Managing Autism - A Personal View

A whole day… and no hitting!!!

Wow, we can hardly believe it ourselves!!

After a couple of really productive appointments over the last week (with Jack’s speech pathologist and then with the counsellor from our State Autism Organisation) we feel like we are flying high today.

We have been working really hard on finding ideas and strategies to deal with Jack’s aggression (which stems from his anxiety) and over the last few days we have finally started to try some new things out.  We have also started Jack on a herbal tonic that is used to help calm and balance his moods (more about this at another time if we see some valuable results).

This week started with a couple of really difficult and challenging days (that left us feeling quite stressed out and worried), but we are so excited to report that yesterday Jack only had to be reminded about personal space once at school, and that today at home (and as far as we know at school) he has not physically hit out once!

Early days we know, and things will definitely be up and down… but for today we are celebrating… and giving heaps of praise (and Jack is proudly displaying his special stickers that he earned for his fantastic behaviour).

Hip Hip Hooray… no hitting today!

Our living room floor has been taken over today - by Lions!!!

Well, pictures of lions anyway…

At his last therapy session, Jack’s Speech Pathologist printed out a whole lot of lion pictures for Jack to colour in (she is so lovely!!), so he busied himself this morning with colouring.

I made the mistake of asking if I could see one of his pictures that looked like a ‘real’ lion as opposed to a ‘cartoon’.  At first Jack looked at me blankly, and then of course he wanted a full explanation of what I meant.  Since then we have been trying to talk about the differences between pictures that look like ‘real’ lions, and pictures that are more like ‘cartoons’ (yes, very confusing, but he is starting to get the idea of how there are differences).

At Jack’s latest speech therapy session I asked his Speech Pathologist how I might go about trying to get him to understand different voice tones, and whilst it looks like it will be a very long process, we’re about to start working on it here at home.

Hmmm… now how could we relate voice tones to lions…

Anyway, on the topic of lions, Jack has taken to grouping lately (as opposed to lining up) - here is one of his latest groupings… lions of course, with a tiger and a polar bear thrown in for good measure (and no apparently it’s not a vicious attack on the polar bear even though it looks this way - I was a little worried for the bear!!!).

Oh, it really has been a lion of a day!

With Jack approaching the start of his first year of school, we have been working with him on developing some strategies to help him in the classroom.

During our visit with Jack’s Speech Pathologist this week we worked on some strategies using ‘visuals’ to help Jack think through the steps involved in a task, and at the same time work independently.

I have to say, we have been totally blessed with Jack’s Speech Pathologist - in fact we couldn’t ask for better!  She is extremely warm, generous and supportive, and Jack has taken a real fancy to her (he really looks forward to going to therapy sessions).  Really, she has been a wonderful support all round - and at a time when we’ve especially needed it.

Anyway, Jack’s Speech Pathologist had put together some task boards for him to work with during the session (and for us to use as a starting point at home), and he took to the idea really well.  Although he wanted to negotiate on the order of some of the tasks to be completed, he was happy to work through the process.

The task boards also brought to our attention the fact that we need to look at re-doing Jack’s basic daily schedule here at home.  We put a basic schedule together for him some time ago, but have never been back to reassess it’s appropriateness as his needs developed.  But we can see from how he worked with the task boards that he is ready for his schedules to be more detailed and involved - and this should help settle him into a better routine as well.

So it’s off to the drawing board (or computer) with Jack’s schedules and task boards this weekend… well, we will tackle it a bit at a time anyway…