Life with Aspergers

Mothers all over Australia are celebrating today because the school holidays are over and the kids are finally back to school. Some kids go back willingly, some are a little apprehensive and some are terrified. For many children the terror stems from the idea of change. Some are changing schools but most are simply changing clasess and teachers. First impressions count and if the new teacher is new to aspergers - or simply new to your child, then sometimes those first few days can have an impact which affects your child's relationship with their teacher for the remainder of the year. The first couple of weeks are your opportunity to make a big positive impact on your child's first impressions of their new teacher (and on the teacher's first impressions on you and your child). You need to make sure that you take advantage of this period. Why a Letter? Your child's new teacher will have an eventful first week with loads of parents talking about their children. It's ...

Some of the biggest issues that children with aspergers and other forms of autism tend to face are social ones and in the early years these tend to be most obvious during play. Children with aspergers often have no idea how to join in games or how to play co-operatively. While other children will play with toy boats in water, children on the spectrum may simply sprinkle water on their hands and enjoy the feeling. Parent concerns are often pushed aside with the phrase, "it's a sensory issue". Then there's parallel play, where the child will sit with a group of other children and play similar games but not make eye contact and not engage in discussions or interplay. Again, parents are often told to expect the worst. Their child won't socialise, won't interact and isn't friendly. Finally, there's lone-play, where a child will go into a corner and will line up cars, organise toy kitchen utensils or simply cuddle up to some soft toys. In this case, parents...

A lot of children on the spectrum or with other sensory needs have tendency to seek oral stimulation by chewing. In fact, chewing issues are far more common than you'd think and they have a lot of negative implications. In this post, I look at some of the chewing issues my children (and I) have and look at a great product for reducing the problem. Chewing on Shirts In my eldest son's case, his chewing mainly affects his clothing. He chews on his shirt collars, fronts and sleeves and his clothes often look tattered after only having been worn once or twice. There are a lot of negatives associated with chewing. For a start, chewing tends to bring children to the attention of bullies - particularly when the child has to walk around with a buttonless shirt or a shirt with holes in the front. Then there's the smell. It doesn't take long for chewed shirts to stink. In fact, they usually start to smell after a few hours. You can imagine the sorts of social issues this causes....

In the lead up to Christmas this year, there were a lot of blog posts about coping with Christmas and helping your children cope with Christmas. It was interesting to see how those blog posts covered all manner of topics dealing with; Crowds and over-stimulation Relatives who couldn't (or didn't want to) understand your child's issues "Surprise" Management Junk food issues Travel difficulties Gift-Reaction Management General change management (because Christmas throws every routine out) There were all kinds of discussions about preparing your child and family for Christmas. Some of them, if read by the wrong people would have made the children seem like "spoiled brats" and some were against the very nature of Christmas (in my opinion only). An Example from our household I'm quite big on "surprises", so I don't generally like surprise management tactics where you let your child know what to expect as a gift. This year, our kids got a n...

Sensory Parenting: From Newborns to Toddlers Parenting is easier when your child's senses are happy! by Britt Collins, MS, OTR/L and Jackie Linder Olson ISBN: 978-193556722-6 Published by Future Horizons You could be forgiven for thinking that this was just another ordinary baby book. Indeed it's not until about the third chapter that the differences really begin to hit you. Of course, those differences have been there all along, just more subtly in those early chapters. Sensory parenting has been written by the Parent-Paediatric Team of Jackie Linder Olsen and Britt Collins and they're the ideal team for a baby book. Jackie provides a wealth of special needs parenting experience while Britt's experience comes across in the amazing array of therapies. Normally such tag-team books can leave you a little disorientated but they've gone to great lengths to speak in "one-voice" throughout and aside from a few obvious chapters, and some scattered comments, it...

Danette Schott from the SOS Research Blog is hosting a blog carnival which I'm very proud to be a part of. The topic is on Autism and Treatment Options and it contains 22 great posts from some of the most experienced people in the field and on a wide variety of subjects. The topics include; weighted blankets, social stories, speech therapy, sign-language, toys, pets, deep pressure, cognitive therapy and Chinese Medicine therapy. I was surprised to find that there was even an article on therapeutic horseback riding. Thanks Danette for organising the carnival. If you're interested in treatment options for autism, there is now a great group of articles which can all be referenced in one place. To go to the carnival, click here or go to; http://sos-research-blog.com/12/carnival-of-s-o-s-edition-1-autism-and-treatment-options/

Just letting you know that Craig Lancaster , author of 600 Hours of Edward has released a short story for Christmas. The story is available in several formats including Kindle and several other formats including EPub and PDF . Unlike 600 Hours of Edward, this story isn't about Aspergers but it is a touching tale of loss and human nature and it makes a surprisingly good Christmas tale. The story is about 30 pages long and it's a great read. To say any more would spoil things. The ebook is currently selling for $1 and all proceeds go to the Charity; Feeding America ( http://www.feedingamerica.org/ )