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May 5, 2002

~~~~May 5, 2005~~~~~~~~THAT'S 2005 - NOT 2002~~~~~~

OK, so I started this diary to talk about my 2 special boys and I just simply haven’t kept up with it. For that, I apologize. It’s so hard to keep up with everything and everyone. I will make more of an effort to update on this diary, especially since I’ve had 3 IEP’s since my last update. It would have been nice to record how that went while it was fresh in my mind. (I can’t even remember what I have written about here and what I have not.)

Let’s see, I should tell you about Josh’s swim lessons last summer, but that was last summer and is really old news. It’s now time to sign Josh up for swim lessons again this year. As a matter of fact, I need to do that tomorrow as Josh needs private lessons and they are much harder to get than the group lessons.

Last year, Josh went from having to wear swimmies to being able to ‘doggie-paddle’/free-style across the width of the pool. He would even swim underwater for the instructors, diving down to get the rings from the bottom of the pool. However, no matter how many times you reminded him to put his face in the water while doing the free-style, he would keep taking it out after a few seconds.

Josh loved his instructors and interacted well with them. He loved the individual attention and being in the water. He loved jumping off the side and he especially loved jumping off the diving board. Being in the water so much increased his oral comprehension skills, social skills, attention span, and several other areas of weakness that are caused by his autism.

We had to get Josh goggles to wear while in the pool and we should have gotten him earplugs as well. Before he had the goggles, he would stop every few seconds—yes, that often—and rub his eyes. One of the effects of his autism is sensitivity to light and just sensitive eyes in general. He isn’t quite as bad with his ears, but I’m getting him ear plugs so that he gets more swimming time and less sticking-his-finger-in-his-ears time.

I do not regret the 1.5 K I spent on the kids summer activities last summer, in part because both my boys are now good enough swimmer that I will not have to jump in after them should they fall in someone’s pool. Both of them will be in lessons this year so that they may continue to improve and so that they can stay in shape and get lots of outdoor fun this summer.

One of the results that we have seen of Josh’s swimming lessons, unanticipated results, has been more awareness of his environment and initiating of conversations. (I use the term loosely. With autism, any communication that he initiates that doesn’t revolve around something he wants or needs is a wonderful, unexpected joy.) And since then, he has not reverted but rather continues to make baby steps forward in initiating conversations.

One example was the day, out of the blue, when my husband had left about 2 hours earlier, Josh walks up to me and asks, “Where’s Dad?” Not only did he ask this, but he stuck around to hear the answer and he now regularly inquires where his father is when he is not at home. As a matter of fact, just in this last month, he has started to inquire about others when they are not home. When Ashley was at swim practice this week, Josh inquired, “Where’s Ash?”

And it doesn’t stop there. I asked Josh to get the phone because it was ringing and I was nursing Abby and couldn’t get up from the chair. After looking for the phone for a few minutes, Josh turned to me and asked me, “Where’s the phone?” He has also inquired about other things he is looking for since then.

One day, when we were all getting ready to go out as a family and we had told all the kids where we were going, Josh was ready and growing impatient with how long it was taking everyone to get ready and get the babies ready. He kept walking between us and the door and back to us. Meanwhile, he was giving us this look that said, “What’s taking you so long. I want to go!”

I looked down and saw that Zac was sitting on the floor with his socks on and so I told Josh to go get his shoes out of the closet. When Josh came back with Zac’s shoes, I was still getting Abby dressed. Josh set Zac’s shoes down and then started giving me the you’re-taking-forever-and-getting-on-my-nerves look again so I jokingly said, “Josh, put Zac’s shoes on.”

Josh looked at me for a moment to see if I was serious. I got a little annoyed that he seemed to be saying on one hand, “Hurry up!” and yet on the other, “You can’t be serious. You want me to help?” so I said to him, “Josh, I said put Zac’s shoes on.” Well, Josh sat down, picked up a shoe and started trying to put it on Zac’s foot.

Of course, it was the wrong foot so I told Josh, “No, the other foot,” and with some gesturing, he got the idea and he put that shoe on and the other as well. And that was that. Josh had a new way to help us when we are getting ready. And Josh likes having ways he can help. It really produces a sense of accomplishment for him to learn a new task or to participate, even in a little way, in what we are doing.

In the end, Josh got Zac’s shoes on before the rest of us were ready and, after a brief look of what appeared to be gloating crossed his face, proceeded to pace between the door and the living room again, all the while giving us his impatient, frustrated look.


Well, here I am again, at the end of what I have time to type out. My friend from AZ called mid-way through this and now it is quite late and I must wrap this up. I’ll write again soon.

Best wishes,

Khy, loving mommy to 2 adorable, ASD boys, Josh (autism) and Jonnie (PDD-NOS/ADHD) and their 3 siblings


BTW, ASD is autism spectrum disorder. On that spectrum there is PDD-NOS (persuasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified), aspbergers, and autism. All ASD’s are forms of PDD, but there are two other forms of PDD besides, which are much less common. I just learned this all myself a few days ago while reading a brochure.

If you don’t know what ADHD (attention deficit hyper-activity disorder) is, it is the combination on two disorders that occur so frequently together, their acronyms have been blended. ADD is attention deficit disorder and can occur with or without hyper-activity disorder.

My son was not dx’d with these disorders by a teacher or a regular MD, but by a specialist who deals daily with ASD and kids who may be ASD and she used a computerized test, in conjunction with observation and interviews, as well as parental input, to come to her conclusions. At this time, Jonnie uses only behavioral modifications without medicine to treat his disorders.

(For an example, while I may tell a NT [neurologically typical] child to go pick up their room, for Jonnie the task is broken down into smaller components such as ‘go, pick up all the clothes and put them in the dirty laundry or folded, in your dresser and then come back for your next instruction.’ I would give a few of these broken down segments, then break up the task, perhaps with a snack or a different task in a different environment, before having him return to do the finishing segments. Another example would be to come and work along side him or to have a graph drawn up for him with icons to be moved from the ‘needs to be done’ column to the ‘finished’ column to help him stay on track.)

OK, I’m really going now. ~ Khy