autistic child – AUTnotISM

Over the years, I have had many many conversations with many many people about Autism. Some are wanting information, some are just curious, and mostly people are kind and caring. I have noticed though, that one question gets asked more than others. The question is…’are there more kids with Autism these days or is it just diagnosed better’? And my answer is this ‘there are more kids with Autism these days and it is diagnosed better’. I’m not trying to be wiseacre, but to me, that seems to be the answer! With that said, I do have to add one thing. Yes our diagnostic tools are better these days. There are more tests available, and a whole lot more information than there used to be. Of course there are more diagnostic categories than there used to be. It’s not just Autism anymore, it’s Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and within that spectrum lie a vast number of extreme’s and diagnosis. For example : PDD (Pervasive Development Disorder), SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder), Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (CDD), Rett Syndrome, Aspergers Syndrome and of course Autistic Disorder. So indeed, there are a lot more possibilities for diagnosis, BUT, there are waaaaaaay more children being diagnosed than ever before because there are waaaaaaaay more children affected than ever before. All you have to do to know that this is true is to think back to your own school days. Of course there were always one or two kids in the school that were ‘a bit different’, but now it’s hard to meet anyone who doesn’t know or know of, someone that is affected in some way.

Lets look at the possibility of why. 100 years ago, when statistically there was no Autism, what was different? The short answer is almost everything, but lets at least start with something that affects everybody, everyday…food. This is an obvious place to start when you look at the supermarkets of today. Basically, they had meat, vegetables (mostly locally sourced) a little fruit, grains in the form of bread and porridge, eggs, milk, water and perhaps a little sugar in their tea. Of course any treats such as biscuits and cakes were rare and home made. There may have been, for the average person at least, a little alcohol on the odd occasion. Fast forward to today, and while our diet may resemble the basics, it’s a safe bet that we all have a lot more sugar than just a little in our tea, probably more grains than vegetables from all of the pasta, bread, rice and breakfast cereals that we eat each and every day. Add to that, the hormones and antibiotics feed to the animals that we eat, add to that the grains, especially corn, fed to the animals that were never meant to eat grains. Add to that the bombardment of agricultural sprays on our fruits and vegetables, add to that the gmo’s, add to that the depletion of the soils from over farming, add to that the chemicals such as BPA added to bottled water and canned goods that we eat. Add to that preservatives, food colourings, flavour enhancers, gluten gluten and more gluten! Add to that things you can’t even freaking pronounce!!!

Now lets look at the environment we live in. 100 years ago, the population was much smaller than it is today. They were simpler times when people worked close to where they lived. The transport was much more limited than it is today, with bicycles, horses, trains and of course walking being the major ways of getting around. Fast forward to today and there are MILLIONS of cars clogging up roads everyday. If you live in the suburbs or inner urban areas, you can’t escape the sound of traffic, let alone, the bi-products of the traffic namely, cadmium, lead and carbon monoxide. Then add mercury from industrial fumes as well as countless other nasties, now add endless cleaning chemicals and antibacterial hand washes that contain liver damaging triclosan, add to that, heating and air conditioning, flame retardants on our pj’s and almost every piece of furniture we own and of course the biggest add of them all, electromagnetic radiation from power lines, appliances and wireless technology.

Lets have a quick look at the water we drink now. 100 years ago, it was as basic as it gets, fast forward to today and things have dramatically changed with the addition of fluoride and chlorine in the water, not mention the countless heavy metals and industrial waste that have polluted our water supply. There are so many more things that could be added here, but I think i’ve made my point.

So, what does this have to do with Autism? Well, I think when you look at the changes that have occurred in the last 100 years (and this is only scratching the surface), you have to wonder what effect does this have on the human body??? To answer that question, you really only need to look around and see the epidemics surrounding us. It’s on the news almost every day! Obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia and Alzheimers and of course Autism which now affects 1 in 68 children. In 1975 it was 1 in 5000!!! Growing up in the 70’s I don’t think i’d ever heard of anyone having autism or cancer, now, I know too many people who are suffering from these once rare conditions. It is happening really fast. Our bodies have evolved over 100,000 years. How are they supposed to adapt to this tidal wave of assaults in 100 years!!!! I believe that when industrial chemicals, food additives, petrol fumes etc, made their way into the environment, that our grandparents were affected. How could they not be? I believe that these affects were passed down to their children, who have now passed them onto our children and I will use my own family as an example, as this is why this post has any relevance at all. My grandfather died of bowel cancer and Alzheimers disease. My Mum was diagnosed as a child with Crohns Disease and in the last 10 years has developed Rheumatoid Arthritis, her twin sister in that time has been diagnosed with Lupus. Their older sister developed severe Rheumatoid Arthritis in her 30’s. Her daughter, my cousin, was also diagnosed with RA in her 30’s. My grandmother, my mum and her two sisters have all had thyroid problems. I won’t delve further than that for now, but of course, my interest peaks at my own son who has Autism, Intellectual Disability and PANDAS, which is an Autoimmune condition (Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus and Crohns are also autoimmune diseases). I believe the affect of these changes have been profound. I believe that our bodies and brains are the results of the cumulative affect of these changes. I believe that some of us, generationally speaking, have paid a fairly high price for these changes. I believe that while our bodies are truly incredible and are obviously capable of dealing with many things, gene’s have been switched on and off in ways that must differ from those 100 short years ago. (Please see my post ‘You MTHFR’). I believe that with all of this in mind, Autism and other conditions must be an inevitability. There are more than 200 chemicals found in umbilical cord blood. 200!!!!!!!! Babies are compromised in utero. Not necessarily through any fault of the poor mother, but from the environment we are living in. Children with Autism are the canaries in the coal mine.

So what is my point? My point as usual is to make people aware. We need to keep our minds open, we need to understand what we are doing and what future we are contributing to. We need to look further than the brain for answers. We need to look more at the gut and the liver, at what price they have paid and will keep paying. We need to not just look for an ‘Autism Gene’, but look for which genes are effected in a person with Autism. We have come such a long way in our understanding, but I think we have a long long way to go. You may not agree with my theory at all and thats okay. But after researching for ten years, it feels pretty obvious to me. As a parent, it is my responsibility to not only look after my beautiful boy, but to help my daughter have the best possible outcomes when she is old enough to have children of her own. This is my conclusion and it feels pretty logical. Now that you’ve read this you may truly understand why I made the title a question and why i’m off to get a glass of Sauv Blanc. Actually, I might make it a green tea instead 🙂

Take care,

Kitty

In January of this year, my ‘Who’, Fraser, was at a point in his life where frustration at his lack of ability to communicate, was causing him and us, an incredible amount of stress. All he wanted was to look things up on Google and Youtube, but he couldn’t always tell us what it was. He has a limited vocabulary, and sometimes he would say things like ‘Nemo’, if he wanted to look at Finding Nemo. He could say ‘Tigger’ if he wanted to look up ‘The Tigger Movie’, but there were things he wanted to look up that we simply couldn’t work out. You can imagine how upset he became, repeating something over and over, that we couldn’t understand. At times he would just sit and cry. It was utterly heartbreaking, seeing him so distressed. So, I thought, why not try to teach him to type? I had actually tried a few years before, but he had not been ready and/or willing. We had nothing to lose if it didn’t work, but as it turns out, it miraculously did. Here’s what I did…

The first thing I tried at my first attempt a few years ago, was to lock the computer with a password, which was his name. Whenever he wanted to use it, he had to type in F R A S E R. It was simply a matter of holding his pointer finger , and moving it on the keyboard from one letter to the next. Before too long, he was typing it in himself.

Fast forward to 2014…he remembered how to type his name, so I used the thing he was into at the time…’Toy Story 2′. I used the same simple process. I would hold his pointer finger and press each of the letters one by one, while saying the names of the letters, numbers and keys at the same time. T O Y SPACE S T O R Y SPACE 2 ENTER. Within a couple of hours he was doing it himself. We stood there in awe feeling proud and amazed which was an awesome feeling, but the look on his face eclipsed that by a mile. He looked proud of himself. Something that, as far as i’m aware, he’s never felt before. He also looked like he couldn’t quite believe that he made Toy Story 2 images come up on the screen. It was like the world had just opened up for him.

So from there I continued with different movies and things he was interested in. He began spelling them out loud, and when we asked him to spell some of the movie titles, he was verbally able to spell them for us. He developed a voracious appetite for books and the alphabet. He has got some books that he’s had since he was little, that we used to teach him to spell every day items (listed below). I would hold his finger on each letter and say it out loud, then say the whole word, then point to the picture and say the word again. Before long, he could spell every word in every book. He was coming along in leaps and bounds.

I spoke to his teacher at his special school about what we were doing. She asked me if we wanted her to persevere with trying to get him to learn to hand write or if we wanted her to use that time to build on his typing. He is never going to write, so I jumped at the chance, so now he does typing at school instead. He also has a sentence written out about his day, he has a copy of the sentence cut up into individual words, that he has to put back together.

The next thing I did, was to make him a dictionary of words that he likes to look up, the names of all the people in his family, food and drinks that he might like. He has now learned the words, and can spell all of them back to us. We have now progressed on to doing the same with the Magic 100 words. So far he has completed his golden and red words! The dictionary is simply words in categories, such as our names, movie titles, foods etc. I typed them up on the computer, printed them and put them into a display book.

When I look back at the journey that bought us to this point, there are a few things that I just happened to do right along the way! The first thing was to play vocabulary videos, from the time we worked out something was wrong. So from the time he was almost 2, he was watching them and enjoyed them on a daily basis. The other thing was the word books I mentioned previously. We would go through the words and if we could, would show him a real item to match. For example, if the word was ‘shoe’, I would show him a real shoe. If the word was ‘comb’ I would show him a comb. If possible, I tried to buy items that closely matched the pictures. I did the same thing with the vocabulary videos. I also had alphabet books that I used. I had a variety from the local bookstore.

I am happy to report that he is still continuing to progress. He has an iPad, so he sometimes looks things up that he wants (he somehow manages to find things on youtube, by just touching links that he sees). He will pause on the title screen, then bring the iPad to the computer and copy the writing from the screen into the search engine onto the computer!! These gadgets are opening up a whole new world.

My sister and I have created an app called ‘Emotion Fonts’, that allows children (and adults) to select a font that represents and emotion, such as anger (bold black font), happy (apple green type) and sad (light blue soft looping font), to allow communication and intent to be clearer for everyone. The app can be used as a little whiteboard, or you send your message via email, Facebook and Twitter which we hope will help teenagers especially.

If you are reading this, you maybe looking for ways to help your child communicate better. I truly hope this information helps. The best advice I can give is to just give it a shot! Apart from some possible disappointment, there is not much to lose at all, and look at the gains you and your child might make.

Below are a list of items that I have found that have been particularly helpful. Apart from the Emotion Fonts app, I am not affiliated with any of these products. They are simply the ones that not only have worked for us, but that Fraser has actually loved and I highly recommend them.

Baby Bumblebee Vocabulary Builder DVD’s. Search http://www.babybumblebee.com

Baby’s First Library. We have ABC, Words, Numbers, Animals, Food, Vroom and School. They are available at Amazon, and are great because each page has one large picture with the word written underneath. We have had these books for years and have certainly stood the test of time. I have put his name stickers over the ‘Baby’s First Library’ title, as I don’t want him to feel anything other than pride, but these books as therapy and a teaching tool are fantastic.
Find them here : http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=babys+first+library&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ababys+first+library

The app, ‘Emotion Fonts’ is available on iTunes for $1.29. We would have loved to be able to make the app available for free, but building an app is quite an expensive exercise, and we have not allowed any advertising on the app, so as to keep it simple.
Find it here : https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/emotionfonts/id779305002?mt=8

Just to finish, I want you to know that Fraser is 11 years old. We never thought he would be able to do this, and he has. His paediatrician was blown away by the fact that he can do this. When I told him about at our last appointment he said “you know, if you had have asked me if I thought Fraser would be able to type, I would have said the chances aren’t good, but we should obviously never underestimate these kids’. It’s so true. You just never know what is going on in those minds of theirs (what we wouldn’t give to know)! It doesn’t matter how young or old your child is. It doesn’t matter if they have Autism and Intellectual Disability like Fraser, or just one or just the other. It’s worth a try. Our hope for the future, is that this new skill will build and he will be able to tell us the things he is feeling. For years I have asked one question, over and over, and I hope one day, if he can’t tell me what it is, he can type it. Hopefully soon when I again ask him ‘what’s your favourite colour’?, he’ll type me the answer. When I find out, i’ll let you know 🙂 I truly wish you all the best. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment and let me know any success stories. I’d love to hear them.

Kitty
xx

Tag: autistic child

Is Autism Inevitable?

How I taught my ‘Who’ to type.