"When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
Helen Keller

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Mom & Dad

As most of you know, Brycen has not clearly said "Mom" or "Dad" for quite a long time.  I have not heard "Mom" since when he first began regressing over 3 years ago, and he lost "Dad" shortly after that so it's been at least 2 1/2 years for Mike.  We recently programmed both into his device hoping that would encourage him to imitate it better...and his SLP at the clinic is working hard on this each week.  We know Brycen understands we are his mom and dad, but it would be nice to hear it again:)

Last night while Brycen was "helping" Mike grill dinner, Mike was quizzing him on some letters as Brycen has been working on writing letters and shapes into the air.  To his surprise, Brycen was able to write "Mom" in the air...so then we asked him to spell "Dad" and he did so!



After dinner, we asked him to write them on paper.  We didn't have to tell him which letter came next, only needed to help him remember to put the little tail on the small "a" in "Dad."  What an amazing surprise after he had been having such a rough week!  Either someone has been working on this without us knowing, or the repetition from the written labels on the device buttons has helped him with spelling!  While writing this post, I kept thinking about how backwards things are with Brycen...he can write our names, but can't verbalize them yet.  We are trying so hard to use his talents to help him push forward instead of focusing so much on the the areas he has the most deficits.  Writing seemss to be a huge positive area for him!
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Autism and Our Family

"Autism"----It's one word that can change the life of a child and family in so many ways. Autism Spectrum Disorders are being diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 68 children currently. If you do not already know someone that has been diagnosed, the statistics say it won't be long before you do.

Our son developed typically until around the time he turned 2 years old. We heard words...we saw him play with other kids...we watched as he played with his toys appropriately...we made eye contact with him...overall we understood his wants and needs. In a matter of a few months, that was all taken away from him. He began lining up toys, lost all of his words and signs except for one word "ball", ignored other kids, could not sleep through the night, lost eye contact and the ability to follow directions, and he had no way of letting us know what he wanted or how he felt. It was heartbreaking to see something happening to our child that we couldn't stop!

Brycen began receiving home therapy 1-2 times per month for about 6 months before we realized it wasn't just developmental delays. We knew it was Autism...we just didn't want to say it outloud to anyone. He was officially diagnosed with Autism (classic form and regressive), as well as Mental Retardation in August 2009 by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

We continue to learn as we make our way through this journey with Brycen and we will continue to share this journey with you on this blog! The blog has been a great therapy for us to be able to vent our frustrations and struggles with accepting that we have a child with special needs, while sharing how blessed we are to have a child teach us what life truly means. It has also been a great way to inform others of his progress and changes over the last couple of years.

Thank you for your support of Brycen and our family! We hope you are able to learn something through this blog no matter if you are a parent of a child with special needs or a neurotypical child, a teacher or therapist, a family member, or just someone that is interested in the journey that a family goes on as they learn their child is battling a life-long disorder.