Wrapping Up

Throughout this exprience of blogging about autism I have learned so many things! I have learend that autism can be something wonderful. After reading through many stories and also reading "The Next Stop", I have seen how difficult it can be to raise a child with autism. With support it can be less difficult to handle autism. There are many organizations out there that are organized to help! I really enjoyed doing this and learned more than I ever imagined I would. The neatest thing was seeing what questions would spark in my head as I researched one thing. Hope you guys have enjoyed reading this !!!

Emotional Issues

After reading through all of my blogs I have done this quarter I have noticed I have done a lot about the impact this has on families and also many facts about autism on general. Thinking about all of this makes me wonder how autism emotionally affects a person. Disabilities can have a huge emotional effect on people and especially with young children because they are seen as being different from the other children. Young children dont always understand that everyone isnt the same and they dont quite know what it means to have a disability such as autism. After browsing a few sites on the web I found some interesting information about how autism emitonally affects someone. 

Depression is a major affect of autism. When a person has autism they have a very unique behavior that they sometimes are the only ones who understand why they do the things they do. Also they may have difficulties interacting with peers because their language development is behind. These issues can be very hard on a person and can cause them to have depression issues. As a young child this has to be especially hard. At a young age children are making friends and starting their life. When they are seen  as being different they may feel like others dont accept them. As an upcoming teacher I want to edcuate my classroom that not everyone is the same. Out differences are what makes us unique people.

Website: http://www.autistica.org.uk/about_autism/impact.php

Autism Support

I have been wondering how many different types of support groups there are out there for autism. After looking at another classmates blog on autism I wanted to explore and see what types of support there are out there. While reading through "The Next Stop" I discovered this type of schooling type support group in Florida that the son in the book went to a school in Florida that taught him basic life skills. He also was provided with a job and a place to live on his own. I thought this was really neat that there are places that work with these people to help them make it through life. Today I began to look online on various blogs and such to see what types of support there are for autism.

(http://www.autism-blog.com/) This is a link to a blog that is all about autism. You have to join the blog and it has so many interesting stories and tips for dealing with autism. There are many parents on here, educators, and even adults with autism themselves. I think this would be neat to have this type of communication when you have autism or you are around autism on a daily basis.

(http://www.helpguide.org/mental/autism_help.htm) This link is AWESOME. This has facts, stories, help, and so much more. After browsing around I found many local places that provide support with autism. On this site were also parents, teachers, and adults as well. Following this link will provide someone with the support they are looking for.



There are so many helpful things online that can lead you to support. Dealing with autism can be very challenging from what I have read and seen for myself. With support autism can be dealt with in a wonderful way. People with or dealing with someone who has autism need to know they aren't alone and that there are ways to help.

Autism and the Public

While reading through the book I have been reading the mother talks about all the strange looks and reactions she gets when she takes her son in public. The oublic is very quick to notice when someone is different and they arent always very kind about it. I wanted to see what some other families have done when things like this happen to them. So I researched a few blogs and came across one I found to be very helpful.

The parent in this blog says the glares are awful that come from others in public. And constant explaining that her child has autism is very tiring for her. She looks at it that it is her job to make the public aware of her child's autism. She has bought him various shirts such as one that says "autism is my super power". I really like this and think it is a positive way to let the public know the child has autism. This might prevent some of the awful glares from the public. Also this may be fun for the child because it is very postive. 

Here's the link:http://aquietsimplelife.com/?p=7885

When is it typical to noctice Autism?

So while reading through this and hearing the parent talk about when they realized their son had autism. I have kind of wondered when the typical age for autism diagnosis is. Is there a specific age that most people find out at? I searched the New York Times and found an article all about autism.

According to the New York Times parents begin to notice at arounf 18 months and usually no later than 2 years old. They begin to notice things such as the child will have trouble with pretend play, social interactions, and verbal/nonverbal communications. The article stated that most children will seem perfectly normal before the age of one then everything will start to change after about the one year mark. I was also very interested to see that autism will affect more boys than girls (just an interesting little fact I didnt know)

Within the story I am reading they did find out before the child was a year old, so they are a little different than most families. Their child was very motionless and didnt respond to verbal cues at all. I guess its different for every child when autism will appear. 


Here's the link to the article in the New York Times:
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/autism/overview.html

Noticing YOur Child Has Autism

I have always wondered how the parents notice their child has autism at such a young age when the child isnt speaking or anything yet. With the story I am reading they noticed David was different at about four months. When he was an infant he would laugh or respond to pretty much anything. Most babies will respond when the parent makes funny faces or tickels the child. David was different and he wouldnt respond. He was so different from his two brothers who were extremely active. When he was very young they detected cerbreal palsy and began early interevention with him. This is where they began to notice that something else was wrong with David. He was so different from any other child the parents had seen. He would be very interested in one thing and one thing only. The household cat was the one thing he constantly played with. As time went on they identified David as having autism.

As a parent I cant imagine finding this out about my child. The future would scare me every single day. I wonder what his parents initially thought at this moment? Did they ever think they couldnt do it ?

As I keep reading I hope to find some of these asnwers. This book is a very touching story. These two parents are very strong!

First Part of "Next Stop"

I began to read this story and it is so interesting. First of all the story is about how parents raised a child named David who has autism. He is now in his twenties and doing very well. The first part of the story talks about how they were training him to go to some type of school in Florida. He wanted to go to college but they knew he couldnt handle it, so they enrolled him in this program where he will learn absic skills. Once I read this I was thinking wouldnt it be hard for him to learn life skills  to support himself? And how did they go about teaching him this, since his learning capacity is lower?

The family spent months teaching him everything. This included things from how to get dressed all the way to how to use the toaster. It was extremely difficult to do this though. They said most times he would get bored and go do something else with no warning. Once he walked away from boiling water to go outside and play. His attention span isnt very long at all. The parents were extremley frustrated, but before they sent him he knew a lot of what he needed to be successfull. There were days he would call and say how do you do this again?  As a parent this had to be difficult when he was in school because he couldnt follow multi step directions at all. David probably had a very hard time. The next part of the story is titled "Where Did This Come From?". It is all about raising him and him growing up. I want to learn what it was like from their perspective to raise a child with autism and how it was to have him in the mainstream classroom with the other children.

"The Next Stop"

This is the book I mentioned in my last post. I am going to begin reading it tomorrow, I was  just notified that it has came in. The book takes a look at the relationship a child with autism has had with their parents while growing up. I am excited to see what the realtionship was like for them and hopefully get some of my questions answered. Some things I am curious about are how did you notice the child was acting different, is it easy to tell when a child is suspected to have autism, do parents have a hard time bonding with a child that has autism? and so many more questions. I will get back to this probably Saturday or Sunday after I have read a little of the book! See you then :)

The story of Jordan's Family

Today I was looking to see what parents think the hardest part about raising a child with autism is. I stumbled upon this blog that was a really detailed blog about all the hard times. The mother says most days it feels like work even when its my day off. She talks about how hard it is to see your child go through these changes and be different than all the other children. Children with autism often have social issues, this was a big concern of this parent in the blog. She says its hard but you learn as you go and it gets better with time. Heres the link to the original blog I was exploring. http://ediann.hubpages.com/hub/Autism-and-hope

While looking through that specific blog there was a youtube video about a 20 year old man named Jordan. The story was told by his mother who has raised him. He was diagnosed at 2 years old, she explains it as being a death when they found out. She called it the death of a dream of how it was supposed to be. His behavior changed dramatically in school and he became very violent. With time they learned how to cope with autism and make it easier on everyone. She has had such a positive experience with Jordan having autism. I love how she calls them differences not a disability. In my opinion children get very discouraged with the word disability. This story really showed me how families make the best out of a terrible situation. The link is below go check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTDmdClWtkc


Also I have a book on hold at the public library. Its titled "Next Stop: A Son With Autism Grows Up. The book is about a young boys struggles and also how his parents coped with the autism and raising him. It should be in by next week :)

Parenting a Child with Autism

I looked at the reaction a family had to the diagnosis of autsim. I did a little bit more research on reactions towards autism. I didnt find another specific case but I did find a site that was very itneresting. It provided a lot of details that come along with finding out your child has autism. There are so many things I never would have imagine. In my mind I was only thinking about parents worrying about not having a normal child and also about the medical side of it and their childs health. There are so many more things added to the parents plate then what I was thinking.

Those factors I was thinking about are true but there are more things then that. The parents first of all have to worry about how their life is going to change. Their lifestyle is going to be completely different than what they had imagined. They have to change the way they do a lot of things in order to accomodate their childs needs. Also the family has to worry about money. Autism will require a lot of doctor visits. What if the fmaily doesn't have insurance? This will be a very stressfull because they will need to closely monitor their finances and the bills will keep adding up as the child gets older. The parents also have to worry about what the public is going to think of the child. People in public arent always as understanding as they should be. People are very judgemental and dont understand how hurtful it can be to the child and the family. This would be very stressfull as a parent because this could really hurt the childs feelings and make them feel not accpeted in society. There are so many things that change in the parents lives! 

This ties in with this weeks summary papers! The parents are under so much stress when their child is diagnosed with autism. As teacher we need to be able to help them and work with them. They need to know that they arent alone and there is help out there.

Here's the site http://www.brighttots.com/Autism/Parenting_autistic_child ! Take a look around there is a lot of information on how it is to raise a child with autism.

Parents Look on Autism

I found a blog where parents raised a boy Cameron and he has been diagnosed with Autism. They talked about how as parents we want our children to be anything but normal. And we do many things to make them fit in  such as going to the park or birthday parties . Then came the diagnosis and everything changes. They said this statement that stood out too me "It’s pretty much at that point where all of the optimistic dreams of limitless possibilities leave us and we look at our child wishing for exactly the one thing that we didn’t want for them… to be normal." This quote showed me the initial feeling behind finding out your child is autistic. It has to be very hard for many to accept this. They also quoted this about after the child has been diganosed "Hopefully, if we learn how to help our child, where to get help, what works best and what doesn’t and we figure out what our child is truly capable of… we start to realize that all of this time, through all of these dreams and doubts… we got exactly what we wanted." I love this. This shows that they accepted the problem and lived with it like nothing was wrong. I think its important for parents to think this way, so they can appreciate their child and make their life as smooth as possible. I love that these parents coped with it and appreciated everything about autism in the end. It made their child have his own characteristics and they loved every minute of it.

Here's the blog! Check it out its a very neat story to read! http://www.stuartduncan.name/

I have done some research on what the autism sepctrum actually is. I have worked with a child that they thought was on the spectrum, but wasnt severe. This morivated me to look further into what the autism spectrum is. I used this website to give me the information I needed for this topic of research.
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/autism-spectrum-disorders

According to this website listed above, there are different classifications of autism. Some are not as severe as others. Those classifications are aspergers syndrome, persuasive development disorder (PDD), autistic disorder, rett's syndrome, and childhood disentegrative disorder.
*Aspergers is a very mild form of autism. The child is typically obsessed with one topic in school and talks non stop about that. I have heard of this form a lot. The child is high functioning, but has issues with being socially awkward.
*PDD is more severe that aspergers but the child is still considered to be high functioning. The child will deomonstrate interest in something typically one thing, may demonstrate repitive behaviors, and has issues with being socially awkward.
*Autistic disorder is more severe and the children tend to have seizures and mental redardation as well.
*rett's syndrome is something that happens to girls almost always compared to little boys. It is a genetic mutation and therapy is needed to help with development and speech
*Childhood disentegrative disorder is very severe. The children lose ability to be coordinated, to speak, and often have many health risks in their lives. 

This is very interesting to me because I didnt know there were this many classifications. I understand now that almost every form of autism makes the child socially awkward. I wonder how hard it is for families to cope with a child that is socially awkward. Especially in the childs younger years, it has to be difficult. Young children are very social throughout their schooling with their peers. Next time im going to look into some blogs about how families have coped with their child being socially awkward due to autism.

It is AUTISM AWARNESS month (: just a little fact!

I was doing some research of stories about families that have a child with autism. Basically I wanted to see what a families outlook on autism is. Being a person that has never been around autism a whole lot, I think it would be extremely difficult to raise a child that has autism. I came upon this story about a family that has 3 children on the autism spectrum. This family is extremely strong and has battled some form of autism with each child they have had.

http://www.parentdish.com/2010/04/14/family-autism-story-three-kids-on-the-spectrum/
(This is where I found the story)

I was so shocked to see that all 3 of the children were on the spectrum. The family talks about many delays the children have had while developing. They could see the autism pretty early on when the children were nursing and things, becuase their development was a little delayed.They talked about finding out their first child had autism pretty early on and they were scared to death and very worn out from all the accomodations they would have to make for him. 

This was my favorite part of the story. The parents were asked what they weren't told about autism but had to find out on their own.I think it's so neat that they figrued these things out on their own and they have a very positive outlook on autsim. Here's their responses:
1) That developmental delays do not mean developmental stops. The bright boy's progress was often incredibly slow, but he's still making progress today, at age 20.
2) That the idea of a lack of empathy is incorrect; they are extremely empathetic, but they have to notice it.
3) That you will come to appreciate the refreshing honesty that your children offer you. That you will survive and thrive and so will they, if you give yourself time to adapt, if you will surround yourself with people who care, and if you accept that there will always be challenges.   

This story was very touching and this couple is extremely courageous and have done a great job with managing three children on the autism spectrum. 

Dont forget its AUTISM AWARNESS MONTH :)

Okay thats it for today! Next I want to look at what the autism spectrum is. Whenever you hear about autism, most of the time you will hear "they are on the spectrum". But what does that mean? How is the spectrum defined or broken up into categories?

What is Autism??

Hello Everyone! I hope I got this set up ok :)

Over the next few weeks I am going to be exploring autism. I am going to be looking at the affects that autism has on individuals and also their families. Throughout my practicum experiences I have seen childrent that have autism, but I have never worked with a child that has autism. Seeing this in schools has left me with many questions about the disability. So I chose this for my blog!!!!

The first thing I wanted to explore while starting this blog was to look up what autism actually is. I feel like for me to really understand the affects of this disability, that I need to know what autsim is classified as.
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/asd.cfm

This website was very helpful in explaining to me what autism is. The website explains autism as a disability that causes major problems with social interaction and communication. It also said that many of this will occur before the age of three, which causes many areas of development to be affected. This has got to be extremely hard for those families of young chidlren becuase communication is a huge part of the schooling process for young children and also in the world around us communication is a huge part of everything we do each day.

Thats all I have for now. I will get back on here in a couple of days to make another post!