"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

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Starting a new list...and topping it off with a NEW WORD!

Speech therapy got off to a rough start today...but thankfully, Brycen adores his therapist and she is so aware of his needs, that her fast reaction and thinking prevented a huge meltdown. Thank you, Laura! You may never know the way you prevented my blood pressure from rising along with his. It's every parent's goal in life to prevent their child from any harm, and unfortunately there are unforeseen obstacles like fire alarms that we cannot prevent, but it requires a lot to keep things under control.
Anyway, despite this rough start, Brycen had a fabulous therapy session...that concluded with him saying his word approximation for "kick" in a way that I consider sponanteously!!! Laura would stand by the ball, with her leg back and would ask "what do you want me to do?" and he responded with "ki"! Before this any words needed some kind of prompt like, "do you want MORE?" to get him to sign or say "mo." This is the only time I can think of that the word we were encouraging him to say was not used in the question to him...so I consider that SPONTANEOUS!
When he first started speech therapy with AEA almost two years ago, we had a list of all of his words and phrases, and if they were word approximations, spontaneous, or prompted. I did away with that list as he continued to regress down to one word "ball." The school was keeping track of his prompted words and that was exciting to see when he reached 20 several months ago, but again I quit keeping track as he then leveled off and was not saying anything more.
I think it is time to start that list again...and to watch as he progresses not only in person, but on paper really makes it real!
Yay for speech therapy and for over 4 hard weeks of starting a new routine and for all the progress that is already coming!

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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.