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Writing: Beyond The Challenges

June 1, 2012 By

2012 is shaping up to be a busy year. In the last five months, I have taken an emergency trip to South Africa, run three races, and had my website revamped. I have also participated in two consecutive month-long blogging challenges, ending yesterday.

Today I am publishing a post for the 62nd day in a row. While I have thoroughly enjoyed these opportunities to indulge my passion for writing, I am ready to change the pace for a brief period of time. Blogging every day in addition to holding down a full-time job, parenting two young kids, and training for a half-marathon – well, it can be tiring.

I’m not planning on fading away into the sunset (particularly today, since it’s raining and there will be no sunset). Instead, I am going to work on other parts of my website that I have not had the time to get to yet.

I will be putting together a blogroll (if you would like your blog to be included, send me an email). I will be creating resources pages for the autism and running communities, and once I have made up my mind about the rest of the racing season, I will be updating my list of races.

My actual blogging will take a backseat for the next week or two, but I have lined up some guest writers to take care of that. I am truly excited to bring you some great stories from different walks of life, starting on Monday.

Before I quietly slip out through the side door to get more coffee, I will leave you with some highlights of the last two months of blogging. The posts mentioned below are the ones that have attracted the most views.

Highlights of the Health Activist Writers Month Challenge in April:

In Week 1, I described a conversation I had with my younger son about his understanding of his brother’s autism.

In Week 2, I wrote a letter to my 16-year-old self offering some words of hard-earned wisdom – not that she would listen to an old fogie like me.

Do you ever get stressed out about little things that really don’t matter? In Week 3, I gave myself a bit of advice, the gist of which was to just chill out.

I ran my second race of the season in Week 4, and wrote about how I found the zone.

Highlights of the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon in May:

I keep hearing people talk about how kids with autism are incapable of affection or empathy. In Week 1 of the Blogathon, I decided to try and bust that myth.

In Week 2, my younger son lost his first tooth, in more ways than one. We had to get the tooth fairy to come, even though we didn’t have the actual tooth.

May was Mental Health Awareness Month, and during Week 3 of the Blogathon, there was a Mental Health Blog Party. I wrote about postpartum depression, in hopes that sharing my experiences would help someone.

In Week 4 I wrote about the most precious of gems: those little moments with my family that make me feel like the richest person in the world.

I was feeling introspective for much of Week 5, and wrote about how I made peace with a decision that parents all over the world wrestle with.

The blogging challenges are done – at least for now. But the writing continues, because I will never run out of words.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, blogging, Challenges, Guest Posts, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, website, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Sticks And Stones And Words That Hurt

May 31, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Special needs parents come with all kinds of super-powers, one of them being the ability to grow a thick skin. This is a necessary part of survival: without it, we would not be able to withstand the stares from strangers during public meltdowns, the judgmental comments that are designed to make us feel like bad parents, and the mothers who steer their children away from our kids in the park, as if autism were contagious.

These things never really stop hurting. They never fail to make our hearts ache for our beautiful children who through no fault of their own, are targets of ostracism and discrimination. As we grow into our roles as special needs parents, though, we learn coping skills. We come up with ways to shield our children from the hurt, and to let the strangers know that our kids have a place in this world, differences and all.

We learn how to accept that the blatant looks and rude comments are not a reflection on us as parents. They are a reflection of the ignorance and prejudice in other people.

But.

No matter where we are in our special needs parenting journey, nothing can prepare us for the first time someone maliciously refers to our children as “retarded”.

Although this word was originally used in a medical sense, it is now generally regarded as a derogatory term, especially when the intent is clearly to hurt either the child or the parents. As conventional wisdom states, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Today marks the fifth anniversary of my son George’s autism diagnosis. I guess it is a cause for celebration: not only have we survived for this long, we have seen great strides along the way.

It is also the first – and hopefully only – day on which someone referred to George as our “retarded son”. It happened in the early hours of the morning during a telephone argument between my husband and someone else. There is no doubt that the words were spoken with malicious intent.

George was asleep, so he was spared the pain of hearing himself referred to in this way. The hurt behind the words had to go somewhere, though, and it slammed into me, almost leaving me breathless, and then settled over my shoulders like a heavy cloak.

Several hours later, I am left with a knot in the pit of my stomach that won’t go away, and unshed tears that I am trying with all my might to contain.

As I try to prepare my son for life in the big wide world, I worry about what the big wide world is going to throw at him. Will it be a place of opportunity for him, or will it be a minefield of insults and discrimination?

Do I try to shield him from the hurt, or do I let some of it get through to him so he can learn how to protect himself?

How do I ensure that my son will be OK, that he will be happy and feel safe, in the days when I am no longer here?

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Bullying, Discrimination, life, parenting, Respect, Special Needs, stereotyping Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Emerging Into The World Of Books

May 30, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

My younger son James was just over a year old when his big brother George was diagnosed with autism. As we adjusted to our new reality and tried to figure out what we were supposed to do for George, we anxiously – almost obsessively – watched James for signs of a delay. We scoured developmental checklists and asked George’s speech therapist how James’ speech should be progressing.

Thanks to our family doctor’s initial refusal to give us a referral, George’s diagnosis came a full year after it should have. Every time I thought about the year of missed interventions, I felt sick. I did not want history to repeat itself: if James had autism or anything else, I wanted to know about it right away.

Fairly early on, it became apparent that we didn’t have anything to worry about, at least from an autism point of view. James’ speech development was slightly ahead of the curve. He hit the “terrible twos” right on target, and his interactive play skills showed up right when they should have.

When James started going to school, it felt kind of strange to just install him in a regular classroom instead of having to go to special ed review meetings and haggle over the wording in IEP’s (Individual Education Plans).

School was not without its challenges for James, though. In Ontario, the age cutoffs run on the calendar year. Children start Junior Kindergarten the year they turn four, whether they celebrate their birthdays in January or December.

James, being a Christmas Day baby, was very young when he started school. He was almost four months shy of his fourth birthday, by far the youngest and smallest kid in his class. He had not developed the coping skills that most of his classmates had, and for the first few weeks he cried almost every day.

The Kindergarten teacher was a kindly man who took James under his wing during that initial period of adjustment. He made sure the other kids weren’t too rough with him, and found imaginative ways to help James not only adapt to school, but to enjoy it. James adored the teacher, and by Halloween of that year, he looked forward to going to school every day.

Along with a number of his classmates, James suffered a setback when the teacher unexpectedly died just before Christmas of that year. He didn’t even really know what death meant, and he seemed to take it a bit personally that the teacher had “left” him.

But James is as resilient as the next kid, and he bounced back. By the time he reached the beginning of Grade 1 he was on track again.

Or was he?

Shortly after James started Grade 1, I noticed that his reading did not seem up to scratch. It’s not like I was expecting the kid to read War and Peace, but he was not mastering even the most basic of words. He was almost six and could do little beyond identifying the letters of the alphabet, whereas George had been reading fluently by the time he was four and probably would be able to read War and Peace.

James’ inability to read was not for lack of trying. The poor child tried gallantly to make sense of the strings of letters. I started wondering if he had dyslexia, like his dad. If this was the case, I wanted to know right away, knowing that early intervention would be the key to success.

I spoke to James’ teacher, who confirmed that he was reading below grade level.

“Let’s see where he’s at by the end of this school year,” she advised.

Immediately, I balked, remembering how George’s autism diagnosis had been delayed because of a doctor who said something very similar. I told the teacher why I was reluctant to procrastinate, and she was quick to reassure me.

“Trust me,” she said gently. “Many first-graders don’t really get reading until close to the end of the school year. And remember, if James had been born just a week later, he’d only be in Kindergarten right now.”

Where every fibre of my being had known that our family doctor was wrong about George, something told me to have faith in James’ teacher. And so I waited.

Within weeks of that conversation, James was starting to make progress – not in giant leaps, but in baby-steps. He was reading simple familiar words. It was highly encouraging, although he still got frustrated when he couldn’t figure out the longer words.

One day about two weeks ago, James’ teacher excitedly pulled my husband to one side when he picked James up from school.

“James flew through his spelling test today and he got them all right! I think something may have clicked!”

James himself was glowing from his accomplishment. All of a sudden, he had the confidence to really try to read. He started spelling words like Wednesday and vegetable. He developed a sudden interest in making words with George’s alphabetic fridge magnets (much to George’s chagrin).

James is still reading slightly below grade level, but it is increasingly likely that he will catch up by the time school lets out for the summer. His teacher was right on the money.

And I get to celebrate the accomplishments of not just one child, but two.

I feel like the luckiest, proudest mom on the planet.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bagelmouse/4700001481. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Children, Dyslexia, Education, Progress, Reading, School, Special Needs Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Making Peace With A Tough Choice

May 29, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

When I went for my six-week postpartum checkup after George was born, my OBGYN raised the question of whether my husband and I were going to have more children. We stared at each other in a perplexed kind of way, shrugged our shoulders and said, “I dunno.”

It was a question that we had honestly given no thought to. George had been an extremely welcome surprise, but he had been a surprise nonetheless. Family planning hadn’t exactly been a key feature in our lives.

When we did talk about it – this topic that we had simply never thought to discuss – we discovered that both of us had always envisaged life with three children. This was good. I thought it was a positive sign that I was with a man who wanted the same number of children as me.

When we decided to try for Baby Number Two, I got very serious about it. I downloaded those free online calendars that tell you what the best dates are to – well, you know. I was going to chart my cycles and keep track of my temperature to tell when I was ovulating.

As it happened, I didn’t need any of that stuff. Just six weeks after we decided we were officially trying to conceive, we got a big fat plus sign on the pregnancy test. Several months after that, James came barreling his way into the world like a cannonball.

Two down, one to go.

By the time we were ready to try for Baby Number Three, though, things had gotten complicated. James was almost two, and George, who was four, had been diagnosed with autism. We were recalibrating our lives after discovering that we were special needs parents, and I was still trying to find my way out of the terrible darkness of postpartum depression.

What if our third child had autism? Would it be fair for us, knowing that we weren’t going to be around forever, to leave James with the responsibility of having two siblings with special needs?

We were so conflicted about whether or not to have another child that we went to see a geneticist. The DNA testing did not confirm a genetic link to autism, but it did not rule it out either. The geneticist turned to the very detailed questionnaires that we had completed. Based on my own developmental history, which was almost identical to George’s, it seemed not only possible but likely that I was on the spectrum myself.

The geneticist advised that in spite of the inconclusive DNA test results, there was reason to believe that George’s autism might be genetically based. We were looking at a 12-15% probability that any other child we had would have autism.

This created a problem. My husband and I found ourselves on opposite sides of the fence. He was very concerned about the 15% probability. I, on the other hand, tried to focus on the other percentage: the 85% probability that the child we had would not have autism.

We flip-flopped back and forth for several months, torturing ourselves with possibilities and what-ifs. We were torn between doing what was right for the kids we already had, and doing what both of us had always wanted. We really could have done with a crystal ball at around that time.

In the end, it was more than George’s autism that made the decision for us. I was already at an age where there’s a higher risk of having a baby with Downs Syndrome. I was finally starting to see a pinprick of light at the end of the postpartum depression tunnel. We had just successfully potty-trained James, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to start a new two-year cycle of diapering.

Most importantly, I realized that I didn’t need more children. The two that I had were absolutely perfect. When I came home from work at the end of each day and hugged them, I felt complete. I did not feel that there was piece missing – a piece that would be filled by another child.

When I am sitting on the floor in my living room, with one kid on my lap and the other jumping on my back, I know that we made the right choice. I know that my family is whole.

Have you had to wrestle with the question of whether to have more children? What was the deciding factor for you?

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joehowell/2282930348/. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Choices, family, Genetics, parenting, Siblings, Special Needs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Autism, Emoticons, And Guilt

May 25, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Yesterday, an emoticon on a website made me feel guilty.

When I say “emoticon”, I mean those little faces that you put into emails to express how you feel about something. Like this: 🙂

And when I say “guilty”, I am referring to that feeling of being a bad person.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? You’d think there was already enough guilt to go around without having to worry about little smiley or frowney faces.

It all began when I started getting a lot of spam comments on the new, improved version of my blog. For a day or so I lived with this, but then realized that the problem could be solved if I simply activated an anti-spam plugin that was already installed. Activating the plugin involved going to a website to get a numeric key that would then be entered into the plugin settings.

Off I went to the website, where I was presented with options. I could choose the “Premium” version, which naturally involved an annual fee, or I could choose the “Personal Use” version. Somewhat bafflingly, this was listed as costing “$0 – $200”. I selected this one on the grounds that “zero dollars” appeared to be an option, and on the following screen there was a message inviting me to make a voluntary donation to help cover the cost of keeping the software going. The message was accompanied with a little sliding scale thing. If you moved the bar all the way to the right, you were donating $200. If you moved it all the way to the left you were contributing nothing. Beside the sliding scale there was a nice cheerful-looking smiley face emoticon.

Well, I’m hardly going to voluntarily pay for something that I can get for free, right? I slid the bar all the way to the left-hand side of the sliding scale. As I did so, the emoticon’s sunshiney smile transformed into a forlorn-looking sad face.

When I saw that, I found that I was flooded with guilt, to the extent that I almost whipped out my credit card to make a donation. I just couldn’t bear the thought of that little face being so sad. It was almost as if it was an actual person.

I came to my senses, of course, but I was very surprised at how strong an emotion that little face invoked. I suppose the company banks on enough people experiencing that effect and being guilted into paying up.

It is interesting how the mere images of emotions can inspire us to feel those emotions ourselves. In fact, I am using emoticons as a tool to teach my son George how to identify emotions. This is something he has immense difficulty with, and I believe that it leads to his inability to regulate his emotions at times. Not being able to communicate how he feels must be immensely frustrating for him.

I show him emoticons, simply because they are uncomplicated. A round face with a facial expression, and nothing else. I will, of course, have to teach him how to recognize the context surrounding emotions, but that has to come later. He has to first learn how to identify the emotions themselves.

So far, he’s mastered Happy, Sad, and in a recent breakthrough, Mad.

His repertoire of emotions is not big enough yet, not by any means, but it’s more than it was a year ago, and that is progress. While he makes giant leaps in some areas, in other things – like this – he has to take baby-steps.

I’m right there beside him, trying to guide him whenever I can.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/somegeekintn/3810233454. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Emotions, Guilt Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Taking Off The Parenting Hat To Go On A Date

May 22, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

The last time I saw a movie with my husband – a real movie, in a movie theatre, with a giant bucket of popcorn to share – my firstborn son was about a year old. Because we just had the one child back then, and because one-year-olds who aren’t yet fully mobile are easier to manage than hyperactive eight-year-olds, my ageing mother-in-law was able to babysit.

We have gone out on other occasions, of course. We are regular patrons of a nearby dinner theatre that’s run in a barn – if once or twice a year can be considered “regular”. We go to the annual Christmas gala organized by my employers, and on the odd occasion, we’ll go to a party or a wedding.

For the most part, though, our outings include the kids. We frequent parks with slides and swings, and we go to restaurants where the waitstaff bring paper cups filled with crayons along with menus that the kids are allowed to draw on.

I am always hearing and reading about the importance of a couple going out on their own to spend time just with each other. I fully subscribe to that idea, and from time to time my husband and I make a commitment to have a date night once a month. But the logistics are so difficult.

People often assume that living with my mother-in-law gives us a built-in babysitter whenever we need it, and while that may have been true to an extent at one time, it’s not anymore. My mother-in-law is almost eight years older now than she was when we went to the movie that time, and instead of having one one-year-old, we have a six-year-old and an almost nine-year-old.

Finding a trustworthy babysitter is hard enough for any parent. There’s something very frightening about entrusting the most valuable things in our lives to people who usually aren’t old enough to vote. And when one of those valuable things is a vulnerable special needs child, the angst about it increases ten-fold.

Most babysitters do not know how to handle a special needs child. We have to find people who have some understanding of autism, are quick on their feet, and have the physical strength and presence of mind to restrain a child for his own safety. If it’s someone who can take the time to actually get to know the child while I am home, so much the better.

Usually, it’s just easier for us to not go anywhere by ourselves at all. But then our relationship definitely starts to take strain, because we are not paying enough attention to nurturing our relationship. Eventually, because of our increasing levels of stress, it starts to take some kind of toll on our parenting, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary.

Last night, we had the opportunity to go out to a concert – meaning that my husband had free tickets – and we had to scramble for a babysitter. The free tickets had come about unexpectedly, so we hadn’t exactly planned for an evening out. I desperately said to my husband that I didn’t even know who to ask.

My husband came up with the perfect solution. He asked M, one of the guys who works for him, if he would be willing to watch the kids for the evening, and M willingly accepted. M has kind of become a friend of the family. We invite him to the kids’ birthday parties, he came over for Easter dinner, and we eat out with him from time to time.

We completely trust M with the kids. He is so used to George’s autism that he doesn’t bat an eyelid when autism-related things happen. George knows him and likes him. James downright hero-worships him, and when we told him that M was babysitting, he practically pushed us out the door so he could hang out with his idol.

Safe in the knowledge that our kids were safe and happy, and that they might or might not tie M to a totem pole by the end of the evening, my husband and I headed into the city to see a live performance by Paul Weller, former member of The Jam and Style Council.

The music was every bit as good as we had hoped it would be, and my husband and I felt that buzz of happiness that you get simply from being with someone you love. M didn’t get tied to a totem pole. The kids behaved like model children. They were like the kids on those reality TV shows after the Super Nanny has whipped the family into shape. M said he would babysit for us again anytime we needed him to.

Last night, my husband and I renewed our intention to have regular dates nights to connect with one another, enjoy each other’s company, and just be.

How important do you think it is for couples to spend time together away from the kids? Is it something you manage to do regularly?

(Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Children, Date Night, life, parenting, Reconnecting, relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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I Survived A Stressful Week Without Going Completely Insane

May 19, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

This last week has been fraught with stress. Along with almost everybody in my department, I spent the first half of the week waiting to hear whether I still had a job. I work for a large corporation, and they do these organizational shuffles from time to time, and invariably not everyone survives these. While we knew that this reorganization was underway, no-one was telling us anything. Throughout Monday and Tuesday, several familiar faces quietly disappeared. And those of us who remained were wondering who would be next.

On Wednesday, the new organizational charts were finally released. I had a brief moment of panic when I couldn’t immediately find my name, but located it under a new manager. I was not thrilled about that – I loved my previous manager – but at least I was there, doing more or less the same work I’ve been doing.

On the same day, I received notification that I had been accepted into the Professional Writers Association of Canada as an associate member. This was big news indeed: it gives me access to all kinds of tools and people that could help me in my quest to get a foothold in the freelance writing business.

While all of this has been going on, I have been trying to resolve some technical issues that have been preventing the upload of my new website. Last night I had to log onto a couple of sites, and click a couple of buttons that would finalize the transfer of my domain name to a new registrar.

My website broke.

I went into emergency fix mode, calling customer support lines and harassing my long-suffering website developer. I was able to put in place a band-aid fix, which will work just fine until my new website is uploaded after the weekend.

Then my email broke – the email that’s associated with the domain name.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what needed to be done. I had to kill off the email address in one place and recreate it in another. Which meant that I first had to sift through the emails in the old place to figure out which ones I wanted to keep. And we all know that nobody keeps their inboxes nice and tidy, right?

Sheesh.

I got the email address set up in one place, but now it would appear that I didn’t succeed in fully killing it off in the old place. So the Internet thinks the email address exists in two places. While I’m getting most mail in the new place and none at all in the old place, there is the odd message that simply doesn’t get delivered. Kind of like lost snail mail.

I am trying to muddle through and sort all of this out while coming down from a week of stress.

And deal with an autism meltdown that happened this morning when George couldn’t find his box of DVDs.

All of this is happening as I go a bit mental leading into the final week before my half-marathon.

At least everything that’s happening is, in some way, a step in the right direction. I still have a job. My writing career took a big leap. The infrastructure is in place for my new website, and I can always change my email address.

Even George’s meltdown was a positive thing, because he was able to communicate what the trigger was.

I am ready for a relaxing weekend, and I hope that anyone reading will relax right along with me.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, life, Stress, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Autism And The Art Of Conversation

May 17, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Every night, I give my older son George a piggy-back ride to bed. These days are numbered, of course. George is almost nine and he’s all arms and legs. Someday soon, he will too tall and heavy for me to cart around on my back. For now, though, I treasure these last days of being able to pick up my son.

We get to his room, where I dump him unceremoniously on his bed. He tucks himself in while I turn off the light, and then I lie down beside him. For the next few minutes, it’s just him and me, alone in the entire world.

We talk. I ask him questions. He answers them.

Who does Mommy love? She loves George.
Who does George love? He loves Mommy.
How do you feel? Happy.
Did you have a nice day? Yes.
Where did you go? School.
What did you do there? Math.

Always the same questions. Always the same answers.

I follow this ritual for the sense of closeness between me and my son, because it’s a comforting part of our time together. I also do it to help him practice the art of conversation. His verbal communication skills are worlds behind those of typical kids his age. He knows how to talk, how to make requests and the occasional joke. He is starting to make the odd remark for social purposes, and not just when he needs something.

But he does not know how to have a conversation. So I am teaching him.

When George was first diagnosed with autism, he did not know how to point. Over a period of eleven painstaking months, during which I followed the same routine every single night, no matter how futile it seemed, I taught him how to point. I still cry when I think of the first time I was rewarded with him pointing independently.

If I could teach him how to point, surely I can teach him how to have a conversation. After all, they are both forms of communication, right?

From time to time, I switch up the questions during our nightly routine, and ask him something else. When I do that, he never answers the question I ask. He gives an answer to the question he was expecting. I don’t mind. It just shows that he’s not yet ready to move to the next level. There’s no rush. I can wait. It will happen when he’s ready for it to happen.

It’s OK that he has memorized the sequence of questions and answers. Children learn to read in much the same way, rote-repeating sentences that they have heard many times, before making the connection with the printed text. There is every reason to believe that George’s relationship with conversation could evolve in much the same way.

While I’m helping him learn a skill that will be of value to him for his whole life, I am treasuring those nightly moments we spend together.

(Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Communication, Conversations, Moments, Routines, Speech, Speech Delay Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Guest Post: Animals And Autism

May 15, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Guest post exchange day was yesterday, but really, with so many phenomenal bloggers in the same challenge, how could I pick just one? Today’s guest blogger, Sarah, focuses on an area very close to my heart: animals, their relationships with people, and how they can facilitate healing. She just finished her first year of the Doctorate of Physical Therapy program at LSU-New Orleans. She is  passionate about animals and children and plans on integrating animals into her physical therapy practice after she graduates.

As a lifelong animal lover myself, I am drawn to Sarah’s blog like a magnet, and am thrilled that she agreed to write for me. Today, she shares with us how animals and children with autism can have a very special bond.

When people envision their perfect life with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence they also usually include a pet in the picture. After parents hear their child given the diagnosis of “autism”, often the idea of having a pet is questioned. In general, animals definitely provide many benefits to their owners, but as Kirsten recently reminded me “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” So what works for one child or family may not work with another.

The cool thing is that there have been several groups that have seen a lot of positive effects in children with autism after interacting with animals.

Max is one of Austin Dog Alliance’s “special dogs” available for adoption.

Austin Dog Alliance has group social skill classes where they use dogs to teach children with autism and Asperger’s. Some of the topics touched on in these classes include verbal and motor skills, interacting with and empathy for others, and appropriate behaviors both in and out of the classroom. These same skills can be achieved with a pet at home. The child can practice speaking to the dog and learn to recognize and understand the animal’s non-verbal cues. In doing this they are maintaining eye contact, which some people with autism struggle with. They can also learn to care about and for another living creature. This lesson can then translate to their interactions with other people.

Horse Boy Foundation brings kids in contact with horses to help them through what they call a “simple 6 stage process”. They’ve found that allowing kids to lie down on a horse’s back cuts down on their stimming (a repetitive movement that self stimulates the senses). Interacting with the horse is good overall sensory work while the actual horseback riding can be soothing because of the rocking motion. Again, giving commands allows the child to work on verbalization. I know that for most people owning a horse is out of the question, but there are several places that have horseback riding lessons where your child could get some of the same benefits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V11E-N2pK_o (it’s a youtube video about the Horse Boy Method)

Lois Brady found that a potbellied pig named Buttercup works wonders with the children. She’s a speech language pathologist, so of course her focus is getting the children to talk. But she has found that her pig is great for sensory work because he has different textures in different places on his body. The best thing about him is that people don’t have preconceived fears about pigs, like they might with a dog or even a horse.

(Photo from: http://www.prweb.com/releases/animal_assisted_therapy/continuing_education/prweb9261001.htm)

Buttercup is a great example that really any kind of pet can be used to help with things like speaking, motor skills, empathy and self-confidence. Some people prefer to have an animal specifically trained as a service animal and that has its benefits as well. You can read my post about autism service dogs to learn more about them. The most important thing is to decide what animal (if any) will be a good fit for your family.

Check out more great posts from Sarah Allen on her blog, Animals Help Heal. You can follow her on Twitter @AnimalsHelpHeal.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Animals, autism, Guest Posts, Healing, Special Needs, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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A House Full Of Love

May 14, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Today is Guest Post Exchange Day! I am honoured to introduce you to a fellow special needs mom, who is not only an awesome blogger, but also an awesome friend. Mimi has not one, not two, but five children with special needs. That would sound daunting to anyone, but Mimi wouldn’t change her life for anything.

Hi!  I’m Mimi, mom to 5 great kids, all with special needs, but we don’t focus on that.  We focus on their achievements, their triumphs and the love that they have for each other.  Sure, they fight just like any other siblings would fight but at the end of the day the love is still there for each other.  My oldest daughter is 24 and diagnosed with PDD-NOS (a form of autism) and is an unmedicated bipolar by her choice.  My next daughter is 22 and was born with Down Syndrome, hydrocephalus, PDD-NOS and acanthosis nigricans, she’s my spit-fire child.  Next is my soon to be 16 year old daughter who was born with spastic diaparesis cerebral palsy, she also has Asperger’s Syndrome, bipolar with psychosis, anxiety disorder and an eating disorder.  Next are my two boys, my first son is 10 (11 in June) and for some unknown reason he is cognitively impaired, he too has PDD-NOS and a mood disorder.  My youngest son is 9 (10 in June) and he was born with Fetal Valproate Syndrome, static encephalopathy (due to a traumatic birth), he has PDD-NOS and a mood disorder.

Raising special needs children has its ups and downs, but I wouldn’t trade my life for anything the world has to offer me.  My children are the reason my world rotates on its axis.  Some people call me a mother polar bear because I am so protective of my children, but who else is going to protect them besides me?

My boys are the best of friends, they are great playmates for each other and I hope and pray that the bond between them stays forever.  It’s similar to the bond between my 2 oldest daughters.  They are close because when they were young girls, I was a single parent by my choice, so it was just us 3 girls against the world.  Until I met my husband in 1994, Bethany was 6 and Lauryn was 4 and Jon has been their daddy ever since.

What entertains my kids?  Different things…  My boys are video gamers with their dad, they each have either their PSP’s or PSP Go’s or in Jons case his PSP Vita, but they all three will gang up on the bed and be gaming, ignoring everything else that’s going on, whereas Maurra my (almost) 16 yr old loves doing research on various things, which is very common for children diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, right now she’s focusing on historical events.  Lauryn is crazy for Justin Bieber and loves to watch horror shows in her bedroom.  Bethany is my crazy football fan – well I’m pretty crazy for our Green Bay Packers also, so we tend to watch football together and we DVR the games so we can watch them through the week.

Our social outings look a little different than most.  First of all, my 3 youngest kids can’t handle car rides very well, so our trips have to be short in nature, and there has to be a reward at the end of the trip.  Lauryn enjoys going to her adult day program 4 days a week, but that’s about the extent of her traveling comfort.  She loves to dance in the truck which is fun and the cars around us seem to be her audience.  Bethany (my oldest) and I tend to do mother-daughter outings or she will go with me if I have to run errands.  It’s hard to break things up so the kids can handle everything, but in the end it’s for the best for them.

The boys are getting ready to start their 3rd year playing Miracle League baseball, which is baseball strictly for children who are disabled.  I volunteer my time with the league as the team coordinator and absolutely love watching all of the kids play the game.

Like I said before, I love having special needs children, and now we are looking into adopting a special needs child because there is more room in my heart for more children, but I can’t have them myself anymore.  So we are looking into a special needs adoption.  I hope it all works out for the best.

Well, thank you for letting me share my family with you.  Have a great day!

And thank you, Mimi, for sharing your family with us!

Mimi has a great blog at Wife… Mom… Writer… All Blessings. She can also be found on Twitter @Gigi_S.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, family, Guest Posts, life, parenting, Special Needs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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