I have mentioned before that sometimes I have the luxury of briefly forgetting that Alden has autism. This is because he's somewhere in the moderately to high functioning demographic of the spectrum. What I have failed to mention is that sometimes I forget that he's about to be seven years old. His speech is still developing and while he's building a really good vocabulary, he still has a long way to go. Recently he has been surfing the net and getting on YouTube where he's learned some new words & phrases. Sometimes that's a great thing, sometimes it's a not-so-great thing. He's started using words like "stupid", "shut up", "I hate you", "PEWPEWPEW (gun noise) DIE!", and the most strange one "butt-cheese". I have of course been discouraging this language and even giving him some alternatives that get his point across in a nicer way. If you have a child whose autistic qualities are like his you will know that scripting is hardwired into them and once he learns something he WILL NOT forget it. I've been explaining that I'm glad he's learned new words but some words make people sad or angry when they hear them. The other day while sitting around thinking about ways to curb this behavior but not discourage him from picking up new language I started thinking about his age. I sometimes forget that neurotypical children around his age also use those words and usually get into trouble for them as well. It did make me feel slightly better to realize that I'm not the only parent of a child this age dealing with this. As usual I'm also pleased that he is learning language, using it appropriately, and to be frank I'm glad he's using words that kids his age use even if they are rude. Sometimes 7 year olds are rude. We recently acquired an Elf on the Shelf and that has been helping somewhat with the language.
On a much more lovely note we have acquired the ingredients to make gluten free casein free Cut Out Christmas Cookies. This is something I've missed terribly for the past 4 years. Christmas Cookies have always been a huge part of my family's Christmas and not being able to make them with Alden has been sad. I remember the last Christmas we did them he was 2 and he kept shoving his face in the flour, I took a picture & captured it "Tony Montana". If the cookies turn out well I'll link to the recipe in my next blog. Speaking of Christmas I'm almost done shopping. I have just a few more little things to pick up and two more big things to order and I'll be done & ready to start shopping for Alden's birthday.
Showing posts with label gfcf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gfcf. Show all posts
Dec 13, 2010
Feb 8, 2010
busy little bee
I've been BUSY this week. First off with Alden's doctor's appointment. We went on Wednesday to see a highly recommended Nutritionist/Family Practitioner that we were on a wait list for since December. He was absolutely fantastic. The appointment was scheduled as a consult but he actually went a head & got blood & urine samples from Alden to be sent off for testing @ Great Plains Lab. I was impressed by that because most doctors just tell you what they're going to do eventually but he jumped right in with both feet & already started actually doing something. He also broke down all the different tests for us and showed us the best & most cost effective way to go about getting all the tests we need done. While we were there Alden also got an Rx for an ear infection. I realized that morning that he was acting like he does when he has an ear infection (falling down a lot, crying, feeling warm but not enough for a fever). Anyway the appointment was a huge success and we'll be going back either later this week or sometime next week for more tests. He has to fast for them & he's going to be annoyed when I can't give him his cereal in the morning.
On Friday my friend Allison & I went to an autism conference downtown. I didn't really learn anything. I wasn't really expecting to, I've read basically everything on the internet about autism so nothing really surprised me. I did really enjoy a few of the speakers and just getting out of the house for a day to sit in a room full of people who knew exactly what I was going through was refreshing. The did a little bashing of some of the more unorthodox methods but I went in expecting that as well.
Alden got out of school early again this week. They have been having snow days nearly once a week for the past month. I don't mind having him home (actually I miss him when he's not here) but I don't want him to have to make up days all freaking summer.
His OT overbooked for IEPs this week so she called me today instead to talk about his goals for this year. She mentioned that he is reading more than 30 words at school...which is awesome. Then she mentioned that they were "really impressed with his reading skills" because 30 is the required amount to pass regular kindergarten and even her own NT some was only reading 27 words. Then I got really super excited because I know he can read way more words than that (like character names and things like that). So I'm super proud of him. They are going to start him on a handwriting program which is cool because we've been working on writing his name (legibly) at home and he's been doing a lot better. They are going to start with tracing, then copycatting and then independent. She said if he has a hard time & gets frustrated they will help him begin to type. Then I told her we have been doing that at home as well. Right now if he sees something he can type it. I made him a huge list of all his character/movie/book names a while back because he wanted to Google someone new every 5 seconds and I needed to do things like fold clothes so I just made him the list & told him he could type them himself. He's now pretty good at knowing where the letters are.
Anyway it's been busy but we're getting things accomplished. His regular teacher keeps commenting on his hyperactivity and extreme cases of handflapping & clapping that are preventing him from concentrating. I understand her concern but honestly, what does she think I can do about it? I'm just hoping that at his IEP she doesn't bring up medication or anything like that because we will have words if she does. I'm not anti-medication, I'm anti-medicating MY child.
On Friday my friend Allison & I went to an autism conference downtown. I didn't really learn anything. I wasn't really expecting to, I've read basically everything on the internet about autism so nothing really surprised me. I did really enjoy a few of the speakers and just getting out of the house for a day to sit in a room full of people who knew exactly what I was going through was refreshing. The did a little bashing of some of the more unorthodox methods but I went in expecting that as well.
Alden got out of school early again this week. They have been having snow days nearly once a week for the past month. I don't mind having him home (actually I miss him when he's not here) but I don't want him to have to make up days all freaking summer.
His OT overbooked for IEPs this week so she called me today instead to talk about his goals for this year. She mentioned that he is reading more than 30 words at school...which is awesome. Then she mentioned that they were "really impressed with his reading skills" because 30 is the required amount to pass regular kindergarten and even her own NT some was only reading 27 words. Then I got really super excited because I know he can read way more words than that (like character names and things like that). So I'm super proud of him. They are going to start him on a handwriting program which is cool because we've been working on writing his name (legibly) at home and he's been doing a lot better. They are going to start with tracing, then copycatting and then independent. She said if he has a hard time & gets frustrated they will help him begin to type. Then I told her we have been doing that at home as well. Right now if he sees something he can type it. I made him a huge list of all his character/movie/book names a while back because he wanted to Google someone new every 5 seconds and I needed to do things like fold clothes so I just made him the list & told him he could type them himself. He's now pretty good at knowing where the letters are.
Anyway it's been busy but we're getting things accomplished. His regular teacher keeps commenting on his hyperactivity and extreme cases of handflapping & clapping that are preventing him from concentrating. I understand her concern but honestly, what does she think I can do about it? I'm just hoping that at his IEP she doesn't bring up medication or anything like that because we will have words if she does. I'm not anti-medication, I'm anti-medicating MY child.
Jan 12, 2010
gluten for punishment
As I mentioned earlier we are on the gluten free casein free diet. I first heard about the diet watching Jenny McCarthy on Oprah. I was skeptical but I was also exhausted. We were 2 months away from having our official diagnosis after a year of waiting lists for hearing, psychological, and speech assessment.
When I heard about the diet I thought "well if it does work then great, if it doesn't then we'll be exactly where we are right now so we might as well try it". I began researching about the gluten & casein free diet and found that absolutely everything Alden ate had at least one of them in it. I went to TACA (you can find a link in the sidebar) and hand-wrote three college ruled pages of safe foods, I also gave a copy to my in-laws since they are our sitters when we go out on the weekends. Luckily, our families were willing to go through the steps of eliminating gluten & casein from Alden's diet with us.
Armed with that info we went to Wal-Mart (we didn't have a health food store anywhere close by at the time) and stocked up on safe foods. We jumped in with both feet and pulled all the gluten & casein containing foods cold turkey. Within a week we were noticing small differences, within a few weeks other people were noticing. The changes in our case were rather drastic and immediate which was just proof that we were doing something right.
I know some people who have tried the diet with absolutely no success, I know others who have had minimal success, and luckily we were in the group that had major success with dietary intervention. The fact is that absolutely every child is different, and what works for one child isn't necessarily going to work for another.
A lot of people do have success with the diet, according to a report a few weeks ago 1 in 5 children on the spectrum are using some form of dietary intervention. The same report said there was no proof that the diet works. I say that numbers don't lie and it's obviously working for a lot of people. It's not like we don't have other things we need to spend our money on like speech, physical, and occupational therapy.
When I heard about the diet I thought "well if it does work then great, if it doesn't then we'll be exactly where we are right now so we might as well try it". I began researching about the gluten & casein free diet and found that absolutely everything Alden ate had at least one of them in it. I went to TACA (you can find a link in the sidebar) and hand-wrote three college ruled pages of safe foods, I also gave a copy to my in-laws since they are our sitters when we go out on the weekends. Luckily, our families were willing to go through the steps of eliminating gluten & casein from Alden's diet with us.
Armed with that info we went to Wal-Mart (we didn't have a health food store anywhere close by at the time) and stocked up on safe foods. We jumped in with both feet and pulled all the gluten & casein containing foods cold turkey. Within a week we were noticing small differences, within a few weeks other people were noticing. The changes in our case were rather drastic and immediate which was just proof that we were doing something right.
I know some people who have tried the diet with absolutely no success, I know others who have had minimal success, and luckily we were in the group that had major success with dietary intervention. The fact is that absolutely every child is different, and what works for one child isn't necessarily going to work for another.
A lot of people do have success with the diet, according to a report a few weeks ago 1 in 5 children on the spectrum are using some form of dietary intervention. The same report said there was no proof that the diet works. I say that numbers don't lie and it's obviously working for a lot of people. It's not like we don't have other things we need to spend our money on like speech, physical, and occupational therapy.
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