Living with Autism

I want to talk about the cult of special needs parenting and motherhood particularly, because I have recently come to understand the danger of doing everything yourself and being therefore "immune" to criticism.

You see the problem with a universal lack of adequate services is that parents and particularly mothers, end up doing way more than they should. They find themselves working 7 days a week, up to 18 hours per day (even longer), no sick days or holidays. They find themselves compensating for the absence of therapeutic support. They have to self educate in the condition and attend courses in areas in which they had no previous interest or expertise. They have to learn to negotiate with professionals who have limited time or training in the field in which the parent needs them, and administrators whose role it is to block, divert or otherwise confuse and discourage the parent from pursuing the service in the first place.

They might be isolated from family who do not want t…

To finish off this topic, to which I had a pretty huge reaction I will add the thoughts I had this morning while reading the Travel Supplements.

Holidays are a great litmus test of normal.
Simply taking the decision to have kids changes your values system when it comes to planning holidays, and I am sorry but I have little time for people who insist on climbing mountains, or driving across deserts, or visiting third world supercities, with their children in tow. (Why did you have kids if you are going to actively risk their lives just to prove that your life hasn't changed?)

So going forth with children means planning a different kind of holiday which hopefully takes into account all of you and your children's needs, without compromising any ones comfort or sanity. Going forth with one or more children with special needs means planning a very different holiday indeed.

Because the higher your expectations of normal are, the more difficult your life is going to be.
And that is why in…

Aba reaches the parts, that other therapies cannot reach.

An update for the week that is in it. Because in Ireland this week the Government party backbenchers are meeting to ask the Minister for Education to reconsider her "blockage" and ongoing animosity towards pure science and evidence based, full time ABA for children with a psychological assessment that recommends it.

But this week I want to draw your attention to a group of parents that have been forgotten in the debate for comprehensive ABA. The parents whose children don't need it.
They might also have a child that is perfectly capable of learning in a small group. A child that is motivated by praise and a willingness to fit in and a child that understands the national curriculum as it is taught by State recognised teachers.
They will be toilet trained, will be able to eat different foods with a spoon at least, maybe even a fork, will brush their teeth willingly after meals and dress themselves without fuss.
They can…

As you may know, we currently have a campaign running in Ireland for the Government to accept ABA as a 4th model of education for children with Autism. The other 3 are mainstream national schools, outreach classes attached to a mainstream school with 6 pupils to one teacher and free standing special schools with 6 pupils to a class.
Many children with autism need the fourth option; Full time comprehensive ABA.
Thanks to a deal between coalition partners in the current government, 14 "pilot" ABA schools have been accepted. Pilot is a misnomer as some of these schools have been running for 7 years or more. They receive funding from the Dept of Education on a yearly basis, with a small stipend towards supervision and administration.
The "deal" has opened up negotiations for these projects to become permanent special schools with support from the Health Service Executive for Clinical posts such as speech and occupational therapy. It will also offer the staff in each unit …

Not a river in Egypt, but as we all know, The first stage of the grief you feel on diagnosis. ANY DIAGNOSIS. Any parent of a child who has special needs goes through this.
I have been meaning to write about this for a while but I thought I had better do some research first. Maybe I should get some expert analysis? Maybe me writing about Denial is the Pot writing about the Kettle being stainless steel. (Stainless steel is the new black)

So Yeah, Denial.
We all do it. There must be very few people who go around looking for problems in their children to diagnose. We see the flicky fingers, the absence of imitation, the inability to hold our gaze or answer our call, AND WE IGNORE IT!
What we do see is the affectionate loving and cuddly child; That means they don't have autism right? or the child who is programming the DVD recorder with their feet while we can't even set the clock on the video, so they must be brilliant yeah? so no impairments there huh? Huh?

Like the best P.R. people w…

Stimming is a made up word, short for self stimulation. As that sounds a bit like doing the "bould thing", parents call it stimming.
It can be Twirling, SPINNING, clapping, flapping, finger clicking, hand chewing, clothes chewing, tearing, rocking, humping (yes, a bit bould) and well, the list goes on.

It can also be reciting something obsessively like the "Who's on First" routine from the movie "Rainman" with Dustin Hoffman. I like to call that "scripting". Or reciting all the features of a favourite item, like trains or animals, or the entire cast and crew from a favourite film. Or turning things on and off and opening and closing doors, windows or presses. (cupboards)
Or focusing intently on a particular detail of an object without really seeing the whole thing. It can also be asking the same questions again and again.

And some kids can double stim, focusing intently on something and then flapping, or doing a bit of scripting while finger cli…

Aba reaches the parts, that other therapies cannot reach.

Late last year I put up a post called "Do we want our children to LEARN or are we happy with them just being TAUGHT?"

It was a little bit narky, shall we say, because I was feeling very burned out by the year that was in it. 6-1 had caused alot of problems for my Boo and I was seriously thinking of home schooling at the time; until we came up on the waiting list for the nearest recognised ABA school; OR our nearest ABA school got recognised!

You see the problem with this whole ABA debate is that there are an awful lot of people who think the 6-1 system is good enough. Good enough for their children to achieve what ever expectations they have of them as a child with an autistic spectrum disorder. Some parents even get a little defensive; when you tell them that ABA would be better for their child because they feel you are judgeing them for their acceptance; for their ability to just deal with the status quo without demand…