My Family's Experience with Autism: Making a change....

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Making a change....

......I'm not sure if this will have any real benefit, but I'm going to try to start anonymizing (if that's really a word) my blog. I'm putting it out in more and more places and my kids are starting to get older. They deserve to have their privacy protected.

Therefore, I'm going to change their names. Daniel is now "Big Brother", Rachel is "Ballerina" and Simon is "Music Man". Only the names have changed. The ideas and stories will continue as they always have. I may slip from time to time and use their real names, but I noticed whenever I guest post somewhere I don't use their names. If I'm concerned there, I should be concerned here.

Thanks!
DRS_Are_Best

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A Little Bit About Me and My Family

Every once in a while, something happens to a family that seems to change everything, whether that change is positive, negative, or in an uncertain direction. One such thing happened to us in March 2009, when we were informed our 26 month old twins (girl/boy) were BOTH on the autism spectrum. Their older brother (nearly 4 at the time) had always been ahead of the curve for most developmental milestones, so we had never really considered that some of the delays the twins were having had anything to do with autism. Well, we were wrong. Since then we have been learning about learning techniques and doing everything we can to make sure they get any and all help they need so that they can live normal lives. This blog chronicles that journey.

The Autism Pizza

I don't know where this came from originally, but I found it on a post on Circle of Moms. It's a good explanation of how things line up on the spectrum.

1. The Crust: Lack of Social Interaction (poor eye contact, not sharing interests with you, no pointing/gesturing)

2. The Sauce: Impaired Communication (possibly no speech, poor conversation skills, repetitive language, echolalia, no make-believe play)

3. The Cheese: Stereotypical Activities & Interests (extreme routine, strong interest in certain things, stimming [flapping, atypical play, etc.] -- like spinning wheels, lining toys up, stacking, etc.)

If you have all of those things: crust, sauce, cheese, you made an Autism pizza. It might have different toppings, but you can look at it and know it's still a pizza. If your pizza doesn't have sauce, that's Aspergers's. If your pizza is missing more than that but still kind of looks like a pizza, that's PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified)