My Family's Experience with Autism: February 2015

Monday, February 2, 2015

Drastic Change

Hello everyone --

For those of you who have been following this blog and wish to continue to do so, I have decided to move it to WordPress as opposed to blogger. I made this decision for several reasons, mainly because I've decided that I'm changing this blog all together.

The new blog is called "A Day In The Life Of The Crazies!". As time has gone on, I've decided that I think I want to talk about more than just Autism on my blog. I want to journal my fitness journey. And I want to continue to share stories about the kids. All 3 of them.

I also have a thought for the future, not necessarily for my blog, but for another project I would like to start. Wordpress seems to be better suited for that purpose, and I will use my blog to learn how to use the site completely so, if I choose to undertake this other project, I will already be familiar with how to manage it.

I will keep this blog "alive" and will try to transfer its entire library to the new site. I know it's possible....I just don't know how to do it yet. But I am hopeful that, now that I'm making a brand new start of things with this blog, that I will be reinvigorated to write and share more stories about what happens on a regular basis in our crazy lives.

So, Farewell to "My Family's Experience With Autism"......Hello "A Day In The Life Of The Crazies!"

Thanks to all of you for reading my stories and sharing / commenting on them as you saw fit.
Ilene

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)