Speech Lady

One of the hardest things about autism, and I think this causes more problems than anything else, is my sons speech capabilities.

The way the big guy talks, when he does use words, is he mostly uses the middle of the word, not the beginning or the end of the word. So when he would say the word five, it would come out as "iv", kind of like the word eye with a V at the end. So you get the idea about how he forms his words.

We have had him in speech therapy since about August of 2010, and let me tell you about the changes. First let me back up a bit and explain the way he was before speech therapy. He didn’t say anything, really, nothing at all. His vocalizations up to that point we grunts, scream, and cries, but not words. Up till the age of four years mom had heard him say only one word, "no", and I had only heard him say one word, "mom". So this was the extent of his vocabulary, and after we heard him say those words, we did not hear them again for what seemed like an eternity.

Now it is much better, totally different, and very cute at times. Now he says things like "momma" for mom, "nanah" for nana/grandma, "dahdee" for daddy, he says many other things now, like whoa, and yes, and uhuh, and then the ultimate "NO". He seems to favor "NO" above all else. This is the beginning of his verbal communication to us, and the outside world, and it has become a huge help. The reason he has progressed so far is because of speech therapy, and I'm sure his growing up and going to school has much to do with it.

The one thing that has done the best for him is his speech therapist, ha has been seeing her since he started speech therapy, and he loves her like crazy (though I think it because she has blond hair). He first started going to place that was really cool, I saw was because it's closed now, but the place was awesome. He had speech therapy there, and occupational therapy there, and they had all these cool toys he could play with.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the place closed down very abruptly, and he did not have almost any kind of therapy for a while. He still went to another place for his ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) therapy, but he didn't have speech therapy for a long time, and it showed in the way he would talk to us. So the lady that worked at his old therapy place was able to set it up to where she would come to the house and do his therapy in-house, which he totally dug on. The first day I don't think he got anything done because he was showing her his room and all his toys.

The whole reason I bring all this up is his speech therapist was over yesterday, and his ABA therapist came by today. What his speech therapist said was he was adding more beginning sounds to words, and more ending sounds to words, though he wanted to add more of the beginning sounds rather than the ending sounds. It was also cute because she had him say "My Bear", and it's always awesome when he put TWO words together, and he said it so cute as well. I just love hearing his little voice. When I was leaving today he was doing the ABA therapy, and he was doing some counting, I wasn't really listening, but I heard him around 5, and listened as he continued to 9. Now, it was mostly just the middle of the word, but the important thing is he got them in order, and he knows the basis for the words. I just kind of paused at the door while he was counting, it was so cool. And I have the speech therapist to thank for this, well, all of them really, but the speech therapist has been with him the longest.

Truthfully, anyone with a child with autism, or even any other speech problems, can truly benefit from therapy. It totally works, and I really think it works best when the therapist does not change for a long amount of time. I have seen the big guy go from one occupational therapist to another; mostly because of they were under contract for a short period of time, so he never got the same kind of connection to his speech lady. Some of the OP therapists he has hated, and others he has been OK with. He also he may have had some bad days with his speech lady, but he has had way more good days with her as well.

I honestly think if she had not cared so much for the big guy, he would not have come as far as he has. So, thank you speech lady, you know who you are.

The Soda Thief

I know many parents are all about not giving their children soda, they are all about juice, milk, water, anything but soda and that's fine, everyone chooses to raise their own children differently. Well, with the big guy, we have to watch what we drink just as much as we watch what we give him to drink. Because he is a soda thief.


This really isn't just about soda, he will grab most anything he decides to steal, pudding, soda, a juice box, a hot dog, or even the food right off your plate, though that is rare. Come to think of it, he has stolen my coffee on occasion and I just have to laugh at that.


The big guy is sometimes sneaky about it, but most of the time it is an overt action right in front of your face. Just tonight, while we were watching a movie, and he was supposed to be in bed, he decided to come out, use his big "puppy dog" eyes, and sooth us into a false sense of security, and swipe moms milk right in front of us. Yeah she caught him, and promptly got a cup and gave him the rest of the small jug thing, but he is so sneaky about stuff. We can go into his room and find empty soda cans, pudding containers, and just about anything else he feels he can liberate from the fridge or pantry. It really is like having a five year old going on seventeen. 


It's not that we don't feed him, we do, but he is a grazer, so all day long he's getting a little of this and a little of that. The funny part is, mom or I will think the other gave him what he has, and many times we find out later we didn't. He will just go into the fridge and get what looks most appealing. Most of the time it's junk food, but honestly, it is once again an abstract thing to try and convey to him. I know my mom will get on to me about this post, but oh well. We can try and have him eat the things we eat for dinner, but most of the time he is just not going to have it. The bad part is, he can't tell us what he does want for dinner, we can just make suggestions, and if he says yeah, we can go with it. 


Sometimes he want's cereal for dinner, but without milk, other times he wants cereal with milk, sometimes he just wants a couple of hot dogs for dinner, and other times he will eat mac and cheese and hot dogs for dinner. A while ago I baked a duck for the first time, and he totally loved that, and some times he is all about my spaghetti, you just never can tell with this kid. 


I just find it hilarious that we can go into his room on random occasions and find all this stuff he has pilfered from the kitchen, even on days he has had me make him things, he goes for more and seems to get around us like a teenager. I'm just now thinking of how it will be when he does become a teenager......god help me. 

Autistic Emotions

Almost everything I have heard about autism is that people who have autism are not very affectionate. If that is true, my son is the exception that proves the rule. The big guy loves us very much, and you can tell. The other night (about a week or more ago, as of this post) I went to get something sweet from the store, I had a sweet tooth. He saw me leave, and sat at the front door until I returned. When I walked in the door, he gave me a big fat hug.

Now from the things I have read, hugging to an autistic is like you or I hugging a cactus because of the sensory problems associated with autism. All I can say is, he has always been like that, very loving. He gives kisses and hugs, he signs "I love you" he will come up to you a pat you on the leg or hand because he thinks you’re mad or sad, it's all really cute.

Then there is the other half of it, sometimes he can be downright mean. A few nights ago mom and I were in the kitchen cooking and we heard the little guy start crying. So we went out to the living room and saw the little guy on the couch, and the big guy standing in front of him. The little guy was crying and had big red spots on his cheeks, and the big guy spotted us and looked like he was saying "what? I don't know what's wrong with him". So I grabbed the big guy, who started crying, screaming, kicking and biting me, and went off to his room with him. Mom stayed with the little guy. While I was trying to calm the big guy, mom was able to get out of the little guy that the big guy was smacking him repeatedly on the cheeks, like he saw in a movie. I tried to explain to the big guy that when he does things like that it hurts, and he can't do things like that. The problem is, like I said in my previous post, this is an abstract thought that is really hard to explain to the big guy.

The big guy doesn't understand that an action he does will hurt the person he is doing it to. He just sees that action, and does not understand the consequences. I know he gets that stuff from movies he watches, and yes you can say, well "don't let him watch stuff like that" but if you take the time and really look at children's movies, even snow white has violence in it.

The best we can do is try to mitigate the damages, explain things the best we can, and also explain to the little guy that the big guy does not know he is hurting him. It just breaks my heart that the little guy looks at the big guy like a horror movie monster sometimes. I just hope as they get older it will get easier, and I'm sure it will.

The big guy has also done some very funny inappropriate actions because of a movie. At some point, and I'm not sure when, he saw a female lead in a film kiss the male lead and not just a peck on the lips. It had to have been one of the big kisses, you know where it looks like each person is trying to eat each other’s face. Well, we decided to give me a kiss like that, and when he was first coming at me I just expected a big guy kiss, but then he stated moving his head back and forth, and holding my cheeks, like I was the love of his life. It was honestly very funny. Then he went and kissed his mom like that, and yeah we were laughing. But there again we have a problem, it's hard to explain to him that this type of kissing is something adults in a relationship do, not how he would kiss his mom.

I'm sure he will eventually learn what he does hurts others, or what kind of kiss is appropriate. As of now though, we will have to deal with things as they happen. I guess that's all we can do.

My life with Autism

My son has Autism. If you are not aware of what Autism is, it is a developmental disorder where a person has trouble communicating and socializing with other people. My son is (as of this post) 5 years old, and a riot, but he also has very few words he uses to communicate with us. He says things like daddy, but it sounds like dahdee, and just recently he stated saying mommy in place of ma-ma, which is a big step. Something I thought was awesome was over the Christmas vacation from school, he decided his new word was Whoa, and he used it almost nonstop, but the cool thing is, he used it in context. When opening his big present on Christmas Eve day, he said "Whoa!!!!!" and it totally fit because you could tell from the look on his face he really was wowed by the present he was opening. 

Because of his communication abilities, or lack of abilities, most of the time it is really hard to explain to him an abstract thought. Simple questions with a yes or no answer are easy to deal with , it's the more complicated communication that is the hardest. A simple idea, like sharing with his little brother, is almost an impossible concept to explain to him. Many times I have had to take a toy away from the little guy and give it to the big guy just to reduce the meltdown he will have because his brother has his toy, regardless of if he was playing with the toy or not. I know this is making the little guy mad, angry, jealous, and probably very resentful at both his older brother and me. I hate that this is how it has to be, but I do not have any other choice at this time. I know it will be easier later when the big guy is more able to communicate, and can understand things like "sharing" or "late", or other abstract ideas. 

One of the worst things though is other people and the looks and comments my wife and I get when we go out sometimes.

 We did our taxes a while ago, and the big guy was doing pretty good, no meltdown or anything like that. At one point I took the boys for a walk to get something to drink at a convenience store, brought something back for my wife and all, and we went back to where we were getting our taxes done. Everything seemed all good, the boys and I were in the waiting area playing with balloons to try not to bother everyone so much. I had to go to the table to sign some papers, and my wife asked if I heard what the lady behind us said when we got back, I said I didn't. Well she told me the lady said "oh great, they're back". That made me so mad. I know our children are sometimes very loud, but I didn't think they were very loud that day. The big guy usually vocalizes with a kind of loud type of grunt, or noise....it's hard to explain, it's like a person says "ahhh" but not in a scared type of way. The reason I got so mad about it is not because of her comment, trust me, I've been around bad kids before, it's because of the idea behind her comment. I know she is thinking we just let our kids do whatever they want, they have no discipline, and we are bad parents because our kids can't behave in public, but nothing could be farther from the truth. We have done the best we can, but raising an Autistic child is not an easy thing. Like I was saying, he does not understand abstract things like "you have to be quiet in an office setting" or "we you go to a restaurant, the food is not instant".

Yeah we could have had someone watch they boys while we did our taxes, but honestly, it's not a library, and we really don't want to dump our kids off on people to do normal daily things, like go to the grocery store, do our taxes, or when we go to other places of business.

Really I just wish people would educate themselves about things some times, or be a decent person and keep your ideas and comments to yourself, I didn't make a comment about her teenage daughter having a cellphone (which I do not agree with) and texting like crazy, and I also did not turn around and tell her to mind her own business. Honestly, if you do not know what is going on with the people around you, like a disability, don't comment about that persons behavior. You wouldn't say something about a person with Turrets syndrome, mostly because the person would probably spew profanity at you, which would be awesome. 

Just wish people understood how hard it is from my point of view sometimes.