people mean well but....(Greggory's story)LONG

[Guest guest]

Ok, you asked about therapies and interventions. Greggory was dx'd at 2yrs 4

months. Alec was 6 months old at the time. I wanted to have Greggory potty

trained by the time Alec was born.(This does relate. I swear) This is when I

first realised how bad things were. I got this book " potty train in a day " Now I

didnt really think it would weork in a day but the ideas behind the method made

sense to me. The first thing it said was to make sure you child would obey you.

Seemed simple enough. But I realized Greggory really didn't he wasnt being

disobedient but rather he just didnt seem to listen to me. So I decided that

Greggory would have to actually do whatever I requested of him. That week he

took a huge box of packing peanuts and spilled them all over the floor. I wanted

him to help me clean them up. He was freaking out. Screaming and wailing and

throwing himself. I was hand over hand making him put those packing peanuts in

the box and he was acting like I was beating him. Then he would throw them all

out again. Crying the whole time. He enver said any words. I spent 5 hours doing

that with him. He never relented. I was crying. I knew something had to be

wrong. Took months before Jeff agreed that something was not right and so I

begged him to come with me to the dr to get the dr to take me seriously. We got

the dx like it was a no brainer. weird. They told me he would never get better

and probably get worse. Ha! But I knew nothing of autism at the time and so I

sobbed. We started looking into all sorts of things. We tried secretin. It

seemed to help. We put him in Speech and OT right away. Some of that helped. I

talked to him nonstop. At 3 yrs old we put him in a LH class. Not the autism

class they showed me. I don't know why I didnt pick the Autsim class. It just

didn't feel right. He blossomed in that class and with all the aba work we did

at home. At 3.5 yrs he started to be mainstreamed into the K1 class. He did so

well there. But he still had no real speech and couldnt answer any questions. He

was potty trained ok. He still had regular accidents. We moved to ca from nc and

put greggory into a LH class and a speech impaired class. The speech class was

great but it was obvious that even though Greggory was still very impaired he

was not doing well in the LH class and needed something else. We pushed to get

an inhome ABA program. I had wanted it for years. But it wasn't for Greggory. He

was already talking and and quickly gaining on the gap between him and the NT

world. At 4 yrs old I put him in tap class (had to sit on the floor in the room

with him and he couldnt understand the verbal directions and he just stood

there. But the teacher was great and she just moved his body for him. Then along

with the aba we were doing we put him in a regular preschool. At first with an

aide from the aba program. But I thought it was pointless. Greggory developed

all sorts of aggressive behaviour and started up old stims. We removed him from

the aba program and left him in the preschool. He did great! He was answering

questions and made some friends. The biggest step came when he went to

kindergarten. We didnt tell the school at first and just put him in the class.

He got the best teacher. She was great with him and helped him explore the class

and knew when it was an autism thing and when it was something else. She knew

nothing of autism but learned as we went along. At home we put him in soccer and

now baseball. He was allowed to stim by us. We never stopped him. Always talking

to him. Always trying new things with him. It has been almost 5 yrs since his

dx. he is so far from that moment and I am really not sure what helped the most.

I know that Greggory was lucky to have the potential and desire to want to

become more NT. He still has quirks and he still struggles with things. But he

is doing well in school with no supports. He has friends and just spent the

nigth at his friend's house.(I love Andre!) If you have any questions just ask.

Jacquie H

Re: I know people mean well but......Vent

Jacquie H,

That is so awesome about Greggory. If you don't mean sharing, what

therapy/intervention did Greggory have done so that he went from " he was soooo

autistic. You could see it a mile away. " to being mainstreamed. I am asking just

because it gives me hope!!

>>>My FIL told Jeff, " See? I told you he was fine. " BLEECH!<<<

Yup that is actually what I figure my sister will say if does great.

Like the therapy had nothing to do with it. " shaking my head "