birth order and siblings have made a difference!

Birth order plays an important part in the development of any child.  Tate being number six of seven was a blessing, for sure.  Not having a routine, is hard for people on the autism spectrum.  Without us even knowing it, Tate probably began therapy the day he was born.  Had Tate been my first, second, or even third child, his daily activities would have been set, nearly, in stone.  When I was a young mother of three, I had the kids’ mealtimes, naps, baths, and bedtimes regulated by the clock and done the same way almost every day.  Toys were organized in bins and labeled boxes and kept picked up when not being played with.  Books were on shelves. There were hooks for jackets with each child’s name above them.  By the time I had five children, there was just organized chaos.  My routine was gone.  I still hoped most of the toys were picked up by the time Daddy got home in the evenings and jackets were somewhere off the floor.  I hardly ever got a hot meal on the table in the summer because many evenings were spent at a ball field, watching an older sibling play ball.  If Tate had been born earlier in our lives, he would have become much more handicapped.  I did not know Tate had autism when he was an infant and the routines I had for my first few children would have been so hard to break for Tate as he needed to outgrow them.  Seeing how hard it has been for Tate to be flexible about the few routines we have had in his ten years, has made me realize how glad I am he didn’t have more routine in his life earlier. 

Of course, the one thing that has always been constant in our lives, no matter what, is worship times on Sundays and Bible class times on Wednesday evenings.  The only exception is illness.

Some of Tate’s best teachers and therapists are his brothers and sisters.  Tate came home as an infant, to the perfect environment for him.  It was behavioral therapy from day one.  There was always an older sibling touching him, holding him, playing with him, talking to him, and causing him to adapt and be flexible.  There were unpredictable noises and movements, door slams and lots of talking.  Tate had to share.  There was not much that was his alone.  I am certain, that without all the siblings, Tate would be so much more handicapped than he is now.  

Sometimes, when I cannot teach Tate something, one of his siblings is able to teach him.  I was still feeding Tate his cereal when he was three because he had not mastered the use of a spoon.  His oldest brother determined he was going to show Tate how to use a spoon and he did it quickly with ice chips.  Tate loved ice chips but I had never thought of teaching with ice.  Tate was much more motivated to get the ice chips in his mouth than anything else I had tried. 

I tend to “baby” Tate because I think of him as a six year old in a ten year old body.  Tate’s siblings often expect more of him than I do and it is good for him.  When I do a cooking project with Tate, he helps me cook.  However when Tate’s nineteen year old brother cooks with Tate, he only supervises while Tate actually does the cooking.  The same brother takes time to show Tate how to do many tasks.  He is gone to college right now and he is looking forward to being home this summer to help with the education of Tate.

Before Tate was diagnosed with autism, we had initiated the adoption of Sydney.  Some people thought we should back out of our adoption while others encouraged us to continue.  I am so glad we did not listen to the negative people around us.  Where would Sydney be?  AND… Where would Tate be?  Sydney has taught him so much.  She is younger but much more outgoing.  She challenges him daily to do things he would not be doing without her prodding him on.  She is loud, demanding, and bossy.  She is a good teacher!     

Sydney-isms

Sydney often takes things I have said and twists them into different meanings.  There is a liquor store in our town off the main road and we pass it often.  (I cannot figure out how a town as small as ours can support two liquor stores and a bar.  It is very sad.)  When we drive past the liquor store, Sydney says, “That is where you go to throw up.”  The first time she said it, I was left scratching my head and then I remembered… Sydney asked me once what that store sold.  I told her it was a store that sold alcohol and alcohol makes people sick.  She put two and two together and came up with her own conclusion.  Can you picture people pulling in and asking for a bucket?  I wonder if that is what she pictures.  Ha!

When Sydney was a toddler, not able to communicate much yet, she was often confused about how to respond to people.  When she found herself in trouble or embarrassed, she would drop down on all fours and meow.  It usually got a giggle out of someone and it broke the ice for her.  It became a family joke and when any of us got into an awkward situation we would say “meow.”  We still do once in a while. 

Sydney has plastic cows and she plays with them as much as most girls her age play with Barbie dolls.  She loves them.  She slept with several of them last night.  She came into the kitchen with them in her hands this morning and announced in a disappointed voice, “They didn’t even have babies.  I looked all over my bed and there are no new babies.”  Then, she sat a couple calves next to the cow.  She turned to the bull and said, “You don’t have any ‘milkers’ so I can’t deal with you right now.”  Later, she asked me if the mama cow was fat enough to have babies.  I have no idea how am I supposed to assess the “condition” of a plastic cow?  I almost dropped to all fours and meowed, about that time.  Then Sydney said to the cow “eat more grass cow, so you can have a baby.”  She has a lot to learn.  Shawn thinks it would be really funny to buy her another calf and slip it into her bed tonight.  She’d probably just go with it, fully believing those cows had reproduced. 

Teaching Tate: wet or dry?

I think my least favorite part of being a mom was potty training. I probably should have taken my first two for counseling by the time I got them trained. I learned a lot though. A friend with several kids told me if I waited ‘til closer to age 3 then it would take 3 weeks to potty train verses months. The next three kids got to wait and it went so much smoother. When mom sets a timer and runs a toddler to the bathroom every hour whom is really trained? Is it mom or the toddler? 

Ironically, our adopted, Sydney, the one with no impulse control, was the easiest child I have ever trained. She caught on so quickly and loved staying dry. She had fewer accidents than the first six, by far. I doubt I had to change her sheets from a nighttime accident more than half a dozen times either.

Tate was definitely the hardest child for me to train. He just did not understand what I wanted. He was still wearing a drool bib when it should have been time to think about dragging out the potty chair. Our behavior consultant told me I would have to teach him the difference between wet and dry before I could make any headway. We started by holding his hand under water and talking to him about wet and dry. It didn’t take long until he understood what wet and dry were and he began to wipe his chin when it was wet. We lost the drool bib after a short time. Once he understood what wet verses dry was, he did better keeping his chin dry. Kids with autism often need to be systematically taught the simple lessons that typically developing kids learn on their own.

Once we were sure Tate could understand wet and dry, we began potty training. It was a very tough few months, and long after Tate was staying dry all day, he was still wetting the bed at night. Tate is my sixth child, so it was not the first time I had seen a wet bed but it did not just happen once in a while. It was every single morning. Changing sheets every morning for years gets old. Tate was too big for the largest kids diapers and trainers by the time he started school so he wore adult diapers to bed usually. The sheets were still wet every morning.

My wise husband was always insistent that we never try to teach a child with wet sheets by shaming them or using any negative reinforcement. He said “Do you really think a kid WANTS to wake up cold, wet and miserable? They cannot control it or they would!” Adding to a kid’s misery by letting them know how much they were inconveniencing their mother was not going to help.

Around age seven or eight, we talked to Tate’s pediatrician and put him on Desmopressin. It helps many kids but not Tate. We kept upping the dosage without great results and the medication was very expensive. Tate did wake up dry occasionally but almost never two nights in a row. I was beginning to think we would never make progress. Our behavior consultant often offered to help with ideas but I didn’t want Tate to feel pressured about the wet bed. I believed he had no control over it. After all, he had autism on top of inheriting the tendency to wet the bed. It was Shawn, the one who had taught me that a kid would not be wetting the bed deliberately who decided we needed to have a talk with Tate about his “problem.” I resisted. Tate didn’t have enough language to have much of “a talk” and he tried so hard to please us all the time. I worried he would not understand; but he would think we were upset with him and become anxious. Anxieties rule his life much of the time. 

I called the behavior consultant for advice. As always, she wanted data first. She is amazing and has taught me that data doesn’t lie. We took some data, including the bedtime and the time of waking. We know Tate wakes in the night and sometime lays awake for long periods of time, but now that he is older, I do not get up with him as I used to. Shawn’s idea was that we could teach Tate to get up and use the bathroom when he was awake in the night. It sounds simple. Don’t be fooled. Tate’s autism is hard to “fight” and routine means everything to him. He was used to wetting the bed at night. It was his routine.    

Normally, when trying to find the solution that works for a problem, we only change one variable at a time and continue to take data. This time we decided to change a lot of things at once and then remove one variable at a time to see what the effects were. Variable number one:  We had the big talk with Tate about trying to keep his bed dry at night. It went okay. So, we kept talking about it every evening before bed. Variable number two:  We took Tate off the medicine. It was so expensive and not really giving us the results it should have for the cost. Taking him off the medicine could have been counterproductive but we did it anyway. Variable number three:  We tried to monitor Tate’s intake of liquids in the evening. This was hard to police because he would get a drink in the upstairs bathroom if we stopped him in the kitchen. It has always been really hard for me to deny my kids a snack or drink (even in the night) if they say they are hungry or thirsty. Variable number four:  A chart Tate could use to keep track of dry nights. Tate loves charts and lists. They are pretty motivating in themselves. Variable number five:  Tate had to sleep in underwear instead of the adult-sized diapers he’d been wearing. Variable number six:  Gifts for dry mornings. There were HUGE gifts at first for even one dry night that were eventually sized down to smaller gifts for two nights in a row and then three nights, and then a week. Even the few bigger gifts ended up costing us less per month than the medicine had. 

We saw a little progress right away. We “played with” some of the variables and made some judgment calls almost immediately. The Depends were needed. Poor Tate didn’t get much sleep at all if he woke wet. He would not come downstairs and get us, no matter how many times we told him he should, so he would just lay awake miserable. He tried changing his own bed several times. He was sharing a room with a brother and it was interrupting both their nights. I only made a halfhearted attempt at controlling the liquid intake but Shawn was firmer about that one. We still watch it just a little. Talking with Tate, letting him chart his own progress, and the gift incentives seemed to make the biggest difference.  He is now out of the diapers and staying dry for weeks at a time, even without any incentives.

Tate, due to his autism, was stuck in the ROUTINE of bedwetting and he needed to be taught systematically NOT to wet the bed, as we had taught him everything else. I am so proud of Tate for learning these lessons that are so hard for him to learn! It was difficult to have a “talk” with Tate due to his limited language skills and his anxiety if we need to talk to him seriously about anything. (He always THINKS he is in trouble, yet very rarely is.) So, there you have it. Another milestone, late as usual, but I can mark that one off the list. Tate rarely wets the bed, at age 12. THAT was a long time coming.

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diagnosing Sydney

I told you how I came to discover Tate had autism in my last post. You can read about that here: http://quirks-and-chaos.blogspot.com/2012/04/encouragers-are-needed-be-one.html This post will be about discovering Sydney’s diagnosis. It was a little more complicated. 

When we met Sydney in Russia she was eight and a half months old. She was lethargic and appeared developmentally delayed. We asked a lot of questions and were told they had kept her awake for us, long past her nap time. Then we arrived right after she had fallen asleep so they woke her for us. It made sense. The next day Sydney was different. She was very active but still seemed without any “sparkle.” I was heart sick. I was fairly certain our baby girl was, at the very least, developmentally delayed. We asked a lot of questions. Sydney had been born about a month premature, according to them. We were assured Sydney’s birth mother had not taken drugs or had any alcohol while pregnant. Her birth parents were only “guilty” of being poor. They could not afford to take her home, as they already had two other children to feed. 

We could see 14 cribs in the room Sydney was in, and we could see another room full of cribs too. We saw 3 nurses/teachers to watch over all those babies, so it was apparent to us Sydney was not getting much attention. We figured part of Sydney’s lack of “sparkle” was due to neglect. We voiced our concerns to Sydney’s doctor through an interpreter. He seemed to be the man in charge.  He told us he would hire someone to come in and play with Sydney and hold her for one hour a day if we left him $100.00 to pay for it. That was the best hundred dollars we have ever spent. We were amazed at the difference eight weeks later when we returned for the adoption date. Sydney had a light behind her eyes we had not seen before. She was still not jabbering as a ten month old baby should have been but she was much more alert and interested in her surroundings. I was very encouraged. (I blogged about this again later in more detail. See this link: A Sparkling Personality if you would like to read more.)

Sydney, age One

When we got her home from Russia, one of the things that worried me the most was Sydney’s indifference to people. She did not want to be held and she fought it.  She really didn’t like to be touched at all. I forced myself on her. The first few months I rocked her and held her while she kicked and screamed. After a few months she didn’t hate being held so much but she didn’t seek it out. We taught her to kiss us but it was rote; she also kissed the furniture, the walls and the floor. She didn’t seem to feel pain and she didn’t seem to “need” people. I started researching and found Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD.) I think she was around two by then. We took her to a Child Psychiatrist and asked his opinion. He asked a lot of questions and watched her play. We were relieved to hear him say Sydney did not fit the criteria for RAD. He thought her issues were just from the first year of neglect. He said we were doing all the right things and encouraged us to keep at it.   

Sydney had a lot of physical things going on so I was taking her to doctors and asking questions. We visited the pediatrician several times then started seeing some specialists. Sydney had some very sensitive skin which was always breaking out in rashes, so we took her to an allergist and a dermatologist for help with that. Sydney’s eyes watered a lot and she seemed very sensitive to light. We took her to get her eyes checked by a pediatric eye doctor. He was very concerned by what he saw.  Her retinas were not orange as they should be, but spotted. They looked like the skin of a leopard, he said. He made us an appointment with a doctor at Children’s Mercy who specialized in the retina. He also urged us to have genetic testing to determine if Sydney’s spotted retinas were linked to a genetic disorder he named. Doctors at Children’s Mercy did the genetic testing and found no problems. The specialist looked at her retinas and said they were abnormal but would not cause her any problems. However, based on many other things those doctors saw, they were able to give Sydney a diagnosis. It was apparent to them that Sydney’s birth mother had consumed alcohol. They pointed out all the small things other doctors had ignored, and said those things were signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Sydney lacks toe nails on her smaller toes.  Her eyes are mismatched in size. Her head size is very small.  One of her elbows hyper-extends. Her pain threshold is extremely high and she is hyperactive. All those things were probably caused by an exposure to alcohol in the womb. They also suspected Sydney had been born more than one month premature. 

We then learned many symptoms of RAD are the same for FAS and often parents “guess” at RAD before they get an FAS diagnosis. One of the doctors also called Sydney “hyper vigilant.” I had never heard the word before but it fits Sydney better than any word I have ever heard. She is so watchful. She notices everything. If a person changes their shirt or shoes and walks back into the room, she asks them about it. If someone rattles a candy wrapper in the next room, she hears and knows what they are doing. If I move a small item from a shelf, she notices immediately upon entry into a room. When we go to her doctor appointments in Kansas City, Sydney can tell me where to turn, yet I still rely on the GPS to find the office. She remembers every detail about everything and she cannot be fooled. It is unlike anything I have ever seen a child do. 

When Sydney got the diagnosis of FAS she was still a toddler. In some ways it was hard for me, like the night I found autism on the Internet when Tate was a toddler. However, in other ways it was a relief.  If you know what is wrong then you can figure out how to deal with it. I had tried everything to teach Sydney how to behave and had failed to make much progress.  I had read so much about autism and I knew what I needed to do to help Tate. I figured I would go home, read books, talk to some experts on FAS, and form a plan. It didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped. Tate is quiet and easy to teach.  Sydney is loud and cannot sit in one place for more than a minute so she is hard to teach. There is not much written about FAS either. There isn’t a recommended, research-based, early intervention plan to follow like there is for children with autism. I have had to “wing it” a lot. There were a couple of years between receiving the diagnosis and trying medication for Sydney.  It was rough. I lost my cool daily, even hourly.  I embarrassed myself often in front of my older children by doing a lot of the wrong things with my littlest one. I loved her but didn’t know how to deal with her. I went to bed every night exhausted, physically and emotionally. I would wake up every morning determined to do better.  By mid morning I was at my rope’s end again. One of the things I told myself constantly was, “A bad day here is better than the best day Sydney would have had in an orphanage.” That way I felt less guilty about not being perfect and not giving her the patience she needed. 

I used to get mad if I thought of the lies we were told about Sydney and her medical history. I used to get mad at myself because I did not educate myself about the signs of FAS, and I trusted people I did not know. The doctors in Russia surely know what the signs of FAS are. I assume they lie about the babies’ health so they will be adopted. At Children’s Mercy the doctors told us they were seeing lots of babies from Russia with FAS.  I don’t get mad about it anymore. If I had known better I would have “shopped” for a baby and our lives would be different, I know. Then where would Sydney be? I could not love Sydney more than I do now  I adore her. I cannot imagine my life without her. Would I “fix” her if I could, and heal the brain damage and other things alcohol did to her body? Of course I would!  Would I trade her today for a different eight year old? No, not any sooner than I would trade one of my other six children or you would trade one that was biologically yours. Sydney is a blessing to me.

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Encouragers are needed. Be one!

I have a lot of stories left to share and new ones developing daily so I will not be running out of material soon.  By the way, if you have any questions about autism, our foreign adoption, ADHD, or strategies that help us cope, feel free to ask. If you want to hear more about any particular topic, let me know. 

When I meet a mom or dad who tell me they just received a diagnosis for their child my heart breaks for them. I remember the night I self-diagnosed Tate with autism.  He was two and a half. The hand-flapping had just started and Tate was withdrawing more and more into his own little world.  He still slept with us, as he did not sleep well at night. Erratic sleep patterns are something many people with autism suffer with. That night, as I lay by Tate, he was whispering. It sounded ritualistic and I asked him several times what he was saying. He couldn’t tell me. He had lost much of his language by that time, and he was often speaking gibberish. It was like a foreign language he could understand and he was talking to someone I could not see. When he was finally sleeping, I got up. I was worried sick, literally. I got online. I started typing in some of the symptoms I had seen. I thought I would find that Tate was mentally ill. Instead, I found the same word over and over: autism. When I read the signs of autism, Tate had almost all of them. I woke Shawn and we talked for a long time. He was able to go back to bed, after a while, but I stayed up all night, reading and trying to find answers. What were we going to do? How would I be able to deal with it all?

This was taken right about the time of the diagnosis.

When I meet a mom or dad who tells me they just received a diagnosis for their child, I remember all the things I should NOT say. I should NOT say “I have thought for a long time there was something wrong.” It is like telling someone who is overweight they are fat. They already know it. How would it encourage a devastated parent to tell them that you have suspected for a long time their child was not developing as he/she should? The parent “knew” too but needed to figure it out for themselves and deal with it before making an announcement to the world. Does an “I knew before you did” attitude really need to be voiced? 

I should also NOT say “Everything happens for a reason.” Think about it.  What is that supposed to mean? I have heard it from people after I lost a baby, after Tate was diagnosed with autism, and after other tragedies. Everything does not happen for “a reason.” God doesn’t reach down and zap people with tragedies or illnesses so others can learn from it. Bad things happen to good people every day and it is not God’s work. If a finger should be pointed, then point it at Satan, not God. Everything does not happen for a reason. Babies do not die for “a reason” and little boys do not get autism for “a reason.” We make the best of these bad situations and learn from them but it is not “a reason” for what has happened. See Rule #11 in My 15 Truths of Parenting Special Kids.

When I meet a mom or dad who tells me they just received a diagnosis for their child, I try to encourage them. I tell them of other children I know with autism and the good outcomes I have seen. I do not tell them about the children I know who are not making progress. If someone you know is diagnosed with a health problem, do you tell them of another person you know who has died of the same thing? I have surrounded myself with encouragers. It is so much easier to give Tate and Sydney what they need when I have cheer leaders. If you are not an encourager, practice! I challenge anyone reading to encourage someone you know, this week, who is parenting or teaching a special needs child. Or encourage a handicapped adult. If you don’t know someone, then look around you. A lot of times you will see people with a special need returning carts at a store, wiping tables at a fast food restaurant, pushing a broom, or stocking shelves. I try to speak to those people as often as I can these past few years. Make eye contact, smile and say “hello” because many people treat them like they are invisible. I used to. One of those people may someday be my son or daughter… or your grandchild. Think about it. 

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Note: The morning after I found autism on the internet I got Tate into our pediatrician and he confirmed my fears but was not qualified to give us a diagnosis. The wait to get into a specialist was 3 months. In the meantime, we started early intervention by hiring a behavior consultant and developing a discrete trial program to teach Tate the things he was not learning. I will describe our discrete trial program and what early intervention entails in future posts. I will also describe that visit to the developmental pediatrician to obtain a diagnosis.

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Its a mad, mad world.

Our family loves old movies and there are probably not very many we have never seen.  We love so many of the older actors: Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, James Garner, Doris Day, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Don Knotts, Fred McMurray, Jim Neighbors, the list goes on and on.  We also love musicals and have a lot of soundtracks too.  Our older kids grew up playing the game “guess what movie this line is from” with us and now we play it with the younger kids.  So, even without autism, Tate would probably have the love of movies and movie dialogue he has. 

Because we all have this in common, our family uses movie scenes and characters often to reference things.  When one of us hears the line “I can’t see” in almost any context, we repeat it in the voice of Jim Backus (Thurston Howell the Third).  It is from a scene in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” when he is flying a plane and becomes blinded so Mickey Rooney has to take over the controls.  This is something we do constantly with all kinds of movie quotes.  Shawn uses them often to get a laugh from me or the kids.  We love it.

One of Shawn’s favorite television shows is the “Andy Griffith Show.”  Barney Fife and Floyd, the barber, are two of our favorite characters but the character that has always been dearest to our heart is Ernest T. Bass.  Ernest T. is a wild man from the hills.  He was in very few episodes but we have seen those few episodes dozens and dozens of times.  I said all of that to tell you this:  The past few years, every time I watch Ernest T. Bass, I see Sydney (the Sydney that has not yet had her medicine in the morning.)  It is not the way he looks, of course; but the way he acts.  If you have never seen Ernest T. Bass, you can watch a few minutes of him on U-tube to get an idea.  He jumps around and talks nonsense.  He laughs wildly and irritates everyone around him.  He throws rocks through windows when he wants to get someone’s attention.  In one episode he talks about saving for a gold tooth.  He wants to knock out two teeth and get a gold one, right in the middle, so it will shine and be pretty.  Ernest T. does not think things through.  He has no impulse control.  I wonder if Ernest T.’s mother had her own moonshine still out back.  I also wonder if the writers were modeling the character after someone with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or ADHD.

This morning, Sydney got up before me.  She usually does on Saturdays.  It makes no sense because I wake her up Monday through Friday at 7:00.  On Saturdays, when she could sleep in, she is up much earlier.  Her room and mine are adjoined and she is supposed to call to me and ASK if she can get up.  She does not often remember.  As usual, she had everyone in turmoil this morning.  Tate is always up at the crack of dawn and he cannot defend himself against her so she was tormenting him.  She made sure the other kids were awake (although they would have rather slept in). She found a bowl of popcorn from last night and spilled it.  She got a glass of water and spilled that.  She let her bunny out of the cage and shared an apple with her.  YUK.  She kicked her new soccer ball in the living room and knocked over a picture frame and the telephone.  All this happened at lightning speed too, one thing right after the other.  An hour later, after her pills took effect, she was no longer doing impressions of Ernest T. and she was calm and sweet.  I am so thankful for those two pills and I can hardly remember what it was like before we got those two prescriptions.  Those years are a sort of blur.  I have a vague memory though and it was not easy.  Ernest T. could have used one of Sydney’s pills; but then what kind of television character would he have made?   

Note:  Please do not misunderstand.  Comparing Sydney's behaviors to that of a silly fictional character is not meant to be ugly.  I love my little girl and she is a very valuable member of our family. 

Motor Mouth

Once in a while, my quiet boy with autism disappears for a little while and a chatterbox takes his place. It is usually when he is very excited about something. When we went to pick out our Xmas tree this past December, Tate talked more than I had ever heard before and it lasted for hours. We have repeatedly noticed when Tate runs a fever he turns into a motor mouth too. Tate was very eager because we were going to see “Pirates, Band of Misfits” at the theater. He told anyone who would listen about his plans to see the movie after school. He told most people more than once I think.

Tate, third grade

On the way to school this morning Tate pointed down the road, in the opposite way we were turning, and said, “So, what is down that road, the zoo and the camera store?” Of all the things he could ask me about he picked “the zoo and the camera store.”  It cracked me up. I told him that we could get to either a zoo or a store to buy a camera, by going in the direction he pointed. Questions beginning with where, what, why, when, or how, are a big deal around here. Most toddlers ask “why” dozens of times a day, and wear their parents out with questions. Tate did not. Now, he does occasionally ask questions. When he does, it takes me by surprise because I seldom hear him do it. The autism is never more “real” to me than when Tate does the things that he should have been doing all along.  It is like: I don’t know what I am missing until I have it and then lose it again.  When Tate becomes a chatterbox for a few hours, or even a few minutes, it just reinforces for me, all the things he (and I) missed out on. 

Tate was pretty talkative this morning at school. They had a “fun day” today and there were stations with activities outside and in. Tate initiated a conversation with one of the parent-volunteers, which is a pretty big step. He asked her, “So, did you go to college?” She said she had and then Tate asked her another question about college. It was not the most appropriate thing he could have started a conversation with. It was pretty random, but I’ll take it. We have been working hard and practicing conversation skills with lots of coaching, and it is paying off. Tate’s team at school has been coaching him and they practice with staff members every day. They have spent time talking with Tate about appropriate questions to ask and “weird” questions people would not ask each other. This all has to be taught because Tate will not pick it up from his environment like his peers have. 

We were standing in line to buy our movie tickets this afternoon when twin boys, a little younger than Tate, came in with a young lady, probably a sitter. The boys both had autism and caused quite a ruckus while waiting in line. It was very tough for the adult to buy tickets and keep the boys both with her. They were everywhere at once, touching anything they could reach. I did not pity the boys or the caregiver but I did admire the caregiver for bringing the boys to the theater. Watching those boys reinforced for me how blessed I am. Tate has so many skills that many with autism do not. I have three boys and three girls that do NOT have autism. I can only imagine how much more challenging things would be for me if two of my children had autism. The Center for Disease Control released a new statistic last month: 1 in 88 children have autism now and it is 1 in 54 for boys. If autism does not directly affect you now, it is probably just a matter of time. It is important to educate yourself about autism, more than ever before. 

Another post you might like to read: A Sack of Potatoes

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