Every parent has dreamy visions of their child going off on their first day of school... a bright shiny face, cute hair cut, new, clean clothes, and of course, a full display of the very "best behavior." Our first day of preschool didn't quite follow that script. For starters, students had to be completely potty trained in order to attend. At 4 years and 3 months, our son was still having occasional accidents. He had been a late bloomer...we tried potty training at 2 1/2, but it was obviously NOT going to happen. He simply didn't care and had no desire to learn how. After weeks of frustration, we decided it wasn't worth the stress on all of us. This process repeated itself at 3, but had the same results...no interest whatsoever. At 3 1/2, I knew preschool was coming and I knew he couldn't go without the "deed" being done. We plowed ahead and had achieved a status of 95% of the time accident-free. Well, that would have to do, school was starting and the preschool waiting lists were unbelievably long. There would be no way to pull him out and then get him in again before Kindergarten.
The day before preschool began, our son was going through his typical day...2 settings: "constant motion" or "zombie in front of the TV". In either case, there was little chance of getting his attention unless you had his eyes focused on you. There came a moment, like a scene in a movie, where time stands still and you move in slow motion to thwart a catastrophe. He was racing through our house at full speed, not paying attention (as usual), and tripped headlong into the window sill (2 inches higher and his head would have gone through the window; 1/2 inch lower and the sill would have gone right into his eye.) God has protected this child countless times throughout his life and this was clearly one of those times. He got up screaming in his usual over-the-top fashion, we put some ice on the red mark just below his eye, and I think he may have sat on my lap for a total of 15 minutes before resuming his "fast forward" activities. Breathe a sigh of relief, he's no worse for the wear. Until the next morning...check out the HUGE black eye! I got more than a few knowing looks and raised eyebrows as I walked him into school that first day.
I walked out of the school in tears. Part of it was the normal feelings of a mom saying goodbye to the early childhood of her first child, but part of it was fear. The fear of how the day would go and how my son would respond to the people and situations that would confront him. The fear that this quite possibly could be the step that confirmed some of my suspicions. The suspicions that I might not be a good parent/mother, that my son might not be able to handle school yet, and a teeny tiny nagging thought that there might be a lot of things that my son may struggle with in the future.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Asperger's Theory Does About-face
AUTISM
TheStar.com | Mind & Mood | Asperger's theory does about-face
May 14, 2009 04:30 AM
Maia Szalavitz
The Daily Beast
A groundbreaking study suggests people with autism-spectrum disorders such as Asperger's do not lack empathy – rather, they feel others' emotions too intensely to cope.
People with Asperger's syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is a response to being overwhelmed by emotion – an excess of empathy, not a lack of it?
This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with the "intense world" theory, a new way of thinking about the nature of autism.
As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the theory suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency but, rather, a hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response.
"I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling," Kamila Markram says. "The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it. There are those who say autistic people don't feel enough. We're saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much."
Virtually all people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, report various types of over-sensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with autism spectrum disorders stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10.
If hearing your parents' voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock.
But, of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behaviour – repetitive movements; echoing words or actions; failing to make eye contact – interferes with social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals.
Phil Schwarz, a software developer, is vice-president of the Asperger's Association of New England and has a child with the condition. He notes that autism is not a unitary condition – "if you've seen one Aspie, you've seen one Aspie," he says, using the colloquial term.
But, he adds, "I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply."
So, why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of autism spectrum disorder?
The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself. One aspect is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. Another is more emotional – the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result.
Autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy – which is called "theory of mind" – later than other kids. This was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she's gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns?
Most 4-year-olds know Sally didn't see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, children with developmental disabilities who have verbal IQs equivalent to 3-year-olds also get it right. But 80 per cent of autistic children age 10 to 11 guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that's where the marble is and they don't realize other people don't share all of their knowledge.
Of course, if you don't realize others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them.
It takes autistic children far longer than children without autism to realize other people have different experiences and perspectives – and the timing of this development varies greatly. But that doesn't mean, once people with autism spectrum disorder do become aware of other people's experience, that they don't care or want to connect.
Schwarz, of the New England Asperger's association, says all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests.
When it comes to not understanding the inner state of minds too different from our own, most people also do a lousy job, Schwarz says. "But the non-autistic majority gets a free pass because, if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right."
Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger's talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn't deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers.
In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams' theory appeared on the website for people with autism spectrum disorder called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger's.
"If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy," one person says. "If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving and, if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me."
Said another, "I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues but I am very empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it."
Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else's pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away.
For people with autism spectrum disorder, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring.
"These children are really not unemotional. They do want to interact – it's just difficult for them," Markram says. "It's quite sad, because these are quite capable people. But the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw."
Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection of mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, The New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the memoir of Brent Jeffs, a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy. She is also senior fellow at the media watchdog organization stats.org.
TheStar.com | Mind & Mood | Asperger's theory does about-face
May 14, 2009 04:30 AM
Maia Szalavitz
The Daily Beast
A groundbreaking study suggests people with autism-spectrum disorders such as Asperger's do not lack empathy – rather, they feel others' emotions too intensely to cope.
People with Asperger's syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is a response to being overwhelmed by emotion – an excess of empathy, not a lack of it?
This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with the "intense world" theory, a new way of thinking about the nature of autism.
As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the theory suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency but, rather, a hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response.
"I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling," Kamila Markram says. "The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it. There are those who say autistic people don't feel enough. We're saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much."
Virtually all people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, report various types of over-sensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with autism spectrum disorders stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10.
If hearing your parents' voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock.
But, of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behaviour – repetitive movements; echoing words or actions; failing to make eye contact – interferes with social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals.
Phil Schwarz, a software developer, is vice-president of the Asperger's Association of New England and has a child with the condition. He notes that autism is not a unitary condition – "if you've seen one Aspie, you've seen one Aspie," he says, using the colloquial term.
But, he adds, "I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply."
So, why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of autism spectrum disorder?
The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself. One aspect is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. Another is more emotional – the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result.
Autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy – which is called "theory of mind" – later than other kids. This was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she's gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns?
Most 4-year-olds know Sally didn't see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, children with developmental disabilities who have verbal IQs equivalent to 3-year-olds also get it right. But 80 per cent of autistic children age 10 to 11 guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that's where the marble is and they don't realize other people don't share all of their knowledge.
Of course, if you don't realize others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them.
It takes autistic children far longer than children without autism to realize other people have different experiences and perspectives – and the timing of this development varies greatly. But that doesn't mean, once people with autism spectrum disorder do become aware of other people's experience, that they don't care or want to connect.
Schwarz, of the New England Asperger's association, says all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests.
When it comes to not understanding the inner state of minds too different from our own, most people also do a lousy job, Schwarz says. "But the non-autistic majority gets a free pass because, if they assume that the other person's mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right."
Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger's talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn't deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers.
In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams' theory appeared on the website for people with autism spectrum disorder called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger's.
"If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy," one person says. "If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving and, if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me."
Said another, "I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues but I am very empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it."
Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else's pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away.
For people with autism spectrum disorder, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring.
"These children are really not unemotional. They do want to interact – it's just difficult for them," Markram says. "It's quite sad, because these are quite capable people. But the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw."
Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection of mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, The New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the memoir of Brent Jeffs, a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy. She is also senior fellow at the media watchdog organization stats.org.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The journey...G.I. Joe?
When people kept asking me when I had first suspected that there may have been a "problem" with our son, I had a hard time putting my finger on it. He was in constant motion in utero, but every expectant mom says that. He never slept more that 4 or 5 hours a night even when he was 14 months old, but everyone around me kept saying, "oh yeah, isn't it exhausting that babies don't sleep through the night?" or "oh, he'll grow out of it." When the extent of his naps were 15-20 minutes, 2 or 3 times a day, people started saying that "I needed to be tough and just let him cry himself back to sleep." Since it was my first child and I hadn't grown up with much experience around infants, I thought they must be right. I thought I must be overly sensitive due to my own sleep deprivation.
A glimmer of doubt began to creep in when we hit the 2's and 3's. My son seemed to overreact to everything...happy, sad, hurt, scared...overly emotional. If he had been a girl he would have reigned with the "drama queen" title. He was in constant motion and could not keep his hands to himself..."leap first; ask questions later" seemed to be his mode of operation, although, the questions later rarely came. A friend of mine jokingly told me one day that, out of his Sunday school class, our son was most likely to become a "G.I. Joe." We laughed at the time, but questions were beginning to form in my subconscious mind. What is wrong with me? Why can't I get my child to behave, follow directions, take turns, stop hitting and kicking. I had read every book about parenting that I could get my hands on and found that we were "doing all the right things." But every time I walked out the door to go somewhere with my child, I felt myself holding my breath...waiting for the moment that I would be completely embarrassed and make a quick exit from whatever activity we were engaged in.
A glimmer of doubt began to creep in when we hit the 2's and 3's. My son seemed to overreact to everything...happy, sad, hurt, scared...overly emotional. If he had been a girl he would have reigned with the "drama queen" title. He was in constant motion and could not keep his hands to himself..."leap first; ask questions later" seemed to be his mode of operation, although, the questions later rarely came. A friend of mine jokingly told me one day that, out of his Sunday school class, our son was most likely to become a "G.I. Joe." We laughed at the time, but questions were beginning to form in my subconscious mind. What is wrong with me? Why can't I get my child to behave, follow directions, take turns, stop hitting and kicking. I had read every book about parenting that I could get my hands on and found that we were "doing all the right things." But every time I walked out the door to go somewhere with my child, I felt myself holding my breath...waiting for the moment that I would be completely embarrassed and make a quick exit from whatever activity we were engaged in.
Back to School Backpack Guidelines
BACK-TO-SCHOOL SPAWNS BACKPACK AWARENESS
Published 08/11/2009
Harris County Department of Education Therapy Services,
American Occupational Therapy Association support backpack limits
Students shouldn’t wear a backpack heavier than 15 percent of their body weight, according to the American Occupational Therapy Association. Concern about student health is the thrust behind an annual AOTA campaign being promoted locally by Harris County Department of Education’s Therapy Service.
“Children begin to suffer when they wear a heavy, 20-pound backpack throughout the year,” said Jean Polichino, director of HCDE’s Therapy Services. Per AOTA guidelines, Polichino says a child of 100 pounds shouldn’t bear a load heavier than 15 pounds. Doing so may result in an onset of pain and strain.
HCDE’s therapy specialists work with children and families in schools, homes and daycare centers throughout greater Harris County. Specialists include physical therapists and assistants, occupational therapists and assistants, speech-language pathologists, music therapists and art therapists.
Here are a list of tips for preventing backpack pain and strain per the AOTA:
• Load heaviest items closest to the child’s back, or the back of the pack.
• Arrange books and materials so they don’t slide around in the backpack.
• Shoulder straps so that the pack fits snugly on the child's back. A pack that hangs loosely from the back can pull the child backwards and strain muscles.
• Check what your child carries to school and brings home. Make sure the items are necessary to the day’s activities.
• On days the backpack is too loaded, your child can hand carry a book or other item.
• If the backpack is too heavy, consider using a book bag on wheels if your child’s school allows it.
For questions about backpack safety or HCDE’s Therapy Services, call Polichino at (713) 696-8232.
Article from the Cypress Times (Cypress, TX)
www.thecypresstimes.com
Published 08/11/2009
Harris County Department of Education Therapy Services,
American Occupational Therapy Association support backpack limits
Students shouldn’t wear a backpack heavier than 15 percent of their body weight, according to the American Occupational Therapy Association. Concern about student health is the thrust behind an annual AOTA campaign being promoted locally by Harris County Department of Education’s Therapy Service.
“Children begin to suffer when they wear a heavy, 20-pound backpack throughout the year,” said Jean Polichino, director of HCDE’s Therapy Services. Per AOTA guidelines, Polichino says a child of 100 pounds shouldn’t bear a load heavier than 15 pounds. Doing so may result in an onset of pain and strain.
HCDE’s therapy specialists work with children and families in schools, homes and daycare centers throughout greater Harris County. Specialists include physical therapists and assistants, occupational therapists and assistants, speech-language pathologists, music therapists and art therapists.
Here are a list of tips for preventing backpack pain and strain per the AOTA:
• Load heaviest items closest to the child’s back, or the back of the pack.
• Arrange books and materials so they don’t slide around in the backpack.
• Shoulder straps so that the pack fits snugly on the child's back. A pack that hangs loosely from the back can pull the child backwards and strain muscles.
• Check what your child carries to school and brings home. Make sure the items are necessary to the day’s activities.
• On days the backpack is too loaded, your child can hand carry a book or other item.
• If the backpack is too heavy, consider using a book bag on wheels if your child’s school allows it.
For questions about backpack safety or HCDE’s Therapy Services, call Polichino at (713) 696-8232.
Article from the Cypress Times (Cypress, TX)
www.thecypresstimes.com
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Our personal story
Many of you have been asking me about our personal journey with Asperger Syndrome. Since it's a long story, I haven't put it all "on paper." With all the recent questions, it may be time to dive in and do just that. I'll be posting a paragraph or 2 at a time to unfold the history of our last 14 years. Parts of this journey have been painful, but I hope that our experiences may help someone else along the way...
"Praise be to the God and Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
"Praise be to the God and Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Friday, August 14, 2009
Come see us!
Therapy Threads has been asked to be a part of the The Resource Network hosted by the Sumner County Board of Education. This free resource fair will provide an opportunity to meet representatives from over 30 organizations that offer support and expertise in a number of areas for children and families with special needs.
The Resource Network will be held in the Woods Campus Center at Volunteer State Community College (Gallatin, TN) on Thursday, August 20 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Refreshments will be provided!
Please join us! We'd love to meet you.
The Resource Network will be held in the Woods Campus Center at Volunteer State Community College (Gallatin, TN) on Thursday, August 20 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Refreshments will be provided!
Please join us! We'd love to meet you.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
In the news...
Therapy Threads was featured in the Gallatin News Examiner today. You can check out the article at: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090811/MTCN0408/90811046/1478/MICRO0601/Children+inspire+Gallatin+entrepreneur
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