Everybody knows about Brycen's obsession with trains...movies, books, toy trains, real trains, puzzles...anything and everything trains!
Recently Brycen has started two new obsessions. The first started about a month ago when he received a simple, wind-up race car from the school van driver for Christmas. Since that night, he has insisted on it sleeping in bed with him. When I first mentioned this, many people commented that their children sleep with an assortment of toys too (both typical and non-typical developing children). I didn't ponder it too much back then, but slowly he has been adding a few more things to his bed lately. He added in a toy airplane that we bought for him from the airport during a vacation that Mike and I took last year. Just this week he has now added in two little train pieces. Overall, he doesn't really play with them unless he wakes up in the middle of the night. Lucky for us, the batteries in the airplane have now died and I refuse to replace them and listen to the noises of a plane taking off at 2am or 5am. The race car itself is quite annoying too!
Anyway, so after some looking over a few child development websites, I realized that Brycen must be reaching the developmental age when children start to do this. Aubree started this several months ago shortly after she turned 2 (though she always liked to sleep with a little "blankie" as an infant). She insists on sleeping with 7-8 stuffed animals in her little toddler bed every night. When we pack her bag for overnights with the grandparents, I try to limit her to only a few. While this points out once again how far behind Brycen is in development, it's actually a relief to see that he is slowly progressing in these other areas. May seem like a small milestone to some to form an attachment to something like a favorite toy to sleep with, but this is huge for him...and for us!
The other new obsession he has is with the phone. When he was a baby/early toddler years, he did a lot of imitating with phones and pretending to talk on them. He was actually given 3 different play phones for one Christmas! Unfortunately, this pretend play is one of the many things he "lost" when he regressed. Since we moved in September, we have noticed this pretend play coming back in the form of pretending to talk on phones. A couple months ago, I also caught him holding one of Aubree's baby dolls and pretending to feed it a bottle. While these are the only things I have noticed that he will do with pretend play, once again it's a huge step for him to start regaining some of the skills he lost at regression. When we walked into the Child Psychiatrist's office the other day, he immediately walked over to her desk and picked up her phone. Luckily, she didn't mind at all! The last two times at the therapy clinic, he has tried to CLIMB the half wall to where the receptionist sits to get to her phone. He pulled his therapist over to the window yesterday and was able to grab the phone briefly. I had to give him my cell phone once outside to play with to keep him happy.
Both of these things probably seem so small...but with what we have experienced with him in the last two years, we realize just how important these little things are. Slow and steady will win the race!!
"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
Friday, January 21, 2011
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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.
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.
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