J. Lorraine Martin cheeselesspizza.blogspot.com “Your son has pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified.” That’s a mouthful to say, let alone hear. It was explained as a type of autism. That was 16 years ago. I did not have the Internet at home. There was no Google for further research. Dustin Hoffman had provided my only experience of autism in the movie, Rainman. Looking back, the declaration–the actual diagnosing words from a stranger, a neurologist, is fuzzy. What did those letters, PDD-NOS, mean? Could a socially constructed diagnosis tell me who my son would become? When I got home from that appointment, teary-eyed and uncertain, I looked at my son with his large brown eyes, head of blondish-brown ringlets, and cherub face. We had already begun to find our rhythm together. In our first year together, I intuitively discovered that if I laid him on the floor, and placed my head…
Tag: milestones
Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com I get a note each afternoon from my son’s teacher. She emails me and let’s me know what Jack did that day, any struggles he had, and provides information about what’s happening in the classroom, and around the school. It’s efficient, an easy way for me to catch up on what he’s doing in school, and a great way for each side of the equation to have context for conversation with Jack. When we go out to dinner at Jack’s favorite restaurant, I write his teacher, then she and the aides can ask him questions about what he did the night before. It’s also great that the email goes to both my husband and me. So many times in the past I would read Jack’s little school journal, or talk to the teacher when I picked up Jack from school, and that information would never make…
Christa Dahlstrom http://hyperlexicon.blogspot.com/ Today you are seven years old. One of the big kids now. But you’re far from turning jaded or sullen. Not you. Your primary mode of transport is skipping. You sing your heart out, just for your own entertainment, without a drop of self-consciousness. You are almost always in the midst of improvising an action adventure movie or a comedy skit. “This is the part where we’re running away and the cave is collapsing and there’s going to be an avalanche. Ready? Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!” “Mommy, I’ll take a drink and then you tell me something surprising and then I’ll spit it out. Okay! Go!” Occasionally, when you can’t find the words for something, you come up with your own, infinitely more interesting, way to say it. “Do you want to know why I didn’t finish my breakfast? My food microbes are not at 100 percent.” ______ You know…