I live my life every day with two sons who have Autism. One has PDD NOS and the other has very high functioning Aspergers. Doctors have always asked me when did I notice something different with my children. Well both were polar opposites. My oldest boy couldn't stand to be touched or held. He would lay down next to you as a baby but if you picked him up hed scream. When my youngest son was a baby he only wanted to be wrapped tightly and had to be held or he'd scream endlessly.
My oldest was a very picky eater, didn't sleep at night, had terribly tantrums and tried hurting his brother and had problems with rules in school. He wasn't diagnosed until he was hospitalized at age 9.
My youngest was nonverbal until age 5. People told me he was Autistic but I didn't believe it. I didn't know what Autism was then. He would do this thing we called Kole radar. He'd point and scream if he wanted something, the closer we got to his want he'd get louder. He would physically drag me to something he wanted. He had major troubles in daycare. If they were doing sensory play he would overstimulate and then throw objects and hit and bite people then go hide and then bite his caregivers. He spent a lot of time in the directors office. They suggested Autism to me. I was still in denial.
At age 9 he acquired sentences and we moved to a new state. At his well child checkup the doctor matter of factly told me he has PDD and I needed to see a developmental pediatrician. (by that time he had been diagnosed with speech and language delays, developmental visual problems and sensory integration disorder), They thought he had ADHD and I was medicating for that to little avail even though we were on the highest dose. The develop mentalist said it wasn't possible for him to have adhd, he sat in his own world for three hours at his office and didn't interrupt once. He agreed with the PDD NOS diagnosis. At 9 he was still not reading at all. He had very many problems in school, he would only do well working alone with head phones on at the computer. By this age his stims had calmed down, he used to stim when he was very young, I didn't know rocking was an autistic trait. Or that his collections of various items were his obsessions. He always had a hard time transitioning to go home from daycare. He wouldn't hear me when I called for him or he would lay down and have a meltdown. It was always very hard to get him to go places. At the age of nine I really started avoiding bringing him places, the grocery store was particularly hard because he wanted everything. At age 9 his behaviors that he had been having sporadicly became uncontrollable. He broke my windshield of my truck, he would chase us with sticks, he would break everything in the house, he lit fires, he would have meltdowns in public every time we went somewhere. I tried a behavioral therapist through the county, and through the develop mentalist who saw him attack me in her office. I got them both to recommend Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore for their outpatient Neural Behavioral Unit. He went there for 3 days a week for 6 months. They said he had atypical Autism (PDD) and said he had Self Injury, and a behavioral disorder. They wrote a behavior plan and had me start a token system with him. That was a lot of work. But it worked for some time combined with aggressive medical therapy.
Now hes 16, he just started rocking again because school is too stressful for him. He has always stimmed by throwing objects, but now his stims are getting worse. He is very dependent on me, I got him an IPAD for his communication and he took to it very fast. He loves the AutismExpress application for emotions. He has never communicated his emotions before in an appropriate manner and now he is using the IPAD. He is so dependent that I am called to him after every time I sit down. I try to keep my frustration with that down but some days are worse than others. Since he cant spell still I have to type things on his Ipad for him. And when his only friend texts him I have to text back what Kole is saying. We found a great Church that has a developmental disabilities class for 16 and up he is doing great with accommodations in there. He needed fidgets to stop from stimming and to help him pay attention. How is my other son doing? He was so high functioning he never tested autistic at school so we never got accommodations for him. He has severe bi-polar so that has taken the forefront. He is very abusive especially to his brother. His sensory integration dysfunction has gotten way better with age. He still doesn't like hugs or any affection at all and prefers to be alone or on the computer with facebook. My house is very chaotic. Kole still yells for things, we are working on that with his current behavior specialist. He recently learned how to turn on the shower for himself and has become independent on that . His reading has picked up now he is at a 1st grade level. (hes in 9th grade)
I am sure he will be with me for a long time, I don know if he will ever be independent enough to live on his own. But hes progressing and learning new stuff every month. We have 1:1 aides for him and they have helped with the behaviors greatly plus he gets out to the community and I get a much needed break. Would I change my life with Autism? Never, it has made me a more patient mom, and more understanding. The only thing I would have liked to do was to listen to the people who told me Kole had Autism at age 4 we would have gotten services way earlier for him and maybe hed be reading by now.
Im Jenny Holloway and I am a single mom of three kids, two with Autism.
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