Author: autismlighterside

Most of us go about our day with a million things to do and little time to think or even feel what we are doing.

When we do think about it, perhaps it is at the end of the day when we are exhausted and we realize that a part of our body is sore.

We have been doing ABM (Anat Baniel Mehod) for neuromovement for our son for over three years now. This practice is based on nine essentials of learning.

I want to combine two of the essentials when relating to them as I feel that these for us go hand-in-hand for our son’s physical learning needs. Going slow means that instead of rushing movements with your body (this could be anything) such as getting out of bed or even gathering your things together in the morning that you move at a slow pace.

We have found with our son when he moves slower or when we talk slower that it creates more awareness and calmness that cannot be achieved by going fast. When he is not rushing, he can feel his body movements more clearly. At the end of the day when he is relaxing before going to bed and he is stretched out is the optimum time for him to be aware of his body because there is nothing else occupying his brain. His body is more relaxed and he can feel his limbs in a way that he cannot when there are other things occupying the “headspace” in his brain.

I think this holds true for all of us, don’t you agree?

When our son is moving slower and feeling his body, he is naturally able to pay more attention to his movements. This brings me to the essential, movement with attention, which is important when moving any part of your body.

When you pay attention to your body movements, you are able to feel each movement, good or bad, and make appropriate adjustments to either be comfortable or to perform a particular task. If you don’t understand what I am saying, why don’t you try it?

Next time you are driving, before you put the vehicle into drive, sit in the seat and feel your back, your neck and your arms. Notice how far your arms are from the steering wheel. Notices where the bottom of your back is on the seat and notice how close you feet are to the gas and the break. If you are not comfortable, make small adjustments. When you are in drive and waiting at a stop light, slightly lift you bum off the seat just a very small amount on each side and notice how that feels. You can also (when you are at a stop light) move your neck from side-to-side and ear to ear and notice how that feels.

We have noticed with our son that these slow movements and paying attention to particular parts of his body have made him calmer and more connected to his body and what it can do. Our brains can establish a million new connections on a daily basis if we just slow down, pay attention and connect with our body.

It’s amazing!

As I reflect, I find myself thinking about moments in time. Many things happen to each person every day. Some of these things are significant and some are not, but what I have realized is that I need to pay attention to these things no matter how big or small.

A few years back when I found it more difficult to talk about our son’s autism, I remember always giving people his “resume” I will call it. They would ask a question and automatically I would go to all of the things that he could do and I would start talking about these accomplishments so that the negative things would be in the background. Now I don’t think this is a bad way of thinking at all because after all, shouldn’t we focus on positive things rather than negative?

Looking back, I was always trying to validate his self-worth by the things that he did as to me, that’s how the world always seemed to look at things, especially for anyone who is different.

I knew that others could not or perhaps would not look at him without his label of “autism” and see an amazing person. Our son is actually one of my favorite people in this world. I adore him so much and he gets me just as I get him. It’s very freeing to be around him. He makes me truly happy every single day.

This weekend I watched him doing various different things. Some were good and some, like any parent, drove me crazy! But what I noticed was the little things, the moments in time, that probably no one else did.

We were at church and sometimes, he reads the prayers and sometimes he sings, but on this particular day, he was doing both and he even had some good dance moves to go with the music! I imagine what it’s like for him sometimes, when there is always someone telling you what to do or always someone asking you three questions in 30 seconds and not giving you any time to answer. But I don’t have to ask him because I know how he feels. I see it in his face.

The small moments are the ones that I enjoy the most with him. We love walking the dog together and shopping together and even singing totally off-key in the car. These are the moments in time that I truly treasure!

Each day now, I make a point of ignoring the irritating or down moments and participating in the joyful moments in time, not just with him but with everyone.

Try it, you may be surprised how much you like it!

If you know anyone with autism, you know that conversation can be difficult. Even if a person is totally verbal, their understanding of something may be different and what people say may not always make sense to that person.

Lots of people on the spectrum have difficulty with conversation. The conversation I am referring to is conversation with words.

When we think about communicating with someone, we always think about talking to them. But what if that person can’t talk or what if that person has limited skills in this area? How do we know what they are thinking or feeling? How do we read their cues or develop an intimate relationship with them?

As a parent with a child on the spectrum, it can be frustrating at times. Like me, you may focus all your attention into what your child is “not saying” rather than looking at what they are saying. What they are saying doesn’t always need to come in the form of words.

For example, if my son is happy, I know that he is happy. He is smiling, laughing, engaging in activities, it’s evident. When my son is sad or upset, he is withdrawn, frustrated, which could be seen in many different ways. He may choose to be alone. He may stomp his foot or yell. When my son is overwhelmed he may do more stimming-type behaviour like talking to himself, covering his ears or withdrawing himself from everyone and everything.

I don’t have to have a conversation with him to understand what he is feeling or what he is doing, I know just from how he acts. I think most of us would be able to distinguish these types of things.

When I speak to my daughter and she doesn’t look at me or slams her door, again, I know she is upset overwhelmed, or angry. She doesn’t have to tell me in words that this is the way that she feels.

We always seem to associate conversation into discussions or words and sometimes we need to think that we are having conversations, especially with someone on the spectrum, but there are not always long drawn out back-and-forth discussions. We need to re-evaluate what we think a conversation should look like and realize that we are having conversations all day long with people and some of these are not verbal.

Our body language can sometimes be communication enough with how we feel. If we stand with our arms crossed over our body, we already look mad and distracted. If we have a happy smile on our face, we appear more open and willing to connect with someone else.

Do you want to talk to someone who looks mad?

It’s the same for our son. He knows when I am frustrated with him because he can see it first in my facial expression and secondly he can hear it in my voice.

I know with him we can have a good time with some conversation between us but we can also have a good time with no conversation at all.

This is not to say that I am not encouraging and want to develop these skills in him more, it’s just to say that it’s not everything all of the time. Being able to read his cues is part of a conversation and respect for him and knowing when to push him further and enhance his verbal speaking ability is part of another conversation, a different conversation, a conversation that more people understand in the world.

Let’s be aware of the “unspoken” conversation in everyone, but in particular, people with autism, so that we don’t miss out on these special moments and that we don’t write them off as “not being able to” or “he doesn’t have the ability.” I encourage you never to say this or think this because we can all have meaningful conversations if we just seek out the opportunities to do so.

I am so grateful for my son and learning the different ways of conversing with him. He has enhanced my growth as a human being, by showing me “new” things each day and it has made me look at the world through a different set of eyes, a better set of eyes, a less judgey set of eyes.

Conversation is communication between people, no matter what is said or not said.

As I think about education, I wonder why our system is set up the way that it is. I wonder why today when kids have so many different learning needs does the curriculum seem to still be “one size fits all.”

I think about things that both my children struggle with in their school life and how adjustments have to be made so that they can learn the things that they need to learn to get to the next level. I find it frustrating.

I know it’s easy to criticize but that’s not what I am trying to do. I consistently have to think of ways to make things “teachable” for both my children, but especially for my son who has autism.

A lot of teachers don’t understand him, which is unfortunate. They don’t understand his level of knowledge, nor do they know how to teach him.

If you are a parent of a child with different learning needs or you are a teacher and have taught these children, you will relate to what I am talking about. First of all, we have always been very pleased with our son’s teachers. We have been extremely lucky in this area.

But as he moves on in his learning, I have had to really sit back and “think outside the box.” I have had to come up with different strategies that will challenge him as well as keep him engaged and moving forward.

In the past, I have always talked to our son about different things that go on in his day. I have asked him questions and have read comments in his agenda.

The other day I was reading an article about really establishing a relationship in the things that he does and not just regurgitating information. One of the suggestions was to draw a picture of an activity that the two of us did together. This was not only to allow him to think about the things that he had done on a particular day but also about remembering how fun an activity was and being able to communicate it through words as well as drawings.

I thought to myself that he was not going to want to be forced to draw something after doing something fun so I downloaded a program on the IPad where he could still use color and put in as much (or as little) detail as he wanted.

He liked doing this activity and in fact, he put lots of detail into his drawing.

Another time, he went on a scavenger hunt and he made a little booklet and glued in the things that he picked up. This was really cool as well as it was a different way of remembering something fun that he had done without just asking a million questions. It made it easier for him to talk about by visually seeing the things that he had collected.

Our son is also playing the trumpet (or trying to.) There are many things that you need to mentally co-ordinate at the same time. He needs to learn how to play basic notes and then to play them together in a song. This not only takes a lot of practice but a lot of brain power. We created a chart of all of the basic notes for him. It was big enough so that he could see what the note was as well as which fingers he had to push on the buttons in order to play that note. Then we put little pieces of masking tape on the actual trumpet (1,2,3) so that when you had to press 1 and 2 he would be able to visually see this on his trumpet rather than trying to co-ordinate it all in his head.

This is still very challenging, but it is a good way for him to learn and although he may not be at the same pace as some of the other children, he is learning how to play this instrument.

Going forward, I want to continue finding different ways to learn, but also still have fun!

Our biomedical journey continues. It’s unique to us as all people on the spectrum have such different needs.

I was really excited in July. It seemed like medically things were finally coming together for our son and true healing was taking place in his body. The lead that was in his system was gone after almost a year of being on a heavy medication which had been hard on his body at times. He was happy and I had actually found some other foods he could eat. By the way, if I didn’t mention it, he’s a really picky eater!

Fast forward to September. We had just gone for our latest doctor’s visit. Our son struggles with ongoing yeast issues that have to be handled by certain medications. He gets his blood test and his cells look terrible. The yeast is flaring very badly and I could see on the screen how much of it was back in his system. Now his gut lining was damaged again. This was something that we had worked really hard to avoid.

Luckily our doctor prescribed a protocol that he thought would be able to repair things. Unfortunately, it is very hard on his body and it can give him a lot of stomach pain as well as a decreased appetite.

During the summer, I had been making muffins (to add more fruit to his diet and he doesn’t like the texture of most fruits in their raw state.) But I was informed by the doctor that even though what I was making him was gluten/dairy/soy/corn/processed sugar free that this type of thing was still considered “processed” and could be what is causing his current flair up.

Back to square one for me as I go about my kitchen trying to make a flour less, non-processed, non-dairy, sugar-free, corn-free, soy-free cookie or muffin. Sound yummy? We will see.

Our journey continues…