Day Seven

So today was a big day for talking. This morning when Chandler was on the table, after the green light had been on for a minute or two, he turned to me and said “BooBah” in the exact tonality of the opening of the show. He had watched Boobah this morning for perhaps the second or third time in his life and has never mentioned it to us before this morning.

Later that day we went to the mall so I could let him run free and explore for a while. When we passed by the pet store, I took him to the birdcage and he was fascinated. I repeated “bird” for him a few times, and then he said it on his own. He has said it before, but I have only heard it from him once.

He is babbling a lot more these days. He will just sit in his car seat and babble in his sing song way. He is also making some different sounds than the usual repertoire he goes with.

Day Six

So today I experimented with him. I decided to treat him like he was Webster while we were leaving for the appointments. I told him it was time to go and he went to the door, I opened it and he went to the car. I opened the car door and told him to climb in his seat. The first time he needed me to get him started climbing into the car, but I think he gets it now. We will see if this sticks.

He is starting to take verbal direction from me.

Also, we went to the store and he ran across the store to the childrens section, but every few steps he would stop and turn around and make sure that I was behind him. Usually he looks for me only once every few minutes.

Day Five

So today I said to Chandler, “Let’s go to the car, Chan” and of course knowing that he would not hear me or respond, I turned around to go pick him up to take him to the door, and he was already on his way to the door. He put his hand on the doorknob and tried to get out. When I opened the door he walked straight to the car and didn’t try to take off in either direction down the sidewalk. Nice.

Day Four

He has had some fussy times today and yesterday, but looking back at this week, everyday has been like one of his best days. That is probably saying a lot considering we are not at home, there are three other rambunctious boys in the house making noise and he is being carted back and forth to the docs office twice a day. I wish we were at home so I could get a better comparison to what he is like in his natural habitat.

Tomorrow Webster is going home to spend the weekend with daddy and then to my parents house for a week. It will give me a chance to pay a little better attention to what Chandler is doing.

Day Three

So he does not protest at all once he is on the table. Still have to hold the ear phone away from his head though. He was falling asleep in the afternoon session and we had to pull out the toys and do a lot of tickling to get him to keep looking at the light.

He is also making better eye contact with me and seems to be understanding me better, but my feeling about that is pretty subjective and I don’t have any good examples to back that up.

I have to mention the staff again. They really try to make things easy on us. If I am late, or early, they don’t care. “Just let me know when you are ready to start” is what I get no matter when we arrive. I have stopped apologizing for my kids when they are not being so pleasant because they are clearly not ruffled at all by it. And one of the really nice things is that they will watch the kids for a few minutes while I take a bathroom break or just stand quietly for a minute in another room to gather myself. Being single mom down here is really stressful. I am ALWAYS with the boys. It is so nice to get 5 minutes to myself to take a breather before loading them into the car for the next adventure.

Day Two

He seems almost used to the sessions. Each time he fusses less and less. Today he stopped protesting as soon as the table started moving.

So we went shopping and when we got home I pulled an apple out of the bag and said, “Chandler what’s this”? He immediately gestured toward it and said “apple”. Usually it would take asking about 5 times and then putting it in front of his face to get him to look at it. I wanted to make sure I was hearing right, so I asked him again, and he immediately answered. I did it 5 times total and he answered me every time.

Still letting me change his diapers with out any protest what so ever. He is also cooperating better in letting me get him dressed.

Day One

So last night and all day today Chandler has been letting me change his diaper. Just laying there and letting me change it. Usually it is the mother of all wrestling matches accompanied by Chandler screaming his head off and mommy pulling a muscle. If this sticks than I think it will be worth all the time and the money.

Each session today he started out crying, but calmed down quicker each time. The second session he only cried for about 2 minutes and although he will not let them put the headphones on, he will tolerate them holding the earpiece a few inches away from his right ear. He pushes it away occasionally, but a few times he leaned his head up against it to hear the music better.

Today he also made eye contact with my girlfriend Danielle for the first time ever. She was lying on the couch and watching him. He stopped and stared at her for a moment and then smiled back at her. She said that he ran over to her and just looked and smiled at her. Apparently the whole thing lasted about 25 seconds.

We are staying with Danielle and her husband Lars, and their two sons Soren 3.5 and Kai 18 months. Both boys have tried to engage him but he does not respond. It will be a good test to see if he starts to notice them while we are here.

Intake

We arrived at the Sensory Learning Center in Encinitas, California in the afternoon after a long drive down from Los Angeles. The center has only been open for two weeks, but they seem to have thing really together. It is a nice peaceful atmosphere and the staff has this really professional and laid back demeanor. It is run by a married couple, both optometrists, Chris Davis and Susan Daniel. They have a 6 year old autistic son who went through the program in Boulder and they were apparently so pleased with the results that they decided to open one in California.

I was a few minutes late and completely ruffled as I had both boys in tow. When we came it, Dr. Davis and several of the staff members were just hanging out in the lobby waiting for us. They seem to have this, “whatever makes things easy for you” attitude that really takes the stress off. These people clearly know what it is like to have an autistic child and have made a wonderful atmosphere for families like ours.

A staff member played with 3.5 year old Webster in the waiting/playroom while I went in with Chandler. They tried to do some evaluations of his hearing/attention, but he was not having it, so we went straight to the sample session. We got him on the table and he was a little uncomfortable. Once it started moving, he was quiet and still, on his belly and elbows, but when we tried to roll him on his back, he started getting upset. We turned down the lights and tried to get him to put the headphones on and then he really went nuts. He really freaked out and was crying as if in complete distress. It really got to me. All I could think was that it must be like a horrible nightmare. Being in a pitch black room with arms coming out of the darkness to hold you down while a light (even a soft magenta light) shines in your eyes all the while you have no idea what is going on.

But I was determined not to loose it and to try to get him to go the whole 30 minutes. He continued to freak for several minutes until Dr. Daniel had the idea to bring his car seat in to see if he would feel a little safer in it. When we put him in it, he calmed down a lot. He continued to cry through the first half of the trial session, but it was not as bad as it had been. By the second half, he had calmed down and started drinking out of his sippy cup.

The staff stayed really calm the whole time though. Did I mention that I think the staff is great?

The Sensory Learning Center

So I was at a conference in April and heard a woman speak about her treatment center for people with Sensory Integration Disorders which was located in Boulder, Co. It sounded like something Chandler could benefit from, and they was a new center opening near San Diego, so we have decided to give it a go.

I won't go into describing the treatment, but you can find all about it here:
http://sensorylearning.com

The recommend keeping a journal while going through the treatment so that you can see progress, etc. I wanna make mine public so other parents can get this parent's view on the worthwhileness of the program. It is expensive, $2,550 for a 30 day program ( 12 days at the center and then an 18 day follow up at home) but we have decided it is worth the risk.

So check back to see how Chandler progresses in evaluating yet another potential treatment for the child that you love.

Welcome

So I had intended to start this blog months ago to document, for those of you out there who are interested in such things, what is working to curb Chandler's autism and what is not. Today he is starting a new program at the Sensory Learning Center in Encinitas, California and I knew that I had to get a daily journal of this going now. No parents or professinals that I had talked to knew about the program, so I wanted to make sure I offer as much information on it's effectiveness as I can.

I had intended to put together a nicely designed blog of my own, but because I really need to get this started, I decided to put it up on blogger.com for now. I will be expanding it later as I have time.

I will also add more background information on our family and Chandler specific difficulties a bit later.

Feel free to email me with questions.

Ginger... Chandler's mom