We've Made Some Major Changes . . .Again!

Here's a great web site with a lot of videos about autism that you guys can watch if you want to : http://www.autismspeaks.org/video/index.php I think they're by NBC news. Anyway, it looks very interesting. Ben has been off of the gluten free diet for about 4 days now. I haven't given him a lot of gluten or casein, but I've been giving him some every day. Yesterday and the day before he was in a hyperactive frenzy, but today he has seemed to calm down. His social attention seems to be better, which basically means that he's making good eye contact and paying more attention to people. His teachers at school said that though he was super hyper at centers and circle time, he worked better on his work tasks than he has in weeks. So I'm getting mixed reviews. We're going to gradually reintroduce a regular diet over the next couple of weeks, and assess whether it might benefit him to go back to it or not. Rob and I figure that we can always reintroduce the gluten free diet if we need to. Right now it's a wait and see game.

Pondering Our Next Assignment

I really like being a military wife. I think it's cool to be able to live in a bunch of different places, places that I'd probably never see otherwise. But now we have to start thinking about what place will be the best for us for the next assignment. There are no guarantees, of course, but hopefully Rob will be able to guide us to a good place. We've come to the realization that Ben is definitely going to need to be in special education for a good portion, if not all of his student career. I don't see any evidence of him improving enough to be able to go to a regular elementary school. It's frustrating, because everywhere I look I read all sorts of stories about children "coming off the spectrum" (becoming "normal") after being diagnosed autistic, but I know in my heart of hearts that that just doesn't seem to be in the cards for Ben. He's going to need a lot of help probably for the rest of his life. Everyone claims this thing or that thing helps autistic kids, but frankly I'm getting worn out. I just want Ben to live his life and enjoy who he is, learning as much as he can handle. I'm tired of thinking about what the cure is. I hope they figure out what the cause is so that autism can be stopped, but I think the "cure" seems to be different for everyone. I'm just not seeing the great results I've hoped to. Today I had to get Ben early from preschool because his teacher called and said he wouldn't stop crying. By the time, I got there, he was fine, of course. He has no fever or illness, but the kid can't tell anyone what's bothering him, so he has no choice but to cry. Of course, now that he's home, he's been happy as a clam. Go figure

Ben Had a Good Day

Well, sort of. He decided to have a late night party in his bedroom last night around 3:30 am, and I checked on him, but he was fine, just wide awake. He spent a couple of hours making noise, rattling his bed and pounding the wall, but when I checked on him at around 7:00, he was fast asleep, pajamas and diaper off. His new thing is escaping from his diapers, which is why I hesitate to do the pull up thing with him right now, because pull ups are even easier to get out of. But I know the day is coming that I have to bite the bullet and do it anyway. His teacher said he stimmed less today, and his TEACCH playgroup reported the same thing. But now, left to his own devices, guess what he's doing? STIMMING! I want to write another entry on a different topic, but right now I don't have the time. More to come. . . .

What is up with Austim?

I was told this morning by Ben's teacher, that there are 10 students - all boys! - on the waiting list for Ben's classroom. 10! You hear all this stuff about autism being at epidemic proportions, but geesh! This seems ridiculous. Right now those kids on the waiting list are only getting an hour a day of services from the School district. That's all the schools have to provide. It seems to me that the school district is trying to pretend it doesn't really have a problem and that the huge about of kids they have to service right now is a fluke that will go away, instead of facing the problem and creating another preschool autistic classroom which is NOT a part of Headstart. But it seems to me that the Chapel Hill SD is all about money, and Headstart gives them money, so why would they do something that has to come out of their own budget? They certainly don't seem to want to.

Taking a moment to breathe

Yes, I'm breathing now . . . Katherine and Ben are at school, and it's just me and Caroline in the house so I thought I'd take this moment to catch my blog up on Ben's life. Ben is back on the Gluten Free Casein Free diet and off of the SCD diet. He definitely seems happier, and I guess that must count for something. His BMs have been a little messed up since we went back the regular GFCF diet, but his teachers seem relieved that I've stopped messing with his diet for now. The kid chews on everything so it's hard to figure out what he's actually ingesting. Still doing the enzymes for now, and the cod liver oil, and the vitamins, and the zinc and probiotic at night. He's been eating some really good things since we did the SCD diet, I think he got desparate and so he now eats sliced up pears and clementines, two things he wouldn't touch before SCD. At school his progress report was mixed, they said his academic skills like sorting and matching were improving, but he still has almost no interest in cutting or coloring. I've made some things on the computer to work with him on that, but he's not showing much interest with me either. I can get him to point at pictures in books at home, but his therapists at school say that he won't do it for them. I've been thinking of other things I can do at home to help with his progress at school. Hopefully he'll put in some effort too!