Erika's Blog

...if it hurts to shift gears in your car today.  Your pretty new, easy to shift, car.

Ouch.

And heck yes, I drive manual.  Anything else is cheating.

So there was a chat on the Washington Post website today about Raising an Autistic Child (here's the LINK, although I don't know how long it stays at that address, so can't vouch it'll still be there when you click...), and I'm a little...bothered...by it.

I guess I just don't see how anyone can be so SURE that because of the choices they made as parents, their child has "recovered".  We don't know anything about causes, and what works on one autistic child doesn't work on another, and there are things we as parents simply have no control over.

This woman went into bankruptcy, gave up her job and future retirement security, spent years fighting for specific therapies - and praise be, her son is doing very well.  But I feel sure that another parent, doing the same things, may not have seen those results.  And yet another, doing something completely different, would have had similar "recovery".

I think her hard work and devotion should be applauded.  No doubt.

But I also think it's a slippery slope.  If a parent can make the "right" choices for their autistic child to get X results, then it's easy to flip it that if a child is not making such progress, then the parents must be doing something wrong.  And with a disorder as complicated and varied as autism, with so many unknowns...well, that's an unfair burden on an already stressful situation.

Here's what we know:
1. Autism happens. 
2. Early indentification and early intervention leads to better functioning later in life in general (but not with every child).

That's it.  All these myriads of therapies and treatments?  Pretty much still in the rhelm of speculation.  It's better to do something than nothing, but the jury's still out on what that something should optimally be.

So we, as parents, do our best.  We weigh cost, and what other people have seen, and how our child responds to things, and make choices.  That's all we can do.

Well, we seem to finally be over this crud of a stomach bug thing (knock on wood) - hallelujah!  I'm a little apprehensive about teaching my Jazzercise class tonight since my light dance/stretch/yoga workout this morning was harder than usual what with the no eating and no moving for 3 days, but adrenaline usually gets me through.

Isaac had a good day at school today.  He's started spontaneously asking teachers for things, not just specific teachers for specific things.  See, Isaac doesn't generalize very well.  His usual thing is whomever got something for him once, they are forever after the keeper of that thing.  If he jumped with Jackie the first time, then she will forever be the Jump person.  If Wally got him water, then he is forever after the Water person.
Well, today, Isaac asked different people for the same thing.  He asked Tam for the tent (okay, that alliteration is just coincidence - her name really is Tam) and then Dan for the tent.
And now that I think about it, he asked my mom for food and drink when she was here, not just me or Andrew.
This generalization skill is important for lots of things.  In language, it's knowing that all dogs are dogs, not just the one dog you met that day.  In play skills, it's knowing that all trains go down tracks, not just the Thomas train in the nursery school.  When you have to literally relearn the same skill for every circumstance you might want it - well it's exhausting and impossible.  That's why our brain's typically don't function that way.
So, it's a really good sign that Isaac is learning to generalize - it means he'll be able to learn a lot more skills in the future, and that his brain is starting to process information in a more typical way.