Re: Please help, in need of help

[Guest guest]

Coming here to ask for information is the right thing to do.

But, you will need lots more. Join several autism forums on

biomed, diets, etc.

[Guest guest]

My heart goes out to you.  I want to respond in detail and will later this afternoon.  Right now we have home school in the mornings.  If we don't get reading, writing, and math in before noon....Please know that many parents here have been where you are now, and we want to help you.

Haven

[Guest guest]

HiiI am working in a rehab center where there are many MR and Autistic Chidren. One thing that has really calmed down and lot of chaotic is the spiritual connect i am posting the link hoping it will help. It has got tremendous effect in calming the children. We just motivated and worked for 3-4 days by telling children all is fine will get fine don't worry and started it in 10- 15 days there was result. Please try this it works the best in calming then any thing else. If any doubt let me know i will clear. We are here to share and help, please be in touch.It's a method and prayer to connect to spiritual side and have a insight of God and Prayer to ask God to help in a simple way.Link for understanding what is and how to do spiritual connect

prayerhttp://www.counteringautism.com/spiritualconnects/spiritualconnect.htmLink for spiritual connect prayerhttp://www.counteringautism.com/spiritualconnects/prayer.htmlregardsrajivSubject: Please help, in need of helpTo: Texas-Autism-Advocacy Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 9:53 PM

Hey everyone,

I am so new to this and I am so overwhelmed. I found out my daughter has autism today. My son was diagnosed on June 20th and I feel just helpless. My son went to the public school preschool for special education when he was 3 and they had given him a label of MR-NC. At the time he did not have a diagnosis of autism but I suspected. We had him go for a year and then we pulled him out and did some private stuff at home. Well, when he was diagnosed I contacted the school district and I hadn't heard back from them so when I went to the local elementary school and the vice principal who was very nice told me that he agreed they need to find out what was going on so he told me if I didn't hear back by Friday to let him know and he would find out. He told me he wasn't sure if my son would go to that school because they had other schools in the district that handled autism more but he would find out for me. So I got a call from the special education

director today who basically told me to enroll him at the public school I had gone to. I asked her about his diagnosis and she told me they would take that into consideration. Well, this leaves me with a lot of questions like who is his teacher? Will he be mainstreamed with an aide? What are his goals? Are they going off his old IEP from when he was 3? He was nonverbal then and he can talk now so how can that IEP be valid? I literally have no idea what he is doing and I don't want to just find out the first day. My daughter will go to the preschool and she hasn't even had an evaluation yet.

On top of the school thing I feel like our family is under tremendous stress. I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. Our house is so chaotic because I have no idea how to handle these two. There is constant screaming, fighting, door opening and shutting, temper tantrums, destruction going on. I get one mess cleaned up and they have another one going. Not just little messes but pour hand soap on the carpet messes. My other kids never did these things and learned fast with consequences but I have no idea how to discipline them. I'm trying to be consistent with time outs but my son gets mad and hits and bites himself and screams. Is there anyone who helps with this kind of stuff? I feel so alone and frankly I think I am starting to hit depression. I'm not myself lately. My husband tries to be helpful and take the strain off of me but he travels a lot with his job and he has to work. I'm just tired and have no clue as to what I am

doing.

[Guest guest]

I remember those early days and the feeling of hopelessness that was

only exacerbated by the mainstream doctors we saw who reminded us of

how hopeless it was. I thank God every day for finding the

Autism-Mercury list early on and finding people who put us in the

right direction. From there we found Dr. Amy Holmes, and our

appointment with her was more than worth the drive to Baton Rouge in

giving us hope.

We started with diet and metabolic supports. For us, the beginning

was difficult as our son was addicted to the opiate peptides he got

from gluten, casein, and soy protein. He went through horrendous

withdrawal for three weeks. He has been gf/cf/sf ever since. I only

know that the last infraction he had (over two years ago) severely

affected his behavior, and he went from a very wonderful child to a

scary child in less than an hour. There is nothing quite like having

your ten year old lose control and wind up trying to choke you. If

that doesn't convince one of how important diet is in relation to

behavior and health, nothing will.

My son made slow steady progress on diet and metabolic supports alone.

But his behavior was horrible, his sleep was horrible, and his health

and tummy troubles were horrible until we got into this protocol. In

addition, since we could not afford a professional ABA, and the school

was no help. I pulled him and kept him home another year and

purchased " Behavioral Interventions for Young Children with Autism. I

devised our own plan and went to work using this ABA methodology to

address behaviors. Yes, when he was young, it was hard, but I knew

I'd better deal with it when he was little because the docs told me he

would probably wind up being 6'5 " !

He is now twelve and weighs about 155 and is over 6'8 " - taller and

bigger than me, but he knows who is the boss and always will be.

sometimes when I put him in time out, I had to sit there with him and

endure the screaming. The point is not to back down or give in. Once

you say something it has to be the truth and you have to follow

through.

When he would pitch a fit in a store (one time he threw himself on the

ground in the middle of the driveway in front of the store. I had to

drop all the groceries. but in a store he once threw himself on the

floor and went to kicking, screaming and carrying on. I just stood

there without expression and made sure he was safe and let him pitch

his fit. Some woman made some snide comment, and I said, " This is

autism and it is a whole different ball game. If you want to come

home with me and learn something. Please do. "

I let him pitch his fit and I just stood there quietly looking

nonchalant - not frazzled and not upset. then during a break in his

performance I said, " Are you done? " - very calmly. He went to

pitching his fit again, and I just stayed there calmly. He got tired

of it, and I did not give into what the fit was about. It is not easy

-- I know. It is exhausting those first few years.

Have you signed up for every possible state list yet such as CLASS or

if it applies MDCP? Do so at once if you haven't. both provide for

respite services so you can get a break but they both can take years

to move up to the top.

I know when our son was young - because you can't watch them every

second while you are cooking dinner or doing some other thing that

must get done. We had these plastic gate panels we bought from Babies

R US that thank goodness we hung onto, and we blocked off the TV so he

couldn't keep turning the TV on and off. We put the VCR up high on a

shelf, but that little genius figured out he could stack all our big

pillows on top of one another and stand on them and still reach the

VCR.

If you can get some help, then get it. Are there any family members

willing to help? Do you attend a church regularly? You can seek

volunteers from churches. Another good place to find volunteers is

any high school that has a National Honor Society. These members are

supposed to volunteer in the community as part of belonging to the

NHS. Even if you can get volunteers to come help with housework or to

give you respite.

I know this is very overwhelming. Start small. Decide whterh you

wnat to have your children tested for mercury poisoning and

sensitivity to glute, casein, and soy. See these results, and then go

from there. for behavior and also teaching myriad things, the book I

mentioned earlier can be a huge help. For academics, you can read the

book on RPM :Understanding Autism Through the Rapid Prompting Method.

Do your kids like to watch shows at all? My son doesn't really like

TV, but when he was little, he loved Dora and Diego and Blues Clues.

These shows are thirty minutes, and they can teach the kids so much.

the first two words my son learned to say again were " this " and

" that. " I gave him choices about everything -- usually made him pick

between two things and he had to learn to point again, and after much

modeling and repetition, he learned to point and say " this. "

Create a structured environment with a PICTURE schedule. I used some

PECS and for some things I took a picture of my son doing the

activity. I laminated them and put Velcro on the back. Then I made a

strip to put on the wall and I would post his daily schedule. He

often referred to it, and I found that if he knew what was coming

next, his behavior improved dramatically.

If you have not done so already, move towards changing your children's

diet. The SAD diet is detrimental to children -- well actually ALL

children. Move towards cooking the way your grandmother or

great-grandmother used to: from scratch. Eliminate processed foods,

foods from cans to the extent possible, eliminate refined sugars,

eliminate carbonated beverages, eliminate preservatives and dyes.

don't try to change all at once or you will get overwhelmed. Just

make one change at a time and you will get there over time.

There are so many other things to say.... when you have specific

questions, just ask them here and someone will answer.

Hang in there and find a way to take care of yourself. You have to

have a little time to yourself to rejuvenate. My own have been far

apart and few, but I have found they make all the difference.

Hugs,

Haven

[Guest guest]

OOPS!!!! I hate the typos! My son is now 5'8 " !!!!