However, they were two really long days. My poor kid went down for a late nap at around 4 in the afternoon, and decided to stay there for the night. He awoke around 9pm but was so tired he didn't want to get out of bed for anything, including supper. He drank some milk and went back to bed.
He has worked so hard these past two days, and I couldn't be more proud of him. He learns so fast! Everyone keeps remarking with astonishment how he fast he learns, and how persistent he is, even when a task is really hard for him. Finn finds imitation terribly hard. We did motor imitation with blocks today. This is especially hard because he has a compulsion to only build straight up with blocks, in the same manner, every time. And, he was tired. He was terribly overstimmulated, probably the most overstimulated I have ever seen him. He was having aversion to sight, sound, and light, as well as his normal aversions to texture. However, he still picked up the skill after just a few trials. I did not think he would get ANY correct responses on this skill today, but he got several. Which, is just so exciting. (I am sure block imitation doesn't sound important to many, but a lack of skill at imitation is what makes it so hard for Finn to learn in the natural environment. Other kids learn to talk and play but watching other kids. Finn hasn't and has to be taught more explicitly, using visual aids, and repetition. Practicing imitation over, and over again until it, hopefully, becomes more natural will help Finn to be able to learn more naturally in the future - so that hopefully one day he requires less repetition and intensity to learn skills that come much easier to his typical peers).
He has already made so much progress with just me working with him at home, so I just know that as therapists assist me to become more efficient and fluent with running programs at home, Finn's rate of progress will just sky rocket. Just a few short months ago back in January I was working SO hard to get him just look me in the eye, follow simple commands, and say one word phrases like, "milk." He wouldn't play with toys. He would just engage in hours of very repetitive self stimulation behavior. I felt like I was loosing the kid I had known and loved for two years. Like he was disappearing into himself, and only a shell of who he used to be would remain. However, I have the "old" Finn back. Now, while he still stims, but he will almost always look at me when I tell him too, and will often even look at me spontaneously if motivated to do so! And he has three-four sentences, and will occasionally even bust out with things like, "I don't want milk. I want juice." And, "Brownie, you get out of my room!" He also demonstrates strong, independent play skills now, which used to occur outside of the home, but not inside the home - because whenever he was home he would always want to engage in stereotypical behaviors. He now will engage in independent play for to 30 minutes a time, even occasionally unprompted! He still has plenty of that stereotypical behavior, but I believe it to be inconsequential because he is able to play, learn and communicate. He can run and pace and hand flap to his hearts desire as long as he can look me in the eye and tell me what he wants. Nothing in life is as heart wrenching as having your child wake up wailing in the middle of the night, and have him not have the language to tell you what is wrong. I am hoping one day, he will be able to tell me.
Yesterday, while at therapy another kiddo who was working on social skills was being prompted to ask my kiddo his name. Finnigan actually made eye contact for a split second, and answered "Finnigan," before returning back to his very preferred activity. I just cannot tell you how huge that is. My child has never verbally responded to a peer before! And, just a few weeks ago, he hadn't even been able to answer the question, "what is your name?" I had to work on the skill 20x a day for the last several weeks to get it mastered. I would pause whatever activity we were working on, or the movie he was watching, or gain access to his iPad and ask him, "Hey, what is your name?,"until he was used to answering his name, and quickly, so that he would be able to generalize it in just such a situation. It was amazing to see the progress in action outside of my contrived setting at home.
He is also now, 99 percent potty trained. I thought generalizing potty training to environments outside of our home would have been a lot harder than it has been. However, we have been training for a few weeks now, and he hasn't had an accident in days and is starting to request the potty verbally more, and needs prompting less and less.
My first and main goal with the therapist is to work on his self injurious behavior. When Finnigan is frustrated he goes from 0 to head banging, head punching and self bitting instantly - there is no escalation. We are going to be focusing on extinguishing those behaviors by teaching Finnigan to cope with his frustration in healthier ways, and teaching him to wait for reinforcement (things he wants). This is hard, since I have been immediatley giving him anything he verbally requests to encourage him to continue to verbally request things. So he realizes that his words have power, and that communicating with others benefits him. However, the result of that is a kid who thinks if he says it, it should immediatley happen for him - and we will have to work on fading that back so he can accept 1) first waiting for what he wants for a few seconds, 2) for a few minutes, 3) accepting no with an alternative.
He is amazing you guys. I just love him so, so much. I am not striving for a neurotypical kid here: I just want him to be able to communicate his needs, and have close relationships. I am so blessed, and happy to have so many people in my life that I love, and who love me. I just want the same for him.
ABA has given me all the hope and the world that he will have those things.
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| Running around Union Park on Memorial day. |
We recently got pictures of the kiddos. They aren't very good, because the photographer was awful. We went for family pictures of Adeline for the main reason and the photographer wasted so much time trying to get Addy to smile that she only snapped THREE pictures of her, and only one picture is she actually looking towards the camera. She got more pictures of Finningan, but he is looking at the camera a total of zero times, and we really wanted a family picture - which we didn't even end up attempting because everyone was too frustrated by that point. I left sobbing, feeling sorry for myself that we "couldn't even get photos like a normal family." Hopefully the next photo experience is a better one, because that was just awful. However, the pictures of Finn and the clock are cute. For those that don't know, Finningan is obsessed with clocks. Fixations and compulsions just kind of go along with the deal of an ASD diagnosis, and Finn's current fixation is clocks. He looks for them and talks about them, and too them, and wants everyone else to talk about them - every where that we go. Often times, it drives me a little batty because he often wants to stop to perseverate when we are running late or need to be somewhere - like the potty =) - but it's what he loves right now, so I am glad that we were able to capture it on photo.
Adeline, She is getting so big! I have to call and make a pediatrician appointment for her for her four month check up, because I was busy with stuff with Finn for this past week and haven't called to get her seen. I will be excited to see how much she weighs because she is getting rolls, and it is stinking cute. Addy went with me for the past two days to The Homestead since I am still nursing and having a hard time keeping a good supply for her in the freezer because she runs through it so fast when I am at work. Baby likes to eat. =) So, I really cannot afford to leave her unless I am at work unless I want to give her formula. And, I definitely don't want to do that again - because I left her with my mom and she got formula over memorial weekend while I took Finn to the park for a couple of hours to play with his cousins. She was miserable and very gassy.
She did such a good job just hanging out, and watching the kiddos run by. She is such a laid back, easy going baby most of the time. (Unless, she is stuck in car seat, then she freaks out). She is just laughing, and cooing, and getting fat. Today, she has been rolling, unassisted, from her back to her tummy and trying to get her legs up under her so she can crawl. I got out Finn's old jumper out of the garage and cleaned it up for Addy. Not because she has any interest in jumping, but because she loves to just hang out in it and observe the environment around here. She will be a good yin to Finn's yang.
She has been showing interest in foods, so I recently tried her on some rice cereal but she didn't lean in much to take the spoon, and pushed most of the food back out of her month with her tongue, so we are obviously not ready yet. We will try again in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, take in all the cuteness you guys, if you can handle it!
My friends through a surprise birthday party for me, for my 30th birthday. They cooked lamb and we ate it with sticky rice, papaya salad, watermelon, and cake. I am pretty sure there will never be a better meal. I had no idea there was going to be a party, until I got there, and my friends started acting suspicious and having me sit down in the patio and serving me drinks so I wouldn't have to go inside. =)
I ran into a old church friend at The Homestead today. It is often refreshing to talk to another Autism mom. Someone who can just look you in the eye, and know how much work it is to work full-time, have a new born baby and run 25-30 hours a week of home programming. No one can truly empathize with you unless they have walked in your shoes.
She was taken aback though, as people usually are, that Finn is Autistic. He's pretty good at compensating a lot of times, so a lot of people do not really believe me when I tell them he is on the spectrum. They think surely, it is a misdiagnosis. The more I learn about Autism, the more I am convinced that the diagnosis is correct, though. And no professional that has worked with him, more familiar with Autism, has never doubted the diagnosis. Therapists, teachers, Doctors, psychologists, and specialists that have all worked with Finn concur with his diagnosis.
It's funny that I often feel like I have to justify Finn's behavior to moms of neurotypical kids, by educating them about his diagnosis, but I also just as often have to justify Finn's diagnosis to Autism moms because he doesn't always "behave" or "look" like their autistic kid. :)
Life is hard, I am tired. But, it is also is good, very, very good.
Fabulous update.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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