Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com www.canisitwithyou.org www.blogher.com/blog/shannon-des-roches-rosa There are so many factors that can influence or illustrate how our children with autism are wearing their own skin, including but not limited to: health, toileting, aggressive and/or self-injurious behaviors, sleep patterns, medications, language usage, diet, and school performance. We’ve used a Google spreadsheet to successfully track important factors for my son Leo for the past several years. A daily record of Leo’s important variables helps track and explain underlying patterns if and when things go awry — or go well. Because we keep Leo’s record online as a Google docs spreadsheet, it can be shared with his entire school and home program team, as well as with interested family and friends. Once a behavioral record has been set up, it takes only a few minutes each day to fill it out. An online behavioral record spreadsheet has been an invaluable tool…
Tag: Shannon Des Roches Rosa
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com www.canisitwithyou.org www.blogher.com/blog/shannon-des-roches-rosa Consider the same day, the same circumstances, the same children, the same parent – but filtered through two different attitudes: Leo and I had the worst day ever. Leo and I had the best day ever! Why does Leo always wake up so early? His sisters sleep until we shriek at them to get up, like self-respecting children should. I’m so irritated that he’s sometimes wet in the mornings. He’s never going to be fully self-sufficient. Leo got up at 6:30, but that’s certainly better than yesterday’s 6:00, and then it was his dad’s turn to attend to our early riser. And how amazing that Leo now spontaneously asks to go to the bathroom when he gets up, and is frequently dry. If you’d told me three years ago how well he’d be doing with his self-care at age eight, I wouldn’t have…
We are adamant about taking our autistic son on as many outings as we can, to stores, movies, restaurants, parks, and other destinations. We want him to be a dude-about-town so he gets used to being part of our community, and our community gets used to him.
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com www.canisitwithyou.org www.blogher.com/blog/shannon-des-roches-rosa A child’s autism diagnosis can mess with parents’ heads. Media portrayals of children with autism and their adult spectrum-mates dwell almost exclusively on negatives and challenges, so when a parent is told that their child is autistic, they are usually incredibly upset. It doesn’t help when doctors lack the bedside manner to soften the emotional impact of their diagnoses, or have no information about contemporary autism therapies and resources. When that happens, parents are both freaked out and flapping in the wind. Their child’s doctor was supposed to give them answers and guidance, but instead upended their lives, then shoved them out the door. No one can explain why they have a child with autism, and they know nothing about autism. They are emotionally reeling, angry with the medical establishment, and hungry for any information that will help their child. Most parents start…