvious. Anyone who knew anything about autism would agree that the child or adult in question was autistic. Other cases are less clear cut. Indeed, the term “autism spectrum” implies the existence of a continuum that fades gradually into what we think of as the “normal” population. Somewhere a line has to be drawn and where exactly we choose to draw that line defines what we mean by autism. It determines who is eligible to take part in autism-related research and this in turn influences the development of theories of autism. Eventually, this feeds back to our evolving definitions and cut-offs for autism. Most importantly when it comes to immediate real-world consequences, the diagnostic boundaries specify who is labeled “autistic” and, ultimately, who gains access to interventions and support. In the absence of reliable biological markers or break points in the continuum, diagnoses…

Autism Spectrum Disorders and Physical Therapy: The Motor Connection

Dr. Joni Redlich, DPT www.kidpt.com Movement is an integral part of our social, emotional, and physical lives. A 4-month old excitedly kicks her arms and legs in response to the funny face dad makes, so he does it again. An 8-month old will crawl to retrieve her favorite rattle, shake it to hear the sound it makes, and then look at mom to share the experience with her. An 18 month-old takes moms hand, walks her to the kitchen, and says “juice” while pointing to the refrigerator. As a child grows, the length and complexity of movement sequences become more sophisticated. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often cannot coordinate the myriad of movements needed to complete these interactions. Although children with ASD are often not diagnosed until they are far out of infancy, studies of home videos of children later diagnosed with ASD showed motor differences that had been…

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Autistics Speaking Day 2011

Liz Ditz www.ThinkingAutismGuide.com The first-ever Autistics Speaking Day was in 2010, and was organized by Corina Lynn Becker, assisted by Kathryn Bjørnstad. The stimulus was a fundraising proposal by an Australian public-relations organization asking neurotypicals to refrain from using social media for one day, which they called “Communication Shutdown”, and which they claimed would “encourage empathy for people with autism who find social communication a challenge. Corina was appalled. As she wrote on her blog, in the post Real Communication Shutdown ….this is supposed to help simulate the communication difficulties that Autistic people face. I’m sorry, but no. Just no. Through October 2010, Corina continued to write and tweet about her opposition to “Communication Shutdown”, and Autistics Speaking Day was born — and went viral, with over a hundred posts from autistics and autistic allies, and uncounted tweets with the hashtag #ASDay. In September 2011, Corina published The Beginnings of…

Autism Families: Seeking Support Is A Sign Of Family Health

Laura Shumaker www.laurashumaker.com www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/lshumaker/index I was a part time pharmaceutical rep with a one and a half year old at home the first time I got really sick, sicker than I had ever been. I remember walking up a flight of stairs carrying my detail bag full of Advil and The Today Sponge (yes, we are talking 1989) and feeling so weak that I had to sit down until I felt strong enough to go down the stairs in search of a pay phone so I could call my husband. “I think I need to go to the emergency room,” I told him. I was diagnosed with a meningeal infection and was given IV antibiotics. It took me weeks to completely recover. In a follow-up visit, I told my doctor: “This is so strange! I never get sick!” At that visit, I didn’t admit to him that I had been…

Listening Therapy

Kim Wombles kwomblescountering.blogspot.com www.science20.com/science_autism_spectrum_disorders Parents are always looking for new treatments to help their children with autism; it can be daunting to keep up with the multitude of new therapies constantly popping up on the internet, many with similar sounding names. There are several different “listening therapies” or auditory integrative training programs available online promising relief for autism symptoms. According to Sinha, Silove, Wheeler, and Williams (2006), “treatments to overcome variations in auditory sensitivity commonly encountered in people with autism have been developed and are collectively called auditory integration therapies. They include auditory integration training (AIT), the Tomatis method and Samonas sound therapy.” Listening (or sound) therapies fall within the category of auditory training programs. Database searches show no results for any scientific investigation on specific programs available online, such the Lollipop Listening Therapy, Tomatis, or EASe, and there is limited research into auditory integration training for reducing autistic behaviors…

Unfriendly Consequences: What Competition for Limited Resources Does to the Autism Community and Autism Families

Autism and Oughtisms Autism and Oughtisms What happens to a community of people facing the same challenges, forced to compete for limited resources (particularly government resources)? The effects I’ve seen at a local level – here in New Zealand – appear to be replicated overseas, according to what I’ve seen in debates and conflicts in the online communities. There are various government provided supports (in terms of finances and services) that require you to prove your child’s autism is more severe than other children’s autism. Sometimes this is done in direct competition; a specifically limited number of packages of assistance are made available within the country, to the point that if your child qualifies for the support, there is one less assistance package available for another family. Other types of support are available to every child on the spectrum, but the level of support you receive, or how long you…

Wrestling with Aspergers

Sunfell Light-Headed Thoughts I have Aspergers Syndrome. It is not a formal diagnosis — few psychologists will give an adult a formal diagnosis, I’ve discovered. It was not a diagnosis when I was young — I was intellectually brilliant, but also eccentric and odd. I would not look at people when they talked to me, or me to them. I had a ‘funny’ walk (which the military and martial arts repaired). I had a mind like a steel trap, read stacks of books, and was miles ahead of my classmates. My parents were urged to put me ahead a grade or two (they refused). I was told I had the highest “IQ” in the school, then scolded for being a ‘B’ student. But I was too socially awkward to be in any of the cliques, and was mercilessly bullied — so badly that I chose to go into the military…

IMFAR 2011: What Parents Expect For Their Autistic Children, High School and Beyond

As Peter Bell (Autism Speaks’ executive vice president for programs and services) reported at the Autism Speaks Blog, While IMFAR is first and foremost a scientific meeting, the meeting has developed into a healthy blend of science and stakeholder perspectives. John Elder Robison reported This year many scientists who have family members on the spectrum proudly wore stakeholder ribbons on their name tags One such scientist/presenter/stakeholder was Matthew J. Carey PhD, known to many as “Sullivan”, who blogs at LeftBrain/RightBrain. While Matt’s day-to-day research has to do with computer hardware, his avocation is writing about autism science. One area in which he excels is analyzing published papers and public datasets bearing on autism. For the 2011 IMFAR meeting, Matt submitted an abstract on the data presented by the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) The NHES surveys cover learning at all ages, from early childhood to school age through adulthood.…