Eli's First Day of Giant Steps

Today is Eli's first day of Giant Steps. We took some pictures this morning while waiting for the bus. He was very happy to show off his spiderman backpack.





It is strange for me to be at home so long by myself when I am used to having Eli with me, and I miss him, but thank goodness for Giant Steps! I have met the staff and peeked in the classroom during work time. It is going to be so good for him and I look forward to documenting lots of progress!

DIR and ABA

We have been looking around to see what the best option available is for our son's education once he is done with his specialized preschool program. Should we stay here in the area we live now, the Clear Horizons Academy looks like a very promising option. We are going to go tour it soon and start the application process so our son can be on the waiting list.

www.clearhorizonsacademy.org

The exciting thing about this school is that it works on the DIR, or relationship based model. The preschool he will be starting next week is ABA model based. Although I can't remember what ABA stands for at the moment, I know that it works on a rewards system. Things are about routine and memorization. We believe that our son will make many gains with this model in this coming school year.
However, we have been considering for afterward the Clear Horizons Academy for it's relationship based program. Although the program he is in this year uses the DIR model to some extent, the idea of an educational program based on it is very interesting to us. The DIR model is child directed and it focuses on building in the children that kind of social addiction that most of us just seem to be born with. Example: With the DIR model you play, and that play is directed by the child. If the child is banging blocks together instead of stacking them, you bang blocks together. Eventually you are taking turns banging blocks and here we have communication circles opening and closing, and opening and closing.
There is a certain acquaintance of ours who tells us that there is a particular family in the area who flies the husband to California each week for work and the rest of the family stays here in Utah, all because of the Academy. I am thinking, if the school is that good, we are going to look into it.

Why, Mom?

My son approached me while I was at the sewing desk, so I greeted him and told him what I was doing. "Why Mom?" was his response, so I calmly told him more about it. Really, on the inside, I was just thinking, "DID HE JUST SAY THAT??"

By the time most children are the age of four, they have already been tormenting their parents with the 'why' question for quite some time. I just heard it from my son for the first time about 2 weeks ago when this incident happened. Parents of typical kids: be grateful to hear the perpetually asked question. Apparently it is very important for a child's development. I haven't yet learned all the details of 'why' yet. :)

In the meantime, I am hoping to encourage the 'why' question more often.

In other news, this week is another Low Dose Antigen (LDA) injection. My son's DAN! doc is the only one that does these, but he is very active in the conferences and so I hope that many other doctors learn about it from him. The LDA helps my son not be so sensitive to things in the environment and also foods that bother him. It is very safe, it simply helps him build a tolerance. Parents of autistic children know: These kids are sensitive! A special test showed that my son was sensitive to many common foods, and soy especially was almost off the chart!

Preparing for the LDA includes eliminating fish oils from supplement regimen two days before, and eliminating supplements all together for three days, the day before, the day of, and the day after the injection. Fish oil is still avoided during the week after. Also during the supplement free days, he has to be off of chocolate, eggs, wheat, sugar, corn, and milk. I have to admit though, that we usually never give him those things anyway, except the egg. I'll have to remember that when I'm making pancakes in the morning...

The Move

I haven't posted for awhile because of all the chaos of our recent move. It is all over though, and we are happy with our new place! The reason for our move was the autism preschool located in Orem, Utah, called Giant Steps. It is public, but it is funded by the Wasatch Mental Health Department. Translation: it is free and the program is cutting edge. The downside is that our son had to be on the waiting list for this program for 2 years. We had to be living in Utah County for him to attend, but that was OK because anything out of the county was just too far to commute for a one car family. So here we are! This program is totally worth the move and we are pumped! It is an ABA based program, (although they will use whatever method works for the individual,) and it is four days a week, with full school days!


Our last move was back at the end of December of last year when we moved north in order to complete hubby's education. That move was hard on Eli, as you would expect for a young one with autism. We had lots of uncooperative behavior, vocal outbursts, sleep disturbances, etc. He stopped being manageable with taking supplements for a while there, too, but we kept trying. Once we started getting the supplements down him again, things started getting better, and then he started school at the public school there, and things got even better. We have kept with the biochemical intervention for this whole year this last month and let me tell you how great he is doing! Eli now calls me "mom" and his dad "dad." His vocabulary is growing everyday. If he is looking for a favorite toy train he will say "Gordon go?" He tells me about things in his little shows he likes to watch. He is starting to have more and more of a social smile. This recent move has been such a switch from the one back in December! No regression at all.

Eli had some very kind little friends in our town we lived in up north who taught him so much about interaction, playing and friends. We miss all of you sweet little people! These are some pictures to show his friends how happy Eli is at the new place. There is a swing in the backyard that is cut from an old tire.

The BEST Gluten Free Cookbook

Several months ago I went to a "gut" specialist for the aching and tiredness I was experiencing. He decided we needed to do a procedure so that he could see my stomach and intestines. After the procedure he said he may have seen possible celiac disease, so I went home and stopped eating gluten, and started feeling better. I went back to see him only to hear him say that the test was negative for celiac and to take a prescription for the aches the may be caused by a "non celiac gluten intolerance." I went home confused. If gluten was making me not feel well, it was obviously not being handled by my body properly and should be avoided. I have been eating gluten free ever since and have been feeling great.

Although I had already been cooking gluten free for my son with autism for the better part of a year, this experience led me to search for even better gluten free baking recipes. I worked in bakeries for 5 years. I had to be able to bake things that I would really enjoy!

That is when I found the ultimate gluten free baking book: Cooking Free by Carol Fenstar, Ph.D.

This book is AWESOME for baking for persons with autism, because many of the recipes have included alternatives to the major ingredients that many persons with autism have problems with: sugar, eggs, milk, and of course gluten.

The best part of this book is that the recipes are good! The ones I use most are the pancake recipe, the basic chocolate cake (it's great for family gatherings!) and the sandwich bread recipe.

The basic flour blend recipe that is the staple for all the recipes in the book is a flexible one, meaning you can use the flours to best suit the recipe to your taste. I find that bean flour in the mix makes a better flour for pancakes and sandwich bread, while corn flour (not corn meal) instead of the bean flour portion makes a better blend for sweets, like the chocolate cake. I just mark my two quart ziplock bags "corn flour blend" or "bean flour blend" and I am stocked and ready to bake anytime.

Another Chemical Free Step

I have heard that persons with autism should only eat organic foods. My thought was, that's nice, but who can afford that? I began washing our produce with special wash from the health food store and took pride in the fact that I had washed off waxes, sprays, and other contaminants.
I recently read this book:
The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier
by Steve Meyerowitz, and it's a great find on Amazon for under $10.
For being a short read, it explains a variety of topics concerned in the choice of whether or not to buy organic. I found the chapter on labeling very helpful. He tells the many reasons organic foods are better for us, and why all those nutrients in healthier soil makes the food taste better.
I took it for a test. I have been buying organic apples for weeks now. I can honestly say that I enjoy apples more now that I have found apples that are generally better tasting. Knowing I am avoiding chemicals and contaminants probably doesn't make them taste worse, either. :)
Now I want to buy nothing but organic. It is true that it does not always happen. Organic varieties are not always available, or always affordable. However, my family and I are taking steps to make it more of a priority to buy organic. Right now it is all of our produce, plus other products here and there. Here is a little collection from my own kitchen.
My efforts to provide organic foods for my family are in an effort to lessen the chemical burdens on my son. I believe that his predisposed little body contracted autism under the burden of environmental contaminants. Anything I can do to lessen the load on his sensitive body makes him a happier boy.

The Face of Autism

This is just a fun little project that included everyone in the family. My husband shot this photo while doing an Eli "photo shoot," meaning stalking him with a camera until a picture of his face is obtained. (He also managed to get one with a big smile!) I did alittle photo editing on the photo. (I did tons of photo editing in college... already getting rusty!) It is still overexposed, etc, but I found the end result with his little gaze to be pretty meaningful. I can also imagine my brother at this age looking at me with his own gaze which somehow still looks at me and through me at the same time.