http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-life-aspergers/201009/the-promise-genetics-and-autism

These are pictures of the school room, some of the children’s books and the crafts/resources for school.

I am using the first sheet to help with their overall day and to write down any great things/issues we had for the day. At the end of the day they bring this sheet to Daddy so he can see how well they did. The other sheet I use as a physical schedule to show Daniel so he can check off what we have done along with taking down the picture from the schedule board. It seems to help him solidify what is going on and make smoother transitions to the next thing we are doing. I also use it to write down what I did specifically for sensory, if there were any specific books they enjoyed, the science experiment we did, if it went well or not and any other things that would be helpful or good to remember. All three of them like these sheets and they like having direct interaction with what they are doing with their school work. We talk about our day, what we liked best and what we didn’t like, that information also goes on these sheets. There are a lot of other pages that go along with these sheets. I am keeping it simple though we are only in Kindergarten.   I found these sheets here:

http://www.autism-society.org/site/DocServer/School_Handouts_2.pdf?docID=15401

http://www.autism-society.org/site/DocServer/Handouts.pdf?docID=15381

The daily schedule only changes if I need to add that we are going somewhere, I keep breakfast, lunch and dinner all the same. If we are going to Church I will add the picture right after the breakfast so they know we are leaving after breakfast. If we are going to class on Wednesday night, I will put that picture after dinner so they know we will go then. Things like that. I keep it next to the calendar because I also put up pictures on the days on the calendar that we are going somewhere. I have an additional calendar underneath to help me remember what the date is. The school schedule I keep pretty consistent with the picture sheet above but add things to it as well and show that to all of them so they understand that I have changed something but that we will still do everything on the list from the sheet.

The chore charts! These have been great in getting Daniel involved in doing chores. Ariel and Joshua were already doing it because their obsessions have gotten out of control and we told them that we were not going to buy them all the things they wanted to collect in world. We opted to go for “earn money” and buy it yourself. They have been really good about this but now that we have the new charts they are really excited. Daniel now has an interest in helping out, cleaning up toys, clearing off his dishes, helping with the laundry and many other things that he just would not do before or he had no interest in until he started doing it with Ariel and Joshua. Including him in things that I hadn’t before has made a difference in his attitude also, not in a bad way, he is actually telling me to let him do it and to stop helping him. I think that is a huge for him, especially since a few months ago he would refuse to do hardly anything himself.

There you have it our schedules and the school rooms. Pretty exciting stuff! I think these have made a huge difference for all of us. I haven’t gone into detail about Ariel and Joshua but they are thriving on this system as well and they all seem to be very grateful to have it bring more order and comforting in knowing what is going to happen each day. I don’t know if other people are having the same issues as we did with the pictures, the clip art/cartoonish pictures not working, but if you are and have given up I say give your own pictures a try to see if that works. Keep on thinking of new ideas, not the norm, think out of the box and keep looking/researching in places you never expected answers. There is no set way of reaching our children we just have to reach out to them and try to understand what gets them motivated and interested.

Art is a very large part of my life even though I do not draw or paint very well I guess my art would be writing.

Not that I have achieved any kind of professional sense of writing in my blog or with my poetry it is still a creative avenue for me to express myself and I consider that to be art. I would say any form for a person to express themselves, is art. My mother is a painter, seamstress, she crochets, restores anything, can create some thing amazing out of a card board box. I did not receive those  genes. My father is gifted in music, he taught himself to play keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, the drums, along with other instruments (those are the ones he uses most though) and learn to play without reading music.

I did not inherit that gene either.

But having them be such amazing artists gave me respect and the understanding that the arts are very important. Ariel has naturally picked up the paints and any form of drawing instrument, then creates some very imaginative works of art. All of her art whether on paper, construction paper, wood or rocks all have very detailed stories and reasons behind the creations. Joshua does as well and he is now beginning to use paints and drawing instruments also. It used to be only through Lego’s or blocks, though he still does use them he is expanding with his art forms.

Daniel has yet to really get involved with art for a long period of time.

On most occasions he does not create things without my prompting other than graphics on the computer, although he has surprised me a couple of times. Even though he has not taken it on he has overcome many sensory issues through doing arts and crafts. I believe he will be more of an instrument guy, he loves music and his favorite instruments are the guitar and violin. I am hoping to get one of those soon for him. Our plan is to save for guitars for all three of them. I am sure I will be writing my music curriculum at some point as soon as we get the resources. Currently we are using music and making our own instruments.

This leads me to some of the curriculum items that I am using.

We purchased this last year and it has proven to be a great investment. http://www.madcaplogic.com/

We ordered the online edition. Not only are the characters  funny and enjoyable for the kids, but it also contains curriculum that goes along with each section. I use the short clips and the projects then expand with doing other art activities or expand on information about the artists. We all like it and we recently purchased the Art Studio as well it is from Crayola. We got it on sale at Amazon. We find a lot of deals on Amazon from our gluten-free foods in bulk to books that are really cheap. Along with the online art items we have several books.  I like this book because it uses books with it and I use it not only with books but also along side with the Creativity Express.

Teaching Art with Books Kids Love

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Amazing-Art-Activities-Williamson/dp/082496795X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282057065&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Great-Artists-Hands–Children/dp/0935607099/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282057150&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Storybook-Art-Hands–Children-Illustrators/dp/093560703X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282057112&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-101-Animals-Green/dp/1842297406/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282058700&sr=8-1

I also use the web for whatever theme pops into my head, I just google my thought with “craft/activities” behind it and away I search. I also have these books that I found at garage sales. They may have them at half.com or goodwill online auctions.

They do have it used at Amazon pretty cheap. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Crafts-Better-Homes-Gardens/dp/0696216922

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Arts-Crafts-Grades/dp/0769685579/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282058138&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Kids-Arts-Crafts-More/dp/0743932005/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282058262&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Usborne-Internet-Linked-Childrens-World-Cookbook/dp/0794500986/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282058455&sr=1-2-spell

I put the cooking one up as well because cooking is as art to me also. Each culture has such a variety of foods and I find it fascinating. Though I do not try a lot of different foods, on occasion I will. I have been trying to venture out more though to help the kids try new things also.

I don’t think we paid full price for any of these. I have my wish list on Amazon and then I go searching various web outlets, garage sales, thrift stores and home school sales. There are usually home school sales around here in the summer, along with the library’s book sale and teachers also pull together and have book/curriculum sales. I check as many of those out as possible. I do have quite a hefty collection of resources but I am not just stocking up for now, most of these can all be used at least up to second grade, some further on. I do have to confess here,  it is one of  my special interests to research curriculum and I do stim by searching out bargains for my wish list. I usually do not pay more than $3.00 for a book, with the exception of the autism resource books we can find them at pretty good prices but they are still a lot more than I like to spend. However, they are not things we can live without so I have to get them.

We are currently using Aha! Math and I have it posted on my Back to Home School post as well but Daniel does really well with it and he is able to focus longer on it than if I use worksheets. I am really impressed with the EasyTech lessons also they are really great.

I have been using this site for several months and I do like everything I have tried so far. They give some great insight as well.

http://autismclassroom.com/home/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

We currently have this book on order which I found on their site. They are on Facebook too and give great resources through that.

http://www.amazon.com/Classroom-Students-Autism-Para-professionals-Administrators/dp/1442175915/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270955942&sr=8-1

We have not purchased this one yet because Daniel is so much of a visual thinker but he also loves music so we are trying out other ones first. It still looks like a great resource.

http://www.songsforteaching.com/store/tuned-in-to-learning-volume-1-social-skills-pragmatics-cd-boo-c-420-p-1-pr-1353.html

These books are all on their way.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1885477910/ref=oss_product

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931282811/ref=oss_product

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470434082/ref=oss_product

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470230800/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Also awaiting arrival is this dvd that seems like it will be a bit of fun for the kids.

http://www.noteabilities.com/

I have looked into to this one as well but currently we do not have the funds to do it. We can find books pretty cheap but  we have to budget for subscriptions. I do like that they give free video clips each week that give ideas, how to’s and tips.

http://www.rethinkautism.com/default.aspx

I have looked into this one as well. It looks very good but we just do not have the funds for it.

http://www.watchmelearn.com/

I am constantly researching and looking into resources and curriculum to use and I feel that it is very important that I do so. I guess at some point I really should write reviews on them but I really wouldn’t put them on here unless I thought they were worth wild. I also may not agree with some of these points of view about autism but to me that really doesn’t matter any longer. I do not have to agree with people to use their resources that are very good and can help my child. I believe that even though there may be different points of view about the autism issues, we all have the same goal, to help our children and do what is best to help them have a wonderful life. My two cents and now here is another resource link.

http://autism.lovetoknow.com/Lesson_Plans_for_Autistic_Children

I have used this one on several occasions.

http://www.positivelyautism.com/links.html

We found books through National Geographic that are awesome!

Now that I have all of this curriculum I have to put it all together for the year and make individual plans for each child. I really enjoy doing that but I do get overwhelmed when I start to put it all on paper. I don’t get overwhelmed by the work, I get overwhelmed by the not knowing if the kids are going to get it. If they don’t then what? It actually seems a ridiculous question because all of the kids are up to their grade level and above, when I did their assessments that proved that to me but for some reason I have these thoughts that they will lose it or something. I don’t know what it is really, I just get concerned that I am not teaching my kids the best and the truth is right now it is the best for them to learn from home. I am more than willing to let them go to school if we find good ones, but where we currently live it is not an option. I know I can do better and the kids are thriving, I just have a little doubt once in a while.

Now on to the curriculum.

Last year we used Sonlight and I really liked that as a core and we decided to get that again. I like how they use literature rich teaching and the Kindergarten core is focused on history. It uses time-lines and maps to connect the countries and adds different cultures. I respect this Christian curriculum because it does not make a focus on evangelizing, they incorporate multicultural ideas, their religions, children stories from the different cultures and moral tales. It is very important for children to know that there are other faiths and cultures out there, especially children on the spectrum, even adults. I have had this really click for me in the last few years through reading to the kids and stepping out to learn about different faiths or even no faith at all. We want our children to understand this and respect others, you cannot care for a person if you automatically believe that they are wrong or that you have to convince them of your beliefs. That can actually apply to a lot of things not just beliefs.

We really like Sonlight’s Science also because it is Science focused.

They have focused on critical thinking skills and implementing the Scientific Method. We like that they do not throw a scripture in there and say God did it all, that is all you need to know. They are really teaching Science for this age level. David being a scientist is a real stickler about it and of course we will be supplementing with more science activities, the kids really love doing experiments. Then we have the language arts and reading. They have some really great reads in there. A bunch of Dr. Suess, 1 2 3 Reads, My Father’s Dragon which I have been wanting for a very long time and many other books. Ariel is already reading at level 1 and she picked up one of my books the other night and started reading from there. Now she didn’t understand it all but that was a first step. Then we also got several Calvert curriculum items, reading books, math and intro to computer/skills. We also got several art and music items. Along with the social skills set I think we will be doing pretty well. I have more things I do for the social skills. You Tube has a ton of videos and autism sites have clips or free resources and I am using those as well. I am pretty excited about this year, I get so excited watching our kids learn and connect to their world.

It is even better when we all connect to this world at the same time and have a family “Aha” moment.

We had purchased the Pre-K and K Handwriting Without Tears this last year. It has worked well for the boys Ariel has been writing for two years and she has it down pretty well. Now she just practiced writing words a lot. The Calvert items include several Houghton Mifflin Reading books, Kindergarten and Grade 1, Computer skills and applications Kindergarten and Grade 1, McGraw Science Text Grade 1 and a Math manual. I am looking for their music curriculum set at a good price right now it’s a bit too steep. We found a lot of these items on Ebay and got really good deals. I like Calvert and Sonlight both very much. Where one is lacking the other seems to have, our plan is to combine them as much as possible to get a well-rounded education for the kids.

Some of our other finds.

Through Home school Buyers Co-op we are using Aha! Math and EasyTeach. The kids love them! These are used in the Calvert curriculum, but they are good on their own.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Book-Everything-National-Geographic/dp/1426203373

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Visual-History-World/dp/0792236955/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/Theories-Everything-Illustrated-History-Science/dp/0792239121/ref=pd_sim_b_4

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Essential-History-Mythology/dp/B003V1WE3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281451890&sr=8-1

I am beginning to understand that I cannot make people understand what I mean so let it go.

Most of the time I cannot articulate what I want to say anyway in physical conversation, I do much better in written form. I have been learning about this whole social underworld that is going on and has been going on right under my nose for my entire life. I had no idea that people were saying things with their face or their arms or that they do not tell you what they really are thinking. I mean I had my suspicions but to read other people’s words describing these rules that I was unaware of but knew something was causing me confusion, has made a lot of things make sense for me. It has also made me very aware of my inability to understand these things and teach my children about them. In the past few months it has been more obvious that both Ariel and Joshua are on the spectrum and I would venture to say that if we took them in to be evaluated they too would be placed somewhere on the spectrum.

The older they get the more obvious it is that they do not understand the social cues nor do they see them.

As I have been observing this, I realized how I need to do something to help them. I have been researching social skill curriculum for a while but never really understood the point. However, after seeing the kids around other kids and adults it has made sense now. As a child I was taught certain things that were a social must from my Grandparents and my mom. My Grandparents were the picture of Ozzy and Harriett and they taught me those kinds of things. I was demanded to respect my elders, say hello, be polite and when I said things that were inappropriate I was punished. I learned from that, I didn’t understand why but I understood that I would be punished someway. I have not done that to my kids. Of course I do not allow them to talk back or be rude but I also understand that there is a difference from truly being rude and saying what you see or feel.

The problem is the world doesn’t think that way.

SO I have taken small steps, one of them was the dvd curriculum from Model Me Kids and I like them so do the kids. We are also getting Social Skill Builder to help with this stuff. We decided that learning social skills in our family is just as important as any other curriculum. As I have considered these things I have taken a look in my past and even now, I now understand that during my school years a lot of my issues with school and learning had to do with my social stresses. I skipped school, I quit school (I went back), all through elementary school I was tardy over a 100 days each year and missed at least 10 or more. It’s a good thing that they didn’t send a truant officer back then! I did well in school when I didn’t have social stress but the majority of my school years were filled with social anxiety and confusion. I believe had I been given these kinds of skills I would have been better equipped to do school and do well.

I want to give that to my kids.

I know that I am only capable of teaching them from my perspective and that will not help them understand how this world of social underlining works or how to behave when people act a certain way. One of the things that has helped me is to finally understand that people are not purposely mean and many of the things that I feel are mean or unjust they do not. I may not understand it but now I know that, which has helped me to let things go much easier and quicker. I am finding that the social skill books and curriculum are helping me as well. I have tried social stories, free ones right now but I have looked into them and used them on several occasions. The problem that both Daniel and I have are that they use pictures that are cartoonish or like clip art. He has a hard time transferring himself into the situation so to him it is just a story with a picture and it has nothing to do with him. I totally understand that, what is the point of telling me a potty story using a bear??

I have decided to take the stories and use pictures of Daniel.

I have made several books with his picture and pictures of actual places or things that we use or go to and make a social story. He really likes this. I have taken pictures of him with a great big smile and used it to apply to social stories that he has anxiety about to help him apply that emotion to the experience. It has worked with the couple of them I have made. I am going to make a potty one next. I couldn’t understand why the social stories wouldn’t work at first because all of the things I read the people claimed that the child finally got it or it had changed their lives and brought great understanding but not for us. Needless to say I was discouraged a bit but then it dawned me that as I read them and looked at them I found myself rolling my eyes at the pictures or thinking this is silly. Those thoughts made me question why and I discovered that the pictures were a problem for me, I couldn’t envision myself with those pictures so I thought that Daniel may feel the same way.

And he did.

I have been trying to be creative in teaching these guys so another thing I have been doing is video taping our family time and role playing situations. I am making videos of us taking turns playing games, meeting someone new, doing school those kinds of things so that alongside the other curriculum that shows other children and families doing this they can all see us doing it too. I believe that this will help Daniel be able to envision himself. I hope so. I watched a video of a mother who had done this and thought it was a very good idea.  I have been making videos since they were born and they all love to watch themselves so I figured we could video tape our family being ourselves and use it to teach social skills. I am hoping this helps our children gain the knowledge of the social goings on that I never knew about and the ability to understand that not everyone thinks like them and that it is ok.

I also hope to instill the courage in them to be able to say ” I just can’t socialize today” and to feel perfectly fine with that too. (I am working on that one still.)

There was a time when I made myself stay at 99 lbs.

All through my early 20′s I would not let myself get over the 99 mark. If I did I would stop eating. I was broke most of the time and couldn’t afford food so to remedy this I took diet pills. No one ever knew until I told them. I would eat and I can eat! I have now discovered that I would binge eat. I could throw down two Big Macs, a large fry, chicken nuggets and be hungry again in about an hour. Not really impressive though, if you don’t eat for days it is very easy to eat a ton of food.  But I did eat quite a lot however, it was always like once a day so I made sure people saw me. Easy enough. At least I had a mark though, I knew I couldn’t go lower than 99 lbs but I had a secret goal of 85 lbs, I never made it thank God!

I had a hard time dealing with my 100 lb pound mark.

People started to take notice of my size so if I could say that I was 100 lbs I figured that was good. Along the way I had people who cared about me tell me that I was just too small. And eventually I did get to 105 lb and stayed there until my second divorce and then I went back down to 100 lb because I had no money for food and I was upset a lot and was unable to eat. When David came around his goal was to fatten me up. I was sick, my color was bad, I was not in good shape at all. I was skinny but in bad shape. I did get back up to 105 lb, freaking out the whole time but I was there when I got pregnant. I was very concerned with my weight when I got pregnant and I was concerned that I would gain a ton and never lose it.

I quickly got over that and felt the health of my children were much more important than my weight.

I gained a ton and I gained a ton with Joshua as well. It took forever to lose the weight but I have lost weight and I am at a healthy size. There is no need to disclose that information but I am exactly where I am supposed to be for my height and age. It has taken a lot to over come and I still haven’t in some areas, when I look in the mirror I see a very large person. I think that my stomach is huge. I feel on some days that I am just disgusting, though I know it is not true I cannot fight what my eyes see. My husband has loved me and has thought that I am beautiful no matter what size I have been and that is pretty much all I need. I do need his input to help reassure myself that I am not as big as our house.

Interestingly, I do not see others like this at all.

Everyone else to me is the same, there is no difference in shapes, size, height whatever. Everyone seems to be my age or younger and average size. It is only when it is brought to my attention like someone saying “Oh I have a big butt” or “I look fat”. Then I am aware of their shape and if they are skinny I am like “You are ridiculous, why are you saying that”  if they are large I inappropriately say “Yes, you do look large” or I say nothing at all. Because I remember I am not supposed to say the other thing. Although, if I ask David if I look large or bad in something I fully expect him to tell me and he is quite honest with me all the time. And I appreciate that.

So now that they are doing studies  about autism and anorexia, along with other eating disorders I find it quite interesting and will stay on top of it.

Our family has a predisposition so I want to be aware and watch for any signs. Appearance isn’t really a big deal in our household and my issues, David and I have kept between us so that the kids will not hear it or be influenced by it as I am still over coming things. They seem to be perfectly happy with their bodies and unaware of any eating issues. I take great comfort in that because I remember when I was 5 yrs old, that is the time that I had become aware of my weight. My pediatrician told my mom that if I did not stop eating the way I did that I would become obese. I was not a large child, I was just an eater, still am. I remember from that day on, I thought that I was fat.  And so the eating disorder began. Food and  nutrition were not explained to me and either was this comment. I took it, held on to it and used it as my spring-board to make sure that I would never become obese.

It’s those kinds of things that really need to be clarified to any child but especially those who are on the autism spectrum.

My situation was enhanced by my mothers obsession with her weight, my boyfriends who told me I was fat and the many media outlets that informed me of what I was supposed to look like. I also think that I wanted control over something because my whole life had no control. So controlling my weight and cutting myself were a means of feeling something and feeling in control. No one could make me gain weight and no one knew that I was cutting myself. They were mine. I would like to know how much cutting plays a roll in eating disorders as well.

Here are some articles that I found quite interesting.

http://autism.about.com/b/2007/08/23/are-asperger-syndrome-and-anorexia-connected.htm

http://autismaspergerssyndrome.suite101.com/article.cfm/aspergers_syndrome_and_anorexia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trisha-gura/anorexia-wired-like-asper_b_61506.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article2272080.ece

http://taylor-autism-aspergers-syndrome.com/

http://taylor-autism-aspergers-syndrome.com/another-video-story-like-mine/

Here is Haley’s website. http://www.haleymossart.com/myART/Welcome.html

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4313425&clipId=4313425&playlistId=4313425

Here is Carly’s website.

http://carlysvoice.com/

I am very excited to see what he does next.

This leads me to what I think has been huge helps for him, the homeschooling that we have done and the many books that have played a role in helping me mesh a plan for us as family. I believe all the different factors have made life for Daniel much better and he seems a lot more happy and he is definitely more involved. Before I list the other books that I have been reading, I want to share another experience. I have always read to the kids and for a while I felt that I did not read enough, so last month I decided to start a monthly calendar tally of the new books we read, not the re-reads they don’t count, and every day we put the number of new books we have read on it. Then at the end of the week we see our total and at the end of the month we see our grand total.

I found a take home sheet from a school for parents to be more involved with their child, they suggested 5 books a month.

You have got to be kidding me! Five books a month, I thought to myself, I read that in a day if not more. I know I am a home school mom, so I have more time than other parents but still only five a month, that seemed to be very little to me. That is what prompted me to make a monthly calendar, I wanted to see what we average on our new book reading spectrum. Last month we read 62 new books, not including the re-reads, with the re-reads we were well over a 100. This month so far we are at 52 new books. We have already jumped up because the kids love this. So we are reading new books and doing activities along with the books and making up our own stories, talking about the characters, we are all really getting into this and I think that has helped Daniel want to be more involved in all of this as well. Not to mention giving them larger vocabulary to add to their repertoire, Daniel has increased verbally since I started this. The difference is that I got them actively involved in the book picking and activity process. Before I was telling them what we were doing, now we all participate.

I just thought it was interesting and I plan on continuing my experiment to see if it is just a word spurt or if Daniel truly has decided to take on a more verbal role. We’ll see.

Here are some great resources I have been reading.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Autism-Toni-Flowers/dp/1885477570/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271072662&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/OASIS-Guide-Asperger-Syndrome-Inspiration/dp/1400081521/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271085676&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Books-Grow-Childrens-Everyday-Challenges/dp/0974802573/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271085896&sr=1-1

With all of the positive also comes all the negative.

I am not even going to comment on the information that I have found. I will say that the “autism cure” roadshow (I am being sarcastic) is extremely offensive, but I have to admit that there are many people with autism who are doing the same kind of actions and even attacking those in their community. It is all very frustrating. Just bring on the peace! I hold the view of acceptance, I feel the main thing we should be focusing on are things like  sensory integration dysfunction, since our sensory issues seem to be the reason we all have such a hard time.

I do question why so many funds are being spent on a “cure” and not resources or building into supportive communities to bring about acceptance and awareness.

I guess the real issue is what is being defined as autism. I know there are a lot of different factors when dealing with the autism spectrum. Those who are dealing with the low functioning autism, having many other developmental issues, I understand wanting to do anything to help their child, me too. Although, Daniel was low functioning at one point in many areas,  he has progressed in various areas, so it is different for our situation. I do not want to be so naive to claim I have all the answers. I only speak for myself and those who don’t want a “cure” or feel as if we are some abnormal part of society. We exist, we have for a long time despite the new found epidemic, the gene pool has been swimming for a number of years. It has not just appeared, and we are not a disease.

I have noticed that in a lot of the videos, websites, and blogs that the people are focusing on the outward things.

The obvious, like they were not talking and now they are, or their physical conditions, low muscle tone, the features of their face changed like no more black circles under their eyes, or they now have color in their skin. As I read all of this and see photos for myself, I notice that they are not talking about how the child is thinking.

Has the way that they process information changed?

Do they still study things or come up with different and unique ideas?

Were they on prescription drugs or are they now?

Has their mind been cured?

Then I have other questions  that pop in my head  about diet.

What kind of food were they eating before?

Were they eating a lot of processed foods?

What about fruits and veggies? (I know that Daniel has had a difficult time with food because of textures and I have had to be very creative in sneaking those things into his food.)

Then I wonder about their previous life.

What kind of activities did they do?

Did they exercise?

Were they watching TV all the time?

Did they play games constantly?

Are the parents or someone now spending more one on one time with the child?

I am just wondering because if they started changing things like that in their life then I would think they would show some sign of progress. If they have a good healthy diet they are going to do better.  So what was their lifestyle like before the parents decided to try these options that they are now claiming to have cured their child? When I see their information they make it seem like they did very little and got a huge amount of improvement. I would like to know all of the information. They usually show photos of the child staring or looking void and then pictures now that have them smiling and acting “normal”.  But lets be honest we all can do that and convince a world to believe something.  It just makes me question the motive.

When people are talking about a cure, are they talking about the outward appearance?

If they look normal, then they are normal? Has the child just found ways to hide their tendencies from their parents so they are accepted? Autistic children know what is going on. They comprehend what is being said about them, so are they trying to make their parents happy? I know that it has been claimed that they are not capable of emotion but I don’t believe that to be true. I just wonder what the children are feeling, do they feel like they had this horrible disease that made their family so upset that now since they are cured they are unable to express themselves in the way that is comfortable to them.What exactly is being cured? That is the question that goes through my mind, maybe someone will answer me.

Anyway I found this blog post and felt that it was very articulate about the autism cure question.

http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/75642.html