Autism thread

For what it's worth, we've had incredible growth with a steady diet of sensory play and patient understanding.

My kids aren't broken. They just have a harder time with things than other kids might.

Thank you all for your impassioned responses. I had the same thoughts when I looked into it. I think its kind of foolish to think that a pill or liquid can "cure"mental behavior. We will continue with the fish oil and vitamins.

On a different note we are so happy that our son was accepted and able to get a spot in an early intervention classroom environment. So not only will he be getting 10 hours of ABA at home but also have another 10 in this classroom. It's only 8 kids and each child had a dedicated teacher. 1 hour of individual ABA and 1 hour of communal play time.

I'll take that over magic potion.

Ha! True, the $60 was pulled out of thin air, but in my experience seems to be the ballpark number these snake-oil salesmen target - just low enough to sucker you in, but still make plenty of bank.

See: Melaluca(sp?), Accai (Axxai something), or any number of pyramid marketing scheme.

My wife found this.

The linked article describes our experience exceptionally well. We've had almost the exact experience with my daughter, and very similar experiences with my son.

I encourage everyone to give it a read.

This is a bad reason to spend money, but I might buy this game based on that.

By the way, does anyone have a switch? My wife and my daughter have been bonding over Snipper Clips. It's a great way to encourage communication, and have fun doing it.

I had to do some paperwork for the military insurance we have, and part of that had to be completed by Tristan's special educator. I figured while I was there, I'd ask her how he was doing in class. They're learning letter sounds, but of course he's having a lot of trouble there because he knows... maybe two letters. Hard to learn sounds if you don't know that much. The other problem was with counting. They're learning to count by using their fingers. One, for Tristan, results in him flipping everyone off. Every time. She asked me to work on that, and it took everything in me to keep a straight (concerned) face.

I found this article interesting:
https://www.fastcodesign.com/3068958...

"The project, called Sensory[PLAYSCAPE], is an amorphous playscape constructed from 3D-knitted elastic textiles fabricated on a computer-controlled knitter and stretched on sinuous glass-fiber reinforced polymer rods. Ahlquist, who is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, led a cross-disciplinary group of researchers from the school's architecture, computer science, music, and integrative medicine departments (see a full list of project collaborators here) to develop the idea they call "sensorially responsive textile environments.""

I don't check in that often, but thought I'd chime in again on our experience with ABA/IBI. I know lots of people don't agree with it as a therapy, but all I can say is I think it did miracles for my son Owen. He turns 6 tomorrow, and he is doing unbelievably well in Senior Kindergarten.

The kid was non-verbal at 2 years old, and now he is reading and doing math at a grade 1 level better than most of the peers in his class. He has lots of friends who he loves to play with, he's a regular social butterfly. HIs writing needs some work, but he's definately got lax joints which we continue to work on. He is totally continent, but still has some accidents with his bowels. We aren't sure if it's a sensory thing, and he doesn't know he's going but every once in a while he messes his pants. He's able to go once we make him sit down, but it still happens once in a while.

I'm not sure if it was the therapy, or just us learning how to work with him. I don't want to give anyone false hope, as I know every kid is totally different. We were just super fortunate that it worked out so well for Owen.

Tempest let me know if you have any questions/concerns about the therapy and best of luck.

Interesting article on Alexithymia, which describes why non-neurotypical people have such a hard time processing emotions.

I'm pretty sure I have a combination of two of the variants described: the time-lag one and the physical/emotional one.

I often get overwhelmed by sensory stimuli, but until very recently I didn't connect the dots between that overwhelm and emotional outbursts. Some mornings I'm just mad at everything, only to find out that I feel instantly better if I change to a shirt with a different cut. Was the shirt making me mad, or was I mad and that made the shirt uncomfortable? I have no idea.

The thing is, I never can describe how I'm feeling in any given moment. Emotions are just these things that happen, and maybe I can figure out why later, if I can even remember.

My own deficits aside, this strikes me as a useful article for neurotypical people. I think those of us who arent NT would benefit greatly from a bit of understanding from the people who are supposed to be so great at empathy.

Link, DT?

Oops! I though I did.

Here it is!

Thanks!

I don't think I'm particularly on the spectrum, however I've definitely experienced #4, Temporathymia on a regular basis. Good to have a specific word for something I've just been calling slow emotions.

This seems like a good place to if Upside down frown. My wife heard this song and thought that it should be my personal anthem. (In a good way)

Frankly, that entire album is a love letter to non-neurotypicals, and it's a great companion album for Join Us, which is basically a bunch of commentary about Neurotypicals.

I was starting to wonder why I hadn't noticed the facial animations in Mass Effect Andromeda as being a problem. Almost literally everyone who mentions the game complains about it, but I wouldn't even know it was a problem but for other people telling me about it.

Then I remembered a study that was done recently (which I can't find in google) about how autistic adults watch movies. Basically, while neurotypical people watch faces, autistic people look at almost everything but faces. I wasn't actually looking at the faces during cutscenes. I was looking, for example, at the hands of characters that were clearly supposed to be holding weapons that didn't render,

I don't have a spectrum diagnosis, but my kids do and I've suspected that I knew where they "got it" from, since I recognize a lot of myself in them. It's just interesting to notice something like this, and how it influences the way I live life and play games.

Oh absolutely. This is something that's been studied over the past years. Here's just one systematic review: Seeing it differently: visual processing in autism (PubMed). Full article is behind a pay wall, but I might be able to get full access through our research lab. Anyhow, there are quite a few eye tracking studies out there, and it's definitely happening, although we aren't exactly sure how and why (social? physical?).

Now that you mention it, maybe that's why I'm not picking up on the animations as sharply as others have. I mean Addison is bad, but the others aren't *that* awful.

Just had one of those "I don't think I did a very good job of 'pretending to be human' moments" that has left me drained, head-in-my-hands, alone in my office.

Ugh.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that feels like I'm "pretending". Some days it's easier than others....

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Just had one of those "I don't think I did a very good job of 'pretending to be human' moments" that has left me drained, head-in-my-hands, alone in my office.

Ugh.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that feels like I'm "pretending". Some days it's easier than others....

Not alone.

If it's any consolation and in no way meant to be a minimization of your feelings but I am not on the spectrum and can assure you that I think feeling like that from time to time is not uncommon for everyone.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Just had one of those "I don't think I did a very good job of 'pretending to be human' moments" that has left me drained, head-in-my-hands, alone in my office.

Ugh.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that feels like I'm "pretending". Some days it's easier than others....

Not alone.

Totally not alone. I'm so glad I have my own office, there are days I close the door and pace or just cry it out.
**hug** Wink

(Hint, I'd also recommend this thread.)

Read this on my local newspaper's site about "Rapid Prompting Method" It gave this 19-year-old a way to speak his mind. A pretty amazing achievement.

http://www.silive.com/news/2017/05/a...

Watching this did make me get a bit emotional. I am so happy that this 19-year-old is finally able to communicate but it also makes me wonder if my own son will be at this far end of the spectrum when he is older and the many challenges all of that will bring.

So this happened, as it does all too often:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/o...

It just makes me want to cry. My son is non verbal, who's to say what would've happened to him in this situation...

That is unbelievable and breaks my heart. My son puts objects to his lips to stim all the time and this could easily have happened to him. Reading this article makes me so mad. I would have been nowhere near as calm as his sister was saying "I'm sorry" all the time.

What infuriates me more is that the officer continues to hold him down when it's obvious that he poses no threat.

I think the world in general needs to understand what autism is and how to approach it. My wife is a teacher, and now that we have a son who is autistic she can approach those kids in the correct manner and understand their behavior rather than thinking that he/she was misbehaving or causing a scene for fun. She has gotten calls from parents thanking her for understanding

This is one of the reasons we pulled our kids out of speech therapy. The teachers treated our kids like they were misbehaving brats who were "disrupting the other children" in the group.

The straw that broke my back on it was the gymnasium. The school we took them to had a gymnasium that both kids loved to play in, and the therapist kept promising they could play in it "if they were good" and finished their work, but they never seemed to accomplish enough to get the gym reward. My wife suggested that the kids would be more cooperative if they were given some time in the gym before therapy, so they could work some energy off, but the therapists refused to even entertain the idea on the basis that it would reward "bad behavior."

We took them out and started doing it ourselves, and they've made so much more progress with us than they ever did at the school.

My wife and I have been dealing with some questions of autism and since I know how awesome this community is despite seldom participating, I decided to take a look to see if a conversation has come up here. At the very least I figured someone would notice if I started a thread. Its a big community and certainly someone has some experience with autism. Wow. I highly underestimated the amount of discussion of autism on these forums. It really shouldn't surprise me though that this hobby would attract those with autism to it.

Anyways, I'm so happy to see so much love for the autistic community on here. I've only skimmed through some of this forum, but it seems like a good place to turn.

We don't have an autistic child like many of you on here seem to, but she has come to believe she may be on the spectrum. At first I doubted it, and thought she was just being obsessive (as she often is) and looking for an excuse to make herself feel better about her social awkwardness, introverted personality, and the self-conscious feelings that we all have (or at least I know I do as well.) But she has since convinced me after 1) revealing more details about herself that I hadn't--and in many cases couldn't have--known, such as truly how exhausting it is for her to be in social situations. 2) Going over various checklists for diagnosing autism in adult females, and 3) Sharing with me recent research and theories on autism in females.

She has let it go a little bit now as she has bigger and time sensitive fish to obsess over right now: we are looking to buy a house now, and are going on vacation to Japan in a couple weeks. These have sufficiently distracted her from trying to understand herself better for now.

Anyways, I am sure I will end up back here some more once we return from Japan. I will continue in the Autistic Adults forum, but as I wasn't sure how active that one was, I wanted to first join in on this one.

Welcome

I have both threads in my Favourites; I'll see a post in either one.

agentwred wrote:

My wife and I have been dealing with some questions of autism and since I know how awesome this community is despite seldom participating, I decided to take a look to see if a conversation has come up here. At the very least I figured someone would notice if I started a thread. Its a big community and certainly someone has some experience with autism. Wow. I highly underestimated the amount of discussion of autism on these forums. It really shouldn't surprise me though that this hobby would attract those with autism to it.

Anyways, I'm so happy to see so much love for the autistic community on here. I've only skimmed through some of this forum, but it seems like a good place to turn.

We don't have an autistic child like many of you on here seem to, but she has come to believe she may be on the spectrum. At first I doubted it, and thought she was just being obsessive (as she often is) and looking for an excuse to make herself feel better about her social awkwardness, introverted personality, and the self-conscious feelings that we all have (or at least I know I do as well.) But she has since convinced me after 1) revealing more details about herself that I hadn't--and in many cases couldn't have--known, such as truly how exhausting it is for her to be in social situations. 2) Going over various checklists for diagnosing autism in adult females, and 3) Sharing with me recent research and theories on autism in females.

She has let it go a little bit now as she has bigger and time sensitive fish to obsess over right now: we are looking to buy a house now, and are going on vacation to Japan in a couple weeks. These have sufficiently distracted her from trying to understand herself better for now.

Anyways, I am sure I will end up back here some more once we return from Japan. I will continue in the Autistic Adults forum, but as I wasn't sure how active that one was, I wanted to first join in on this one.

I'm on both as well. Knowing what's going on is way more than having a label, especially for the person on the spectrum. It's being able to realize that you fit within some framework. That the gigantic, mysterious, undefined mass of crap you've been lugging along for your entire life is actually something you can get your hands around, begin to figure out, and forgive yourself for. For me it started the process of dropping this huge weight, and learning how it was okay to be me.

It was super important for me to get a label, kinda pinpoint the wherefores and whys of I. See you in the other thread.

I am beyond livid right now.

So my boys’ hair is getting a bit long, so I figured it was time for a haircut. The place we go to was open, but the hairdresser we’re used to is on vacation. The one we got today... was a disaster. She insisted on using the clipper with my eldest, even though I told her not because he’d be scared, and that we usually use the scissors and that goes just fine. So of course, he got scared, major meltdown ensued, she was scared and started talking to him even more so he wouldn’t hit his head which of course only increased the meltdown. She wasn’t even halfway through. At that point, I basically said, “okay that’s enough” (plus she started, stopped a bit to answer the phone, which only prolonged the torture).
Then she moves on to my youngest, I tell her “not too short”, and she gives him a super short buzz cut.
As we’re preparing to leave, she tells me “you’re so brave! I couldn’t do what you. When I got a Down syndrome diagnosis when I was pregnant, I aborted”
Sooooo you think my kid shouldn’t have existed.........

And to add insult to injury, I had to pay full price for both haircuts.

Wow, that is a really terrible thing for someone to say! So sorry you had to go through that, Eleima. We are trying to figure out what to do with our son on that front because the last time it took his two sisters and mother to hold him down while the stylist clipped his hair. He is just about to turn 3 in December and was officially diagnosed as on the spectrum at about 2 1/2. The doctors said they feel like it’s very mild because he looks people directly in the eye, is not intimated whatsoever by people he does not know, and is very affectionate with family members. He was also diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, which I guess is fairly common with autism. I have to say after raising three girls this is a whole new experience for me. My oldest just turned 21 and gave birth to our first grandchild and my twins turned 19 in August and are finishing out their last year of highschool. What worked on them when they were little seems to have the opposite effect on him. It’s been a slow process, but I feel like I’m learning something new everyday. My son can definitely be handful at times, but I love that little boy with all of my heart and would not change a thing about him even if I could.