Managing Autism - A Personal View

Yesterday was a fabulous day - one of those days you remember for a long time, with the kids creating the most wonderful delights!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found that I’ve been treated to some amazing surprises from Jack in terms of his development.  It’s funny, but sometimes I almost feel that his diagnosis of ‘autism spectrum disorder’ has strangely enough given him permission to shine in his own way (or maybe it’s just that Steve and I are viewing him through different eyes, and allowing him to simply ‘be’ who he really is?!?).

Well through the usual ups and downs of a typical day yesterday, Jack really showed me his ability to ’shine’.  It was a day for creating - and with materials that Jack loves.

Jack spent a lot of the morning in his bedroom, at his special table.  We call it his special table, because it’s the place he goes to ‘work’ when he needs some down time (usually when he’s heading towards a ‘meltdown’, or recovering from one!).  He also spends time at his special table before bed as the activity seems to be really calming on him.

Jack’s special table is home to some of his favourite animals and toys, including his Lego.  Quite a while ago we posted on “A Lego Breakthrough” which saw us going from Jack sitting and directing us as to what and how to build for him (not wanting to build with or manipulate the Lego himself) to actually constructing Lego creations himself.  So when Jack set himself up at his special table yesterday morning, it was a sure bet that he would be ‘working’ at his Lego constructions.  And work he did……….

When he finally allowed me in to his room to ’view’ his creations, I was totally blown away - especially when I stopped to think back to a couple of months ago, when ‘Lego play’ was an entirely different story.  I think the Helicopter was the piece that really made me stop in amazement - the detail was incredible, and ’shine’ it did!!

So with spirits high (and the kids starting to get a little wound up because it was too hot to play outside) I decided we would embark on some baking for the afternoon.  I had a fabulous Christmas Cookie recipe from Katherine over at GFCF Mommy (thanks Katherine!!!) that I had tried out previously on my own, but the kids were desperate to do some Christmas baking, so Cookies it would be.

Jack loves baking - I think it’s a combination of the methodical processes that we follow, and the ’sensory’ stuff (he loves using his hands when he can, and smelling both the ingredients and the finished product).  So as we prepared our cookie mixture, we had a few of the usual arguments over who would ‘measure’ and ‘tip’ what and who would mix, but all in all, it was an enjoyable time for us all.  And the results - delicious!!! (to say the least…)  I’m not sure that they will last past today (the kids keep finding reasons to ‘test’ them) but I guess that just gives us an excuse to bake some more!

So create we did, and what a memorable day it was…

….. yes, yesterday was really a day to SHINE!

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 1:49 am and is filed under Christmas, Jack's Stories, Personal Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.