Recent Posts
Son Learns a Second Language
Communication has been one of our son's challenges. Despite tremendous progress during this last year he still struggles to speak in complete sentences. Our son with autism is certainly better able to let us know what he wants now, but this is still frequently accomplished through very short phrases such as "drink" or "I want drink, please". You can imagine our surprise when he began to speak a second language! I know what you are probably asking right now: What language did he … [Read More...]
A Work of Art
Like many children with autism our son continues to struggle with his handwriting skills. Although he has made significant progress this last year it still requires a great amount of focus to write the letters of the alphabet. However, this struggle has not kept him from creating a few masterful pieces of art. Recently our son's habilitator has engaged his creativity by using construction paper to create things such as Nemo, whales, and fish. This has led to hours of entertainment! It … [Read More...]
Featured Posts
Benefits of Giving Methylcobalamin Injections to Son with Autism
It has been about 2 months since we started administering the vitamin B12 (methylcobalamin) shots to our autistic son. I have to say that it has been a smoother transition than we thought it would be. We were prepared for a rough couple of months, but have been pleasantly surprised to find that it has been 2 great months for the most part. We had several hesitations about the vitamin B12 shots (see Autism and Methylcobalamin (Vitamin B12) for more information on our concerns). … [Read More...]
The Coconut Milk Yogurt Autism Treatment Mix: Update 3…The Agape Positives Emerge
It has now been a little over three weeks since we increased the dose of the Agape multivitamin in our autistic son's coconut milk yogurt autism treatment mix. The last week and a half have been very rough. We have been observing many sensory-seeking issues and a lot more screaming. We still feel that these are positive-negatives that are occurring due to the high vitamin B6 and B12 content in Agape. However, it has been difficult to watch our son with autism struggle so much with … [Read More...]
Side Effects from Giving Son with Autism Vitamin B12 (Methylcobalamin) Shots
Our son with autism has been receiving vitamin B12 injections for about 2 months now (see Autism and Methylcobalamin (Vitamin B12) and Benefits of Giving Methylcobalamin Injections to Son with Autism for previous blog posts on this topic). This autism therapy has been mostly beneficial for our son. Fortunately, he has experienced very few side effects since receiving methylcobalamin injections. Hyperactivity from Vitamin B12 Shots The main methylcobalamin side effect that we have … [Read More...]
Autism Treatments
Coconut Milk Yogurt Autism Treatment Mix: Update 25…The Supplements at 1½ Years
It has now been approximately 1½ years since we started the biochemical approach. There have been a lot of ups and downs with the dosage changes in the coconut milk yogurt autism treatment mix, but overall we feel that these vitamins and supplements have been beneficial for our son with autism. Labs have been performed to help tweak the doses of his vitamins and supplements at approximately 3 month intervals. It took a lot of time but we eventually got his dosages just right for his … [Read More...]
Thoughts on the GFCF Diet
It has now been well over 1 month since our autistic son stopped the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet. He continues to do very well since stopping the GFCF diet. I honestly did not expect that he would tolerate so many new foods so well. Since stopping the diet we have thought a lot about the GFCF diet itself. At this point we have no doubt that our son needed to go on the diet. We saw very dramatic changes within days of originally starting the diet (see the original post on … [Read More...]
Autism Therapies
A Sensory-Seeker’s Paradise
A recent trip to the local Costco resulted in an unexpected purchase. Our son with autism spotted the item first. He kept pointing across the store. We couldn't figure out what he wanted until we got closer. That's when we saw what he was pointing at: the Jumbo Fun Ball! Occupational Therapy Ball This thing is basically a giant, padded hamster ball. It is made of durable vinyl that is constructed to form a hollow ball. There are two openings to crawl in and out of the ball. … [Read More...]
Autism, ABA Habilitators, and Potty Training
There's all kinds of advice out there on how to potty train your son. One of my favorites is putting Fruit Loops in the toilet and having them aim at them. This one just makes me laugh as I picture how our son with autism would react to something like this. First, he would be more interested in scooping the Fruit Loops out of the water. Second, we would have to come up with defense mechanisms to prevent the said Fruit Loops from entering our autistic son's mouth (as Fruit Loops are not … [Read More...]
Autism Life Lessons
Balancing Acceptance and Expectations
It is hard to believe that our son is already half way through kindergarten. It doesn't seem all that long ago that we were taking pictures of him while he was waiting to catch the bus on his first day of school. He had a huge smile on his face which became even bigger as he watched the school bus pull up in front of the house. His facial expression seemed to say, "I really get to ride this bus?!?!" The same expression appeared on his face during subsequent days as the school bus … [Read More...]
The Great Escape
Our son with autism has taught us to expect the unexpected. The task of always expecting the unexpected has the ability to wipe out a person's energy levels over time. It's not like running a 100 meter dash, it's more like running a marathon. The first 5 miles might not be so bad, but just wait until the 25th or 26th mile. It's at those moments that it becomes easy to let your guard down. That's when the unexpected is most likely to happen! A couple of Sundays ago we were attending … [Read More...]
Autism Stories
Son Learns a Second Language
Communication has been one of our son's challenges. Despite tremendous progress during this last year he still struggles to speak in complete sentences. Our son with autism is certainly better able to let us know what he wants now, but this is still frequently accomplished through very short phrases such as "drink" or "I want drink, please". You can imagine our surprise when he began to speak a second language! I know what you are probably asking right now: What language did he … [Read More...]
A Work of Art
Like many children with autism our son continues to struggle with his handwriting skills. Although he has made significant progress this last year it still requires a great amount of focus to write the letters of the alphabet. However, this struggle has not kept him from creating a few masterful pieces of art. Recently our son's habilitator has engaged his creativity by using construction paper to create things such as Nemo, whales, and fish. This has led to hours of entertainment! It … [Read More...]
Autism Challenges
Potty Training Reinforcer for Autistic Son
Sometimes it’s hard to find good reinforcers for our son with autism. We have learned that this is especially difficult when finding a reinforcer to encourage potty training. The previous post discussed fixing a routine to facilitate potty training our autistic child. Even with that routine using the potty is still a major challenge for [...]
Struggles of Parenting Autistic Son
Do you ever have days where you don’t feel like you are doing a very good job? Whether it’s at work, at school, or at home, we all experience these feelings at one time or another. This is especially true when it comes to parenting. I think it is natural for all parents to have [...]
Other Autism Topics
Much “Adoo” About Nothing
I recently wrote about some labs that were performed for our son with autism (see lab orders for autistic son). Although these labs were not at all fun to perform, we hoped that they would provide us some insight into some potential health conditions that might have been an issue for our son. Lab Results This last week we received the results of those labs. It turns out that everything came back normal. There were only one lab that came back outside of the normal parameters, but it … [Read More...]
The World’s Crappiest Job
I recently discovered a great reason to be even more grateful for my job. That reason is simply the fact that I am not employed in the world's crappiest job! Let me explain. We recently had several labs performed for our son with autism. These labs were unlike any other labs we had experienced to date. Needless to say, these were definitely not your run of the mill labs. These tests were run simply to rule out possible related health conditions in our son with autism. We had … [Read More...]
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