Two Years Autism Blogs Featured on ModernMom.com

By Kimberly Kaplan

This book was written compiling two years of blogs that I wrote for the website, ModernMom.com. In my blogs, I share ideas, strategies, suggestions, and experiences based on my own life with my autistic son. Ten years of experience in the autism community has taught me many things, but one stands out--we all share information. Parents, facilitators, administrators, therapists all talk to each other. We are a growing community, but we are strong and determined to help our kids. Because my son is older, I hope this book with help parents of children who may have recently been diagnosed. I had help, so I'm here to pay it forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kimberly Kaplan
• Release date: Apr 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310619793

Kimberly Kaplan

Author and mother of an autistic boy. I wrote about my passion, autism, in "A Parents' Guide to Early Autism Intervention," which is a useful guide for parents who are just beginning their autism journey. Another source for autism-related information came from writing my autism-related blog on the website, ModernMom.com. This lead to another book that I recently published called, "Two Years Autism Blogs Featured on ModenMom.com." My second published ebook is a fantasy called, "Max and The Happy Prince." Max is a crane who cannot fly, but must learn to take to the sky in order to save a town trapped by an evil witch. My third ebook is "Warsaw Freedom," the story of two Jewish women who are smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. I am the author of screenplays that include "Warsaw," "Max and The Happy Prince," "Winningdale," and "Mystery Shop Wedding." I am a produced screenwriter with credits "Don't Fall Asleep" (Amazon, Itunes), "Safeword" (due out in 2012), and my autism-related film short, "Autism and Cake" starring Ed Asner who plays a grandfather who struggles to accept his autistic grandson. I blog on the website www.modernmom.com weekly, tweet on @tipsautismmom, and you can find me on LinkedIn.

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Two Years of Autism Blogs Featured on ModernMom.com

(Helpful Information and Anecdotes: All Things Autism)

by

Kimberly Kaplan

Copyright 2013 by Kimberly Kaplan - All rights reserved - Published by Kimberly Kaplan at Smashwords

For more information or questions visit my website kimberlykaplan.com or contact [e-mail]

{SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.}

INTRODUCTION

What Is Autism?

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder. Its symptoms affect an individual’s ability to socialize and communicate and may involve stereotyped or repetitive behaviors and interests, fine and gross motors skills, and sometimes intellectual skills. It is a spectrum disorder, which means a diagnosis can vary from mild to severe and everything in between.

There is no known specific cause for autism, and most effects of autism are for life.

In this book, I discuss autism based on ten years as a parent of a child with autism and two years of blogs I wrote about my experiences for ModernMom.com. I discuss the ins and outs of autism, services, home life, occupational therapy, social skills groups, school, Individualized Education Plans, and the big picture.

CHAPTER ONE

Autistic Kids

The parent autism learning curve

I wrote A Parents' Guide to Early Autism Intervention to tell the story of what my husband and I did with our son, Justin, when he first started his autism journey. Among the many topics I discuss is the parent autism learning curve.

I will explain what I mean by that through a story.

When Justin was fourteen months old, he received his first autism-related service, called floor time. A floor-time therapist was scheduled to come to our house twice a week.

When she first arrived, we talked with her extensively about Justin. On her second visit, she explained some goals she had for him. One was to establish eye contact. At that time, our child's eye contact was very weak. Another goal was to begin teaching him turn taking. Still another goal was giving him some early occupational therapy experiences using touch-and-feel books and interactive toys.

She also told us that she eventually wanted to work one-on-one with Justin. What this meant for us was that we needed to leave the room.

This took some time. I was usually the parent at home and my child was still very clingy to me. It took about two weeks for me to be able to leave the room for five minutes. Then, I stretched the time to ten minutes, then fifteen.

Eventually, the therapist worked solo with Justin.

Years later, when I finished my book, I asked a director of a facility to read it for me. She gave me notes, and among them was the note that floor time is structured to involve the parents and not have them leave the room.

How did this mistake happen? My husband and I were instructed to do this. Every time. For a year and half.

The director told me that what probably happened is that the service provider informed the regional center (the system in California that administers needs to autism persons) that it provided floor-time services.

When the service provider told our regional center that it administered floor time, it either believed the therapist was doing it correctly or the center was fudging it in order to remain a viable service provider.

My husband and I were young pups in the world of autism—we were ripe to believe pretty much anything a person who came into our home to help our son was telling us.

The therapist that came to our home twice a week was friendly, punctual, cooperative, patient, and seemed to be a good fit for our son. She would sit on the floor with him, encourage him, reward him, make him smile, and really created a pleasant atmosphere and experience.

She was helping our son, even though she was administering a service the wrong way.

When you first start out on your autism journey, the parent learning curve is enormous. Your head hurts after two three-hour evaluations or a three-hour Individualized Education Plan or a three-day autism conference or after you finish writing your first autism book. Still, give in to all of the information available to you as best you can.

Early on, I read the Stanley Greenspan book, The Child with Special Needs, talked to the therapists, and frequently consulted with a friend who was experienced in autism. Later on, I attended conferences and then began to volunteer my time. Then, I wrote my book.

All this took years. When I first read the Greenspan book, I certainly did not understand all that I was reading. It might have even said that floor-time therapy was geared with the parents remaining in the room! And I missed it.

Years later, I read the book again. It made more sense the second time around.

The parent learning curve is about education, but it is also about making mistakes. The trick is to learn from them, correct them, and talk about them so that other parents don’t make the same mistake.

How do autistic kids think?

When I describe how my child with autism thinks, I say he thinks literal.

Typically, children on the autism spectrum remember the concrete much easier than they do the abstract. They are logical and tend to be deep thinkers, which is perhaps due to the fact that most kids with autism process slower than typical thinkers.

Here are some recent examples from Justin:

One day he asked, Will I get my computer today? I answered, Discussing your bad test is 6,000 times more important than your computer. To which her replied, Or more than 6,000.

When trying to choose between two desserts one night, Justin very logically compromised and came up with his solution to the problem. He said, How about I eat half a portion of chocolate ice cream and half of the chocolate bar.

One time we were discussing one of his school tests and I asked him about the different types of water on the Earth. Saltwater is in the...? To which he answered, Ocean. Then I asked, And fresh water is found in...? To which he answered, Water bottles.

Another time, I pointed at a tissue box when I felt my sniffling child needed to blow his nose. I said, The box is two inches behind you. He quickly corrected me and said, Mommy, it's not two inches.

To me, these types of exchanges mean that my child is a logical and literal thinker. While typical children often give similar answers, with children on the spectrum, they are more constant and may last for years or for a lifetime.

Because I know that my child is a literal thinker, I usually understand his thinking and can predict his responses. Yet there are other times he catches me off guard. Then there are those times that I forget he is more comfortable with the concrete and he says something that indicates he has completely missed an abstract point I was making.

When your child with autism is young, you may not even be aware that he may turn out to be a logical thinker. Not all children do, of course. But many kids on the spectrum end up with that quality.

When they're young, they tend to be quiet—lost in their own thoughts and unable to respond—or they may respond only to the world around them with rote or stock answers.

Justin used to respond this way. Sometimes we thought he sounded like a computer. However, when he got older, his personality began to emerge and his responses became more spontaneous and even creative. Still, those responses were literal and logical based on his perception of the world.

If your child is older, talk with him about his literal responses. Try not to let him get away with them. Latch onto the teaching moments and try to explain that even though an answer might be technically correct, let’s look at another possible answer, one that’s not quite so literal.

For example, Justin was right to point out that when I said 6,000 times more important, the 6,000 times was an exaggeration. But then I had to explain to him the definition of exaggeration and why people sometimes use exaggerations. I wanted him to be able to recognize an exaggeration and to respond appropriately.

The logical thinking of having one half of two desserts was awesome. I told him I thought he did an excellent job of negotiating the dessert issue.

With the freshwater answer, Justin was also correct. Fresh water is in bottled water, and I agreed with him. Then, I logically asked him to give me the answer that he thought might be on his science test. And he did.

With the tissue box, again, Justin was correct. If I had let him, he might have gotten out a ruler and measured the distance from his chair to the tissue box to prove to me that it was more than two inches away. I knew I could not argue the point because he was right. But he was responding to me literally and again did not understand exaggeration (or sarcasm).

What I did was tell him that I was simply pointing out that he needed to blow his nose and that the tissue box was very close to him. All I was trying to tell him was that he needed to stop what he was doing and take care of his nose.

The reason I try to explain literal thinking to Justin is to give him an alternative. He may always be a literal thinker, but he accepts it when I point out a more abstract way of thinking.

I can always deal with him on his terms, if I choose. For example, I help him line up his homework paper exactly in line with the lines on the tablecloth because he prefers this, or I can get out the tape measure and measure the exact distance of things. But I can also discuss alternative ways of thinking.

It’s important to me to help Justin learn how the world works and find a way to integrate his thinking into that world. I can only do that by explaining alternatives while also supporting things he gets right.

It is my job to continue to try to prepare him for the real world, especially one that may not always understand him, and one that he may not always understand.

Empathy or sympathy from autistic kids

Autistic kids struggle with empathy and sympathy. They are difficult concepts for our kids to learn.

It’s an autistic mixture. Kids with autism generally care more about things than people. Also, their autism interferes with their natural ability to communicate and understand the people around them. There is a disconnect within the autistic brain that interferes with certain social issues. Empathy and sympathy are two of them. They can learn the concepts, however.

Because empathy and sympathy are hard for them to learn, they get easily confused by how to react to situations. They are more focused on things that don’t relate to people. So how can they react with empathy or sympathy if they don’t notice a problem in the first place?

At age ten, my child is beginning to understand empathy and sympathy, but he does still laugh inappropriately when he sees someone get hurt. Even when my husband’s father passed away, Justin talked about it a lot, but he couldn’t connect with the emotion.

To try to help him with the concepts, I may say something like, I hit my elbow and it hurts me. And you're smiling at me.

He usually will respond, but he might not respond appropriately. He might laugh again. Or he might grimace in order to try to wipe out his smiley face.

He often doesn’t realize he’s doing it. He has told me, Mommy, I didn't know I was smiling.

Not too long ago, he responded appropriately. He had kicked his foot up from the backseat and bonked me in the head. I said, Ouch in an exaggerated voice. I wasn’t really hurt, but I was exaggerating in order to emphasize the bonk. Appropriately, Justin said, I'm sorry, Mommy.

Whenever I hear a baby crying, I try to point it out to Justin. I will say, What do you hear? to him. By asking this question, I am attempting to get him to focus on the sound of sadness.

Usually, he will acknowledge the crying. Then I will ask, How do you think that baby feels? Sad, he usually says.

I try to use such an occurrence as a teaching moment. If Justin learns how to tune into more sounds of sadness, for example, he may become more interested in why there’s sadness. Then it may lead to a better understanding of empathy or sympathy.

My husband and I also work on teasing. Our goal is to get Justin