Saturday, January 27, 2007

Autism Conversation

coworker sent me this from metafind:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/58058

some very interesting conversation in there. I haven't yet checked out the info.

on communication/language - quite frequently, in Tristan's utterances,
there are parts of words in there. I'm sure he says a lot more that is
English than I realize, I just can't understand it. The idea of the
utterances being a form of communication is interesting.

on facilitated communication and it's debunking. I'm quite a skeptic.
but some of the holding tristan's hand in a pointing position, and
letting him point, well I've tried it, and when he cooperates, it's
him pointing. more often he just takes my hand and puts in on there.
His old language therapist, who was also a skeptic on faciliitated
communication was doing that with him when she realized it was
facilitated communication. I'm pretty sure that in some cases it works
but in other cases you are getting more speech from the facilitator
than the individual.

on what little I've read of autistics and their perspectives. For some
of the lower functioning autistics that have achieved speech - it does
seem there experiences very heavily weigh in on their speech. I've
heard the opinions that it's a different way of doing things, and
should be respected. and then there's the girl in CNN's Autism is a
World that refers to her behaviors as "killer autism behaviors." I'll
have to admit I found the phrase somewhat offensive. I'm sure there's
also those that were heavily affected and rebelled against the
opinions of those in our lives. We neurotypicals are the same, in that
respect. Our environment can have a heavy effect on our opinions,
though it doesn't always. I will have to admit that it seems far
easier for a high functioning person to say "accept us as we are" than
to say that in reference to someone who is very low functioning.

on autistics communicating with eachother - I believe it. There's this
little girl - that does have speech in Tristan's class. When I've
brought him to school late, she's run to him and hugged him, and let
him go when he wanted to be let go (I can tell he wanted to be let go
because of how he was trying to move out of her arms - she instantly
released him, most children, I think there would have been a delay).
Most recently she pointed at him and said There's Tristan! and ran to
him and hugged him. When he got on the bus today (well yesterday now,
I'm finishing up this post), instead of going on his usual route to
his seat, he walked straight over to her and hugged her. I was
floored. As far as I could tell, he does not acknowledge other
children. Sometimes he acknowledges his older sister but then she
likes playing mommy and it's probably because he views her as a sort
of pseudo parent - she helps us with him by getting him things and
she'll put up with him climing over her or curling up next to her. The
only child I've seen him interact with without an initial interaction
is his baby sister, but then they are in many ways on the same level
developmentally. makes me wonder about all the comments relating
behaviors to those of pre-language children. maybe there is some level
of communication going on btw him and his sister that I don't
understand.

I also agree that more often the problem is we don't understand them
than that they don't understand us. I'm pretty sure Tristan
understands when he's paying attention. Yesterday (now two days ago)
when I picked him up from daycare, he laid on the floor after I got
his coat on, looking back and forth between me and the girl that takes
care of him at daycare. I bent down and held out my hand, and he
continued to look at me. While making eye contact, I said, I'll pick
you up if you stand up, but I'm not picking you up from a laying down
position. As soon as I said that he got right up and held his arms up
to be picked up. Now that could have been a delayed response to me
holding my hand out (he doesn't always take my hand when I do that
sometimes he just gets up) but I'm pretty sure it was in response to
my words. Of course, maybe he just picked out the term "pick you up"
and figured it out.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Autism Epidemic

>From Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2157496/

the article discusses (and dismisses) the idea of an Autism Epidemic
and discusses the book, Unstrange Minds.

A quote from the article:
"I am incredibly disciplined in the diagnostic classifications in my
research," Judy Rapoport, a senior child psychiatrist at the National
Institutes of Health, tells Grinker, "but in my private practice, I'll
call a kid a zebra if it will get him the educational services I think
he needs."

The article basically points out that chances are, the rates of Autism
aren't really growing as much as they seem to be. Autism wasn't even a
term until the 40s. According to the the article, "Psychiatrists made
no real effort to systematically diagnose childhood mental illness,
Grinker writes, until 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association
published the third edition of its diagnostic manual."

Autism isn't like a newly discovered disease that is caused by a virus
that wasn't in our country before it was diagnosed, but the media sure
treats it like it is.

And I'm not a parent of a high functioning child, I'm the parent of a
low functioning child. It would be nice to think that there could be a
cause that can be reversed and prevented but I just don't swallow it.
It's not realistic. I could agree that environmental causes could be
factors that may increase the likelyhood of occurrence when there is
already a genetic predisposition. I also agree that environmental
factors could make symptoms worse. While I don't prescribe to some of
the diet solutions, and I don't really feel they would help my son (we
significantly reduced dairy intake, for example, with no noticeable
improvement, though schooling has left a noticeable improvement,
though since he doesn't need 6 cups of milk a day, we haven't
increased the dairy, since he's just as happy with water, most of the
time), I can see where they'd be helpful to someone that's sensitive.
I've also noticed Tristan seems better with whole wheat products. They
still have gluten in them, but they're healthier, and therefore he
feels better.

Now that I've gone off on a tangent, back to the article. It closes
with the following:
There's one more thing to be said for the cries of "epidemic"—they get
the research money flowing.

I have to agree with that notion. I'm just concerned that the cries of
epidemic are steering research money in the wrong direction.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

getting hugs

dropped tristan off at school late on Friday - this is his new school,
where all of the kids are autistic.

As soon as he entered the classroom a girl, who was taller (and
probably a bit older - it's a prek-2nd grade classroom) immediately
hugged him (or maybe she was trying to keep him coralled) as soon as
he indicated he wanted out of the hug, she let go.

I found this interesting, as generally I don't see this sort of direct
interaction in him, except w/ adults.

It's encouraging.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

cake

Yesterday or the day before. I'm in bed w/ the baby, we're both sick.

Tristan comes in the room.

I shout to my husband, "Tristan wants some chocolate cake!"

He replies, "How do you know?"

"Because he's giving it to me!"

(cake's in a container so it wasn't messy until after his dad fed it to him)