Alec Speaks… Autism as some of us know, is a far complex disorder that continues to baffle doctors, scientists, and researchers till this day. For the most part, we (the autism community) have acknowledged a basic set of traits found in autism that we can associate with deficits in neurological response, sensory processing, and ...
We all wonder at times if we are doing enough for our child. Have we scheduled enough OT or Speech Therapy sessions? Should we have shoe-horned in some at-home ABA sessions after school? What about that music therapy I’ve heard about? Horse therapy? Should we look into a service dog? Biomedical treatments, special diets, feeding ...
“What Do You Say?” A friend of mine recently announced that he and his wife were expecting their first child. He explained that his wife was “worried sick” about the prospects of Autism. Another friend recently confided in me that he and his wife were beginning to “have concerns” that there might be issues with ...
I won’t… demand perfection. I will… demand your best effort. I won’t… excuse your misbehavior. I will… defend and advocate for you until my last breath. I won’t… abandon or ignore you in rough times. I will… give you room to succeed or fail on your own. I won’t… fight every battle for you. I ...
365 days ago I wrote my first blog post about my family’s journey with Autism. Throughout this year I have done a lot of soul searching. I have also begun to ask myself, “What if my son reads these things some day?” What message am I sending to my adult son who one day delves ...
http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/30/autisms-invisible-victims-the-siblings/ Dear Time, Look, I don’t want to be the word police. I think there is too much of that going around these days. But language does matter. The words we choose to describe our kids set a tone. Regardless of how you feel about the causes of Autism, labeling them and their siblings “victims” ...
Some have asked… others have whispered to friends and family (they think I don’t know)… Why do I do this? Why do I choose to open my life to the public so willfully and… so freaking much? The answers change depending on the day: Sometimes I just need to vent. I’m a very introverted person ...
Sometimes I fantasize about moving away with my family to a cabin in the mountains of Montana. I drift off and dream about unplugging my son from the daily pressures of society and artificial milestones and expectations that we all place on him. I ponder how nice it would be to just live on a ...
‘Twas the night before Christmas and in the living room A tired, haggard Mom swept with a broom. Another shattered ornament tossed in the air by a naughty little eight-year-old with candy cane in his hair. He doesn’t mean to be bad or make his mom cry. He just is impulsive and thought it could ...
We were in the middle of one of those grinding it out periods. Eric was doing OK… not much new to report. School had just started and he transitioned back into the groove pretty well. My daughter came down with a mild eye infection that made her eyes slightly swollen and red. The doctor prescribed ...
