An ALLELUIA day.

So yesterday rocked.

Why, you may be wondering.

Because we are getting serious about getting on the right track around here.

In the afternoon we met with Simon's Autism Specialist. She was here from 3pm to 5pm and basically educated us on what we can do to help him throughout his day. Especially including some techniques for teaching him how to calm himself, giving him specific directions and choices, and mainly getting our act together with regards to a more interactive schedule.

She brought with her (and we get to keep here):

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  a picture schedule that shows month, day, date, what activities are happening in what order, and a choice wheel for when he is getting bored or a "choice" is scheduled into his activities. Once he chooses one that little square goes into the "all done" pocket. Love this idea of structured choices.




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  individual activity boxes (work stations) to practice his fine motor skills. This is a series of four boxes with toys in each one that we can play with him or he can work on at the table. He moves onto the second box once he finishes the first. We are really working with him on the idea of "first this...then this" and getting some sort of compliance before moving on to the next activity. She brought a whole bag of different things that can be rotated through the boxes on a weekly basis.




• 
  creativity activities: such as marbles with paint in a box top (Simon LOVES marbles) where he gets to get really messy and roll the marbles around and drive matchbox cars through the paint and we get to encourage more language. Lots of different things with paints and such. Teaching him how to use scissors. Just playing. You know I was loving that. I guess we really just needed someone to show us what to do with him.
  
  




• 
  interactive activities: games that can be played to teach sharing - how to give up something that you want really bad and realize that it will come back to you. I think there are four or some games that she brought - one is a memory game where we just start with a couple cards and teach him how to match.

This lady was amazing. Chris and I were in awe of how she worked with Simon. The assertiveness in her voice. I was vigorously writing down what she was saying so I can incorporate some of the same phrases into my vocabulary. She was great with him while he had some melt-downs and throwing tantrums when he was not getting what he wanted. We would all ignore him until he started being distructive. Then she would sit him in his chair (we need to get a bean bag per her recommnedation) - she called this "moving to break" (as in take him away from whatever he is trying to destroy and have him take a break in his chair until he is calm enough to get up). She told him, "Show me you are ready. Sit in the chair to show me you are ready." and "First sit in the chair and then you can play at the table."He simply had to comply and sit in the chair for the count of three before he could move on to the next thing. She ended up walking him through it - physically showing him...but she says he will get it - we just need to be consistent.

Another suggestion she had was to create a snack box for Simon that is always available and teach him where to go when he wants a snack. Right now he just goes to the fridge and pulls out what he wants - which is not always what we want him to have. I love the idea of a snack box with water.

So that was all good.

Then last night we were able to meet with a Defeat Autism Now doctor who is seriously going to help us in getting some of the tests I read about originally. Food sensitivity testing. Yeast level testing. It was so interesting hearing him talk about autism as an injury. I am not even going to get into it on here becuase it gets a little complicated - just hearing him talk about it simplified some of it for me after all my reading, but it is still complex. He is going to help us get on the right track. Thank God. And give us some more support and backing on the diet. It has to be all or nothing and we have not been insisting on that at school (and some gluten here at home). We have to treat both dairy and gluten as if they were drugs (that is essentially how they act in his body)...with devastating effects.

So there is much more to be done. But I am feeling stronger and more confident in what I want to happen for him. And I love that Chris was able to be at both things yesterday. Having him hear about the diet stuff (which he has totally been behind the whole time) from a doctor was awesome. And I feel like we are finally getting serious...with the educational and bio-medical interventions to help get the little dude going in the right direction.