Carly

I watched this 20/20 episode on Friday and couldn’t believe what I was seeing! This young girl Carly is severely autistic and somehow starts communicating through typing. The things she starts to reveil are AMAZING! PLEASE watch!

Warning; video may cause tearing up.

Autistic Teen Finds Inner Voice

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Small Victories

I thought I would post this little clip of the progress we are making with Jonas towards the list of stuff we are working on. If you missed it you can read about it here. This clip in particular is us working on the whole “first this then that concept.” It’s so weird, for some reason watching these videos sort of gives me a different perspective on everything. I think it just really helps me see that parenting Jonas isn’t all that different than parenting a “typical” toddler, same general concepts just a different approach. I am not saying that having a child with Autism is the same because it definitely isn’t, it’s just that parenting is making the difficult daily choice to be consistent and to be patient no matter if your child is brilliant or has special needs (or special talents as I like to call it). I never in a million years thought that it would require SO MUCH sacrifice but I also never thought in a million years that is would be as REWARDING! Ok I just got really sappy sorry about that On with the show:

more about “untitled“, posted with vodpod

 

Stuff we are working on.

I wanted to make a little list of the stuff we are working on in Jonas’ therapy. This is more for me because I think in a couple months it will help me gauge his progress. I know that he is learning more and more everyday but I think because I am with him everyday I start to doubt the amount of progress he is actually making.

1. Require him (using hand over hand) to use the sign for open whenever he wants to go out or use any door and when he wants his snack container opened.
2. Require him (also hand over hand) to point when he wants:  his sippy cup, to get on the swing at the park, or to have his toy containers opened (we keep his toys in clear bins separated by category: blocks, trucks, etc. to encourage him to communicate in order to get them) It started with just requiring eye contact now we are adding the pointing. This also means that once he his done I have to make sure the container is put up before moving on otherwise he will lose motivation to have them opened when he knows he can just play with something else. It’s ALL about MOTIVATION with toddlers!
3. Practice each PECS at least once a day. We are now up to 11 PECS!! Play-dough (of course), his toy piano, his ring stacker, bubbles (video of this coming soon), cookies, crackers, Maisy book, his globe toy, blocks, to watch Little Einstein, & popcorn. Some of these are done like play-dough in that he has to give you the card repeatedly during the activity others he only gives the card once and then gets the item such as the ring stacker or watching Einsteins.
4. Teaching him the concept of “first this, then that.” Jonas likes to eat fruit and yogurt but not so much the protein portion of his meal but I can’t tell him if you eat your chicken you’ll get some strawberries so we are starting to bring out the fruit when he is eating his meat and showing him that he can get it when he eats his fruit. Basically when he reaches for it we direct him to the meat and as soon (like immediately) as he eats the bite of meat he gets a bite of fruit. We will see how it goes!
5. And as for me I am trying to recognize other opportunities throughout the day to encourage him to communicate that I don’t have written down. It is so easy for me to go about my daily routine and completely miss perfectly good opportunities to have him point or make eye contact to get something he wants. I get so used to anticipating his needs but I really need to just stop that because it’s not going to help him in the long run!

That’s it for now hopefully my next report will be that he is pointing and signing without prompting and that I will have a whole new list of daily strategies to work on!

And just cause I can’t resist an opportunity to post a picture of Jonas, here he his doing his bubbles PECS.

I’m not good with titles.

Today we went for “THE” appointment to have Jonas evaluated for Autism. I have had mixed feeling about the whole thing because I knew that no matter what they say Jonas is still Jonas and his treatment plan would be the same the only real difference would be that he would qualify for more services which is a good thing. I was fully prepared for them to say that he was Autistic because I don’t know I just knew but when the psychiatrist actually said the words “your son has autism spectrum disorder” my stomach just dropped and I was unable to hold back the tears, for some reason it just made it so REAL. Like I said it doesn’t really change anything if anything it just makes Jonas that much more special to me but the reality of the road ahead is somewhat frightening and unknown but I know that God is in control and I don’t need to worry!  I know alot of you have been praying for our little guy so I hope that you will continue to because he truly has and continues to be making alot of progress.