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Do you have an opinion on early intervention therapy, do you wish you had it, are you glad you didn't?
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Oct 3, 2019 16:58
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whydirt posted:Our 2 1/2yo is still 100% non-verbal and it seems like the earliest openings for ABA therapy in the area aren't for another couple months. He would be getting early intervention services from school, but lol COVID means we just get an hour of video call coaching. Also, lol at the autism books for parents suggesting we use our network of friends and family to get relief right now. Good luck, we have a non verbal three year old and so far we have had the only ABA provider in the area tell us they don't feel like taking our insurance because apparently BCBS federal is too much of a hassle to process, we filed a complaint with our insurance for all the use that is, and we are currently fighting with the school system to get our son a whole hour of speech therapy, while they repeatedly try to blow us off. I know services are really location dependant, I hope you live somewhere better than we do!
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Oct 16, 2020 18:20
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whydirt posted:Haha we literally have BCBS federal from my wife’s job at the VA. It's good insurance, I think I just happen to live in a very terrible area.
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Oct 16, 2020 19:04
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whydirt posted:Anyone have ideas of cool sensory toys for an autistic 3 1/2 year old that aren’t just the usual textured balls/blocks/etc? If you don't mind a mess, shaving cream, body wash, finger paint are all good ones, you can also put stuff in a zip lock baggie, our son found torn up bread pieces in a bag to be pretty interesting. Oh also that hydrophobic sand stuff, put it in a little plastic box or Tupperware, or a cardboard box and go nuts with it. Those plastic bubble fidget toys are another good one. Maybe a fidget cube? I've seen big ones meant for kids, I have some small plastic ones which are also good as long as you can trust your kid to not try to put it in their mouth. Edit: I don't know how practical this is but every time our son has seen an aquarium of any size with fish in it he has been super into it. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 01:22
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Anybody here ever take the supplement NAC? Some people in the autism community have ssid it worked like magic for irritability that they didn't know they had, and I guess I trust you guys more than reddit and was going to hear some thoughts
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Dec 29, 2021 19:18
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Pillowpants posted:If I may - It's controversial but theres a large community of people out there who think ABA is torture (it was founded by the guy who created gay conversion therapy for one) and they really hate autism speaks. When our son would put everything in his mouth, so much so that it was causing problems and we were worried that he would develop a small bowl obstruction if we weren't on top of him 24/7 making sure he wouldn't swallow things he shouldn't, we would tell him "not in mouth" every time he put something non-food in his mouth. He eventually slowed down with putting things in his mouth and has mostly stopped. It took months though and we were as diligent as possible, because we were worried about him biting someone eventually. So my advice is a lot of repetition about not hitting, even if it seems like it's not effective. Sorry I don't have anything more concrete but I hope this helps or gives you some resolve at least. Edit: our son is also non verbal and was 3.5 years old when we started with the "not in mouth" stuff. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 19:41
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Pillowpants posted:Is he completely non-verbal? or does he have echolalia? He will make some sounds like ge ge ge, and he used to shout out some vowels when we would do the alphabet (which he loved) like O and Y, you can sort of make out "go away' which he learned from another kid in his intermediate unit lol, he will also say "bye" and his teacher has reported him saying "jump" to jump on a trampoline. Two years ago he had pneumonia and in the hospital he kept pulling out his IV, it was brutal and the last time they put it in he would very clearly repeat bye bye and mama over and over, so he can sort of say things sometimes, but normally it's just happy sounds or upset sounds. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 20:57
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King Baby posted:This is correct. What's up "trying to keep my son from putting everything in his mouth all the time" buddy Edit: our latest adventure is unravelling every single one of his shirts and chewing on the unravelled string
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Jun 11, 2022 22:02
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Something my son does is when he eats pizza he flips the pizza slice upside down. He will turn the slice over on the plate and either pick it up and eat it like that, or pick at the bread and pull it apart to eat it. He has some strong food preferences which is all fine and good but this thing with the pizza is the most interesting and I was curious if anyone else ever did anything similar as a child, or still does? I was thinking about my own food habits and couldn't come up with any, I'm sure there are some though.
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Jul 31, 2022 22:28
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HopperUK posted:I had a lot of weird food rules (still do tbh but fewer) but not pizza upside down, haha. If I had some candy that was different colours like skittles, I would split them by colour, then carefully eat them in order so the numbers evened out. The food not touching thing he also does sometimes. Also if I move a piece of food on a plate, like for example if I move a chicken nugget from one plate to a different one, he will absolutely move it back before eating it.
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Jul 31, 2022 22:36
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TIP posted:One thing I'd say is don't make a big deal out of how he chooses to eat if it's not too disruptive/dangerous/other valid reasons. We let him eat however he feels most comfortable, but it is good to be reminded how sensitive a topic can be. To assuage any worry I will say I never considered trying to stop him from eating upside down pizza, instead I went out and bought a little portable steam cleaner because he tends to put his pizza down next to the plate instead of on the plate, so it ends up on couches, carpet, beds, etc. I will eat an upside down slice next time there is pizza here, maybe I will understand the greatness if I have an upside down slice
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Jul 31, 2022 22:55
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HopperUK posted:Please report back, it's possible he has unlocked a secret of the universe here. Now that I am thinking about food, he also does one more thing, he does it so often I forgot about it but it's almost as good as upside down pizza, he will eat pita bread by biting a hold in the dead center of it, and eating it from the middle outward if that makes sense. I've seen pizza slices with a perfect circle bite taken out of the middle of a slice too.
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Jul 31, 2022 23:01
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I haven't tried upside down pizza yet, but I did just try to get my son to eat a slice of apricot and while he so far has decided he isn't interested, after turning it upside down he did seriously consider taking it for a few minutes. I'll be a happy guy if I can get him interested in more foods just by turning them upside down lol
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Aug 1, 2022 19:52
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My autistic five year old a few months ago decided he was going to sleep with the lights on in his bedroom from now on and no a night light is not good enough, the lights have to be fully on at all times. Two nights ago the lights in his room went out and he absolutely flipped and was pretty mad about the whole thing, me and him stayed up until 9 am swinging in a chair swing and hanging out that day. I was pretty sure it was ok for him to do that but that was before I knew there was a list of things it is and isn't ok for him to do
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Aug 6, 2022 18:21
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bees x1000 posted:Anyone know of good potty training visual aids? Everything I've found glosses over the actual going part, which is coincidentally what my boy has been struggling with. He likes going through the motions, but will rarely actually relieve himself there, preferring to hold it until he can go in a pullup, or until he explodes. This has been going on for two years now and I don't know how to change his mind. I'm in a similar situation and if anything ever works for us I'll definitely let you know. I have no idea how to get my son to be willing to do it, he used to happily sit on the toilet but wouldn't go, like you said. Now-a-days he absolutely refuses to get on the toilet so a bit of a back step. It's something we are about to start working on in therapy, so we'll see.
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Aug 23, 2022 02:04
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Some of the things that made me realize I am somewhere on the spectrum were difficulty recognizing faces, to the point where I'm not sure I could give an accurate description of my wife's face if asked by like, a sketch artist. Also I lose track of actors in movies if they have an outfit change, especially if they change their hair. The biggest thing though was when I said "I copy people's emotions when they are talking to me" and I got looked at like I was crazy. Oops I guess people aren't doing that in every interaction? I also never notice when people take an interest in me, like ever, happened all through school and into adulthood. My wife has commented on it too, I'm completely oblivious. I also get exhausted from interacting with people too long, especially at events, it's miserable. I know it's caused issues in my professional life, like I've been passed up for promotions and stuff that I thought I had on lock because I'm just not good at fitting in with the bosses.
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Aug 24, 2022 21:41
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Grapes and oranges touching on a plate: yea or nay? They don't really mix, but maybe they should be on separate plates regardless. My son doesn't seem to mind but he's also not eating them and like, he would be happier if he ate some breakfast.
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Aug 31, 2022 13:19
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Cloacamazing! posted:That reminds me, was your son the one with the upside down pizza? Because I tried that on Monday and it's pretty great. Really intense flavor. Obviously the pizza needs to have cooled down before you do that. Oh yeah, we had pizza again and I had some upsidedown pizza with him. I can see why he likes it but for me old habits die hard and I found myself eating right side up pizza after I stopped paying attention to my pizza eating One of the things that I didn't see coming was how big of a deal food was going to be as my son gets older. A large part of my day is spent trying to get him to eat enough food, and finding foods he is willing to eat. From what I can tell he sees food as mostly a necessary evil and tolerates it enough to stop being hungry, and chooses his food based on sensory stimuli so a lot of crunchy foods, and foods like grapes and cherry tomatoes and oranges, things that you bite into that have liquid inside.
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Aug 31, 2022 15:08
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RPATDO_LAMD posted:individual autistic people might have super specific food preferences but they are just arbitrary preferences, there is no real pattern My apologies if I came across like "what are the secret autism foods he will eat", I know there isn't a specific set of food rules for autism. Insight from others, even a little, helps me see things I might not have seen otherwise though.
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Sep 1, 2022 13:17
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Organza Quiz posted:Honestly for this one I'm not sure we can help - I can't explain my food preferences as a set of consistent rules even now and my brain loving loves making rulesets for things. I just tell people these days not to even try to learn the rules, just check individual foods/cuisines. You might just have to try things out and try to keep track. I appreciate the comments and I do think it's a big help, I'm not looking for answers or solutions really, just other people's experiences I guess. As for keeping track, his food preferences are high on the list of things I keep track of, partly because they are an insight sometimes into how he is feeling. Like if he is stressed out he might stop eating anything but Cheerios, which have been his go to comfort food for a long time. Also on the current topic I hate saying hello to people on the street, when I lived in the south everyone I passed would say hello and I never knew when to say hello or make eye contact or anything, every single time I would think to myself "just sat hi to my wife and leave me alone" but no, it's always me
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Sep 1, 2022 14:03
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If you are asking if you should stop in home services for your kid because you don't like the speech therapist, or occupational therapist, or councilor, or whoever (I'm not sure what services you child is getting honestly), my personal answer is you don't need to like them for them to do a good job and be beneficial, I've had issue with plenty of service providers for this or that reason. Usually if you give them the chance they will grow on you though! In my experience anyway. I would ask myself if the things the therapies are for have been resolved or are they ongoing? Some things need some level of care forever, or are something we work at our whole lives. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 15:51
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Engineer Lenk posted:They aren’t focusing on the referral issue, instead rehashing a ton of stuff that’s been under good control for years. They spent two sessions in the name of ‘rapport building’ basically just talking about themself. My kid is checked out to the tune of actually falling asleep during some of this, and the intervention they’ve suggested seems like a comically bad fit for my household. Oh, they also don’t have any theoretical grounding in the methodology they’re supposed to implement and have trivialized my kids dissociative parts by repeatedly calling them imaginary. My kid’s a reasonably high risk to develop schizophrenia, he already hears voices, and if he thinks people aren’t going to believe him he shuts down and doesn’t talk about it at all. I agree with you, one hour a week isn't enough, in my experience with the one hour a week in home therapy sessions the first few sessions involve building a rapport and just getting used to an unfamiliar person being in your space, and the sessions going forward usually are maintaining a good relationship with the child along with demonstrating and practicing techniques to use in the home during the week, whatever that would look like in your situation. If you feel like the things they want to implement are not going to work you should bring it up, either by asking for a more in depth explanation on how it is supposed to be beneficial or by straight up saying I don't think this is going to work because of this and this reason. I've done this before saying I don't want to jump straight to nonverbal communication methods with my non speaking child, because I felt they were writing him off and we hadn't tried enough of what we were already doing. It might ruffle some feathers but if you don't come across as angry or aggressive about it it won't be too bad.
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Oct 11, 2022 18:51
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Engineer Lenk posted:I may not be appropriately clear. My kid has an outpatient therapist he sees at her office for one hour a week; this is longstanding and useful, we’ve worked through a lot of issues already. His aggression required an ER visit earlier this year, but we were on the fence about admitting him. If my child was not I/DD, he’d go into an outpatient program, but there is not one suitable for his intellectual functioning level. Oh I see, I probably would drop a service that was being like that, honestly
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Oct 11, 2022 20:09
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bees x1000 posted:my autistic boy just turned 6 and he's finally decided to regularly use 'daddy' and 'mommy'. hearing those words in his voice is an indescribable feeling. I love him. That's really wonderful news, I know if my oldest son said mommy or daddy it would just about melt me
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Mar 19, 2023 22:15
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Took my kids to a farm that does equine therapy yesterday to explore and see if they would be receptive to the idea. Despite being non verbal they both had no trouble making it clear that horses were not going to be in the cards for them. It's a shame because after seeing how they interacted with other animals like my nieces cat it seemed like this could have been a success.
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Jun 19, 2023 11:19
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King Baby posted:So I’ve been working at school for emotionally disabled children as a one-on-one for a bit. I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to get the kid I work with to stop picking his rear end. He’s 14, level 2 on the spectrum and he’s got a lot of behavior issues, but this butt picking is driving me nuts. I let him know it’s disgusting but he does it anyway...constantly…like no shame. I’m thinking it’s some sensory processing disorder from what the internet tells me but I still have no idea what to do about it. Like Bar Ran Dun said there could be a reason behind it like it's difficult to get him to shower or bathe or wipe properly so he is itchy down there. If not and he just really likes to slide his hand down his pants (very frustrating) the first thing I would do is work on occupying his hands with something else. If it is the sensation of literally picking at something, maybe a stress toy or something he could pick at instead?
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Sep 20, 2023 12:23
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King Baby posted:Thanks for the advice guys. It gives me some good ideas on what I wanna try next with him. You can also try giving him a small reward for every baby step towards not putting his fingers in his butt, like starting with a gummy bear when he puts his hand in his pocket, and work from there
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Sep 21, 2023 17:17
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Just curious if any parents of autistic children have had to get into any fights with their school district, and if so, what should I kind of expect once the situation is resolved? Im talking nasty, feet dragging, investigations pending, attorneys involved kind of fights. While the situation is about to come to a close and my son will be attending a different, private school, I will still have to do IEP meetings with the public school, and much to their dismay I will be back with my other son in a few years. So I know it's a long shot but I just want to be prepared for any kind of retaliation or behaviors from the school district that I might be blindsided by. Thanks if anyone weighs in. If no one can relate then I totally understand, it would be nice if no one could honestly.
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Feb 16, 2024 11:40
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Blue Moonlight posted:...malicious compliance... Thank you, I have an IEP meeting on Monday with the various staff members who have decided to be involved. My wife and I already plan to be fairly specific but we will be extra specific, and I will keep malicious compliance in mind because I am certain the principal is petty enough for it. She certainly hates my wife and I, and the feeling is very mutual. Edit for anyone who reads this and needs it in the future: We were unable to get the school to do anything except drag their feet, this includes getting an attorney involved, but the school caved the next day after I got other parents involved and started asking if anyone had similar experiences. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 00:47
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Well Played Mauer posted:Man these are horror stories. We’ve had a diagnosis for my 5-year-old for about six months and his preschool has been great in helping him when he runs into difficulties. He’s confident enough there that he’s a leader that makes up games for everyone else. But our next worry is the transition to public kindergarten and entering the Actual System. If it helps, my son's teacher is very nice, and all the kids in class are wonderful. It's not all doom and gloom. Our son has very high and specific needs, and that is where the problems start. The school we are at has a chronic problem with trying to fit a square peg into a round hole when it comes to IEPs and solutions to problems, because it is cheaper. Things came to a head for us but I feel like a more experienced administrative team could have easily managed in a way that wouldn't have resulted so much butting of heads. Our specific beef is with the transportation company and the administration, not the teachers. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 12:22
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