Living with Autism Month

     It is Autism Awareness month, according to the world. Last year, at this time, I had one child diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). I was wondering about my 1 1/2 year old, but she was on track for a while. Even ahead of schedule at one point, much to my relief. Fast forward to now. Thirty percent of children with autism have seizures. Keira is one of those thirty percent.  We live Autism every day. We don't need a calender to remind us that it is happening because we are living it. Two of my children are the 1 in 88 that are diagnosed with ASD. One is a girl. We are aware of it and it effects our lives considerably. Sam is doing wonderful because of the early intervention services he received and because we held him back a year in school. But, he still has trouble with socialization, social rules/cues, non-verbal/verbal reasoning and understanding of overall speech.
 
     After getting back a report from Boston about him we decided he needed more intervention from the school. He is actually very intelligent and scored above average in many areas. Spatial and Math being 2. His scores on one test showed he is average and above average in all areas. A different test called the DAS-II showed us more. The verbal and non-verbal areas.

Keira's scores were the same as the testing that they did in Maine. Less than 1 percentile in Expressive and Receptive language. She is also very good in the Spatial area. Those were the same scores Sam had at her age, but he got extensive early intervention (ABA) even later than her. We hope that with her even earlier intervention she will be where Sam is when she is 7. She has more of an obstacle because of the Epilepsy and the feeding tube that resulted from that.

     Here is more info on the Autism study that we participated in last month at Children's Hospital Boston. http://lifeistwosweet.blogspot.com/2012/02/never-ending-autism-study.html
  
     Is Sam cured of Autism? No. Is he leaps and bounds from where he was? Yes. We are trying to stay on top of every major problem we encounter to make sure he becomes the best person he possibly can be. We will do the same with Keira and Kailyn. All three have hidden illnesses. Meaning, you can't tell by looking at them that they are battling Autism, Epilepsy, Type 1 Diabetes etc.. We don't sweat the small stuff and pick and choose our battles. It is very exhausting at times, but it is well worth giving it everything we have.

Here are facts about Autism to help make the world more Aware.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/facts.html