school, school, I love school

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. ~ Albert Einstein

School starts tomorrow. I have high anxiety about it this year. The start of last year boy cried everyday for 2 months. It was a very difficult time for him and we found over the weekend that the majority of the boys from last year are now in a different class so he has a bunch of boys he really doesn't know. Anxiety is high for him too so I'm trying really hard to not let him see how I'm feeling.

So, we will see what happens tomorrow. We are doing therapeutic listening now everyday...I'll have a whole separate blog about that, probably tomorrow. I think I will brush him in the morning too to help ease his stress level.

All of my charts are in line, we should be set to start another fabulous year. Honestly, as much as I hate the fact they have to go back to school, school is really what helps regulate his moods because there is a constant routine that deviates very little from day to day. School provides a better routine than I can ever do on my own so I know it is good for him. I just wish they could stay home with us forever...they grow up too fast. It is sad!!

So, wish us luck for tomorrow...thankfully it is just a half day.

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."~ Stephen Covey

Ok so I have been ALL about the schedules and routines and lists and charts and to do lists and been done lists...it is quite overwhelming! But I have narrowed things down a bit and think that the following will be super helpful for us this year, thought I would share with all of you.

Good Morning, Welcome To Your Day chart: this chart represents the things that need to be done in the morning before we walk out the door for school (since school is 6 days away we will work in school mode).

• I have added to the good morning chart a task for him to choose what sensory fun we will do that night
• I have put a variety of sensory fun tasks onto white 3 x5 notecards and based on what we have going on that night, he can randomly choose 1 or 2 cards (blindly choosing eliminates him needing to make a choice (which is a meltdown begging to happen), but still gives him some ownership)

Some of my sensory fun items for tactile - and added bonus, play classical music during!

1. Pick up cotton balls with tongs
2. Pick up cotton balls with tweezers
3. Sift rice into cups with one hand
4. Play war fast and deal cards
5. Play uno, deal cards quickly
6. Shaving cream in the shower on the tile
7. Shaving cream in ziplock bags with food coloring. Allow them to write and draw on the ziplock (make sure you double bag)
8. Shaving cream car wash - drive cars through it
9. "Draw" pictures with cooked spaghetti noodles
   

Good night chart - the good night chart is a routine of things that need to be done before bedtime. I revised the good night chart to include, as the very first item, "Do sensory fun".

I think adding the sensory items to the charts will ensure that the sensory is not overlooked.

Also, since things are so insanely busy with school starting, I need to create weekday routines for quick reference. For example it would be something like the below...

We also need to go down to a daily @ school schedule that he can keep in his desk at school so that at any given moment of the day he can find out where he is at and where he has to go.

Hopefully these will be helpful and make him more productive if he feels like he is in some kind of control.

Hopeful, ever so hopeful.

fun sensory things to do

"Art...is an attempt to bring order out of chaos." ~ Stephen Sondhein

We have been working with the Cheerios cookbook that our sensory therapist gave us and there are a lot of fun things in it to be done that can equate to some sensory fun times.

Tonight we made these cute little cheerio peanut butter sprinkle balls. This works some sensory in because boy had to form the balls, which are uber sticky and ick, and then roll them in sprinkles...this is after he helped measure and pour all of the ingredients.

His sensory therapist suggests having him help make different food and teach him that when we cook, we must taste what we make...try to force him to start wanting to try a variety of food, broaden his tastes.

Here is the recipe for cheerio peanut butter sprinkle balls.

1/3c of sugar
1/2c of light corn syrup
1/2c peanut butter
3c cheerios
sprinkles

Line a cookie sheet with wax paper.
Mix the sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan over medium heat, stir until near boiling.
Add peanut butter and stir until thoroughly combined.
Stir in cheerios, mix until well coated.
Form into little balls, roll in the sprinkles and set aside for about a 1/2 hour until they have hardened.

Voila! Enjoy!

I detest the word "cure"

Ok, the next few lines of my blog may horribly offend many people, but that is in no way my intent. I am speaking only on behalf of my son with Aspergers and if my son were not so "high functioning" I may not at all agree with my opinions here...

So, here it goes.

I am so sick of hearing about how Jenny McCarthy "cured" her autistic son. The reason I am so sick of hearing about this is that I hate the term "cure, curing, cured". Cure, curing, cured makes it sound like it is a disease. And again I am only speaking on behalf of my aspie son when I say this, but for me his Aspergers, which is classified under the term autism, is not a disease. It is who he is. It is just who he is. I have no desire to cure him of it, it is what makes him the quirky little guy that he is. I do have a desire to help him situate himself in the world where everyone else is so "normal" (another term that I DESPISE). But I do not at all hope to cure him. I hope to take his amazing skills and talents and development them into something that works for him.

The word cure just grates on my nerves. Let's not let our children believe that they need to be cured of this disease, let's not let them believe they have a disease. Let's let them know that they are different, as everyone is different, and we are not working towards a cure, but working towards making them the best people they can be.

sensory therapy update - this past week

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

*highlight - classical music really is calming..use it and use it often!

Wednesday boy came out of sensory therapy wearing this huge contraption set of headphones on his ears and something resembling a back brace wrapped about his waist. It was very hard to keep myself from laughing! The therapist was walking behind him chuckling as he walked up to me and started talking extra loud (much louder than his normal level of loud).

Ms. Sue decided to start him with therapeutic listening to help with some of his anxiety and noise sensitivity issues. She was very impressed that he knew the music was Mozart before she even told him, which started a huge discussion (on his part) all about the wonders of the fabulous Baby Einstein...one of his huge previous addictions. I am surprised (and beyond thankful) that the therapeutic listening did not prompt a regression to the world of Baby Einstein...I'm not sure I could survive that!).

Ok so here is the info part - the therapeutic listening system teaches the body how to block out the noise that is disruptive. Has anyone ever said "Hey, do you hear that ringing sound?" and before they asked you didn't hear it, but after they asked you realize it was there the whole time? The fact that you did not hear it meant that your body, on its own, was blocking out the disruptive noise so you could continue doing whatever it was you were doing. Some children do not have the ability to do that. Therapeutic listening is supposed to teach their ear muscles to drown out that noise.

The headphones and CDs are what the program are composed of. We supply the portable CD player, which he can wear on himself so he can continue with his usual activities. The headphones are special in that they provide different frequency levels (high/low)in each headphone, sound comes in from different parts of the headphones and during the music it will change from normal to scratchy to staticy.

Last year I priced the therapeutic listening programs when we first really started seeing issues with noise. They were over $300. For this program through our sensory therapy we rent out the equipment for $10 for 2 weeks at a time. The $10 is refundable once the equipment is returned. Ms. Sue is going to get it ready for him to take home next week...I am super excited to start this and ESPECIALLY at the start of the year!!!

On another note, can I just express again how much we love our sensory therapist. Boy noticed a cheerios cookbook in her office and was so taken with it she let him borrow it for the week. We came across alot of really good sensory activities and have been working on them.

Sensory cheerio activities that are fun:

1. String cheerios on pipe cleaner to make bracelets
2. Make pipecleaner people and string cheerios on them
3. Make a mask and glue cheerios to it -- make sure you use the palming technique where he picks up the cheerios with one hand (thumb and forefinger), palms them, then manipulates them out of his hand with his thumb and forefinger again to place them on the glue.
   

routine chart ideas

As requested, here are the routine charts that I created for my son. They are fairly simple.

Right now we have a Good Morning and Good Night chart. I laminated them and he marks off his tasks with a dry erase marker, which adds a level of fun to it.

When school starts I will be adding a Homework Chart. I also create little charts for him for what his school day entails so throughout the day he can review the chart and find out where in the world
he is at.

I also need to create a detailed shower chart that I can laminate and put in the shower with him. Maybe he can use soap to mark items off. It is amazing how hard it is for him to remember what he needs to do in the shower.

routines, routines, oh how we love our routines

We are strictly enforcing the routine charts now :)

School starts in two weeks, gotta be ready for the super chaos to begin.

So far the routines have been happily accepted, welcomed with open arms. I laminated them and he uses a dry erase marker so that alone makes it seem fancy.

Right now we have a good morning and good night chart. I am also creating a homework and shower chart.

Fun times!

fingerpaint is evil..or at least mildly annoying

"When I was a kid, a book I read advised young artist to be themselves. That decided it for me. I was a corny kind of guy, so I went in for corn." ~ Walt Disney

I pulled out the fingerpaint tonight. I could not understand why it was so hard to find, hidden deep in the darkest recesses of a closet. I guess the last time I put it there I should have attached a note to it to remind myself why I had hidden it so well...or maybe just my face with X's for eyes...surely that would have reminded me of what I was about to get myself into...

The most important thing that I had forgotten about fingerpaint is the fact that boy loves to play with it, but hates the feel of it...and the two forces pushing against eachother (the love/hate relationship of it) lead to meltdowns of astronomical proportions...

Thus began my night.

So, the kids start to play with the fingerpaint. Here is how it went...

Girls:
1) hands in paint, oh neat
2) swirl swirl swirl
3) mix some colors, oh neat
4) swirl swirl swirl

Boy:
1) hand in paint, ick blah ick wash hands
2) hand in paint and try to quickly swirl, ick blah ick wash hands
3) hand in paint, great now the colors are mixed together, ick blah ick wash hands
4) hand in paint, now Ive made the color of poop, ick blah ick wash hands and chant "poop" over and over again with a little squawking on the side.

It went over and over again until he was too frustrated and started to meltdown. Into the shower he went, but not before he smeared his last remaining bit of messy fingerpaint hands down the hallway, through the bathroom.

The mess doesn't bother me because it cleans up easily. But here's the question...should I have "forced" him to continue while hoping the eventually he would get used to the feel of the fingerpaint and wouldn't need to wash his hands and could then go on with the "loving it" part that he was trying to do? Or does the fact that a horrible meltdown was approaching mean that it is right to stop?

Things that make you go, hmmmm......

have you brushed before?

So, in sensory therapy Wednesday the therapist decided that we should start brushing boy to help ease his anxiety issues. Lately he has had a lot of worries so hopefully this will start to help. This is what the brush looks like that our therapist gave us.

The documentation that I have states that this is done to:

• modify behaviors related to defensiveness
• enhance body awareness
• maintain a calm state of arousal
• apply an accumulation of somato-sensory input to help organize the central nervous system
  

So, here's how it goes.

1. For two weeks we need to brush him every 2 hours, except when he is sleeping.
2. We need to start with one hand, brush three strokes -- hand, palm, forearm, inner arm, upper arm, across the shoulders, behind the neck, down the next arm, hand palm.
3. Then move down a thigh, calf, down the next thigh, calf
4. Do not brush feet, inner arm (like armpit area) or inner thigh as those areas are too sensitive

After brushing you must followup with joint compressions.

1. Joint compressions on the wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle
2. Line up the joints and pump to a count of 10 at each one

If they aren't willing to sit for the joint compressions, have them do push ups against a wall and jumping jacks to get the same joint compression. The joint compressions are key. Key points:

• keep the brush held horizontally to the arm and leg and apply sufficient pressure
• use a brushing motion; slowly brushing, not scrubbing the skin and rotate the arm/leg while brushing
  
• brush no more than 3 times over any one area
• avoid any itch, scratch, outch, tickle or light touch
• do not lift the brush at the end of each stroke
  
• never brush the head, chest or stomach
  
• the complete routine should take no more than 3 minutes

One of the biggest things I am hoping that this will help with is nail clipping. Boy HATES to have his nails clipped...it's really bad. So ideally, if we have a stressful situation coming up or I know that I want to clip his nails on a certain day, we will need to start the brushing three days before and then brush right before the event. Hopefully this will help keep his anxiety level down and help him relax.

it's been a busy while!

Wow, I cannot believe that it has been so long since I have blogged! Of course, I have a ton of information to share, so let me share away..

Updates with sensory therapy:

We have homework that we work on now. The homework we do with boy helps with his manual dexterity, at this point. Here is what we do:

• Deal cards quickly
• Play War FAST (this is a super favorite now)
• Pick up cotton balls with tongs of varying sizes or tweezers (you can use tongs, tea strainers, etc). He can switch hands if his right hand gets tired.
  
• Thread foam shapes on string
• Play with shaving cream on a placemat (make figure eights with right hand, then with left hand, then with both hands -- both hands works on bilateral coordination)
• Shaving cream on the shower walls while he showers (this one is my own creation)
• Picking up coins or buttons one at a time
• Placing handfuls of coins or buttons into a container one at a time
• Shuffling cards
• Sorting cards
• Turning cards over as fast as you can
• Tying and untying small knots in rope (haven't tried this one yet)
• Clipping clothespins onto edge of folder (haven't tried this one yet)
• Flicking cotton balls at target (this one is really fun)
• Assembling nuts and bolts (haven't tried this one yet)
• Place a row of paper cups on table and overturn as fast as you can

Updates to Monday therapy sessions:
We are now charting anxiety levels for the next two weeks with boy assigning a number to his anxiety. I hope this will help with his anxiety issues and give him ways to manage his anxiety. His newest thing is counting down to October 3rd, which is the date that he remembers he got a flu shot last year and so is convinced that the flu shot will occur on October 3rd again...

I love his memory, but it can also be a burden!