Sensory issues

Aiden this morning.

He didn't want to go to school as his legs are hurting. He's normally under sensitive to pain. Autism can cause over sensitivity or under sensitivity to touch. Aiden can't sit still and if he's sitting on you, he digs his elbows into you and wriggles. I'm guessing he can't feel what he's doing so digging in gives him the sensory feedback he needs. Weighted blankets, vests and mats are used to calm and reassure children who are under sensitive. I wonder what it feels like? Does he feel like he's floating?

Another sensory issue he has is, he put things in his mouth. This is something associated with babies, but he never grew out of it. He's eaten crayons, flowers, mud and he even chewed through an electrical cable once! His teacher reported that he kept taking his shoes off in class and she caught him licking the soles of his shoes. She also caught him eating glue. Whats even stranger is, he's the fussiest eater. If he had his way, he'd eat plain pasta every day for dinner.

Aiden always wears his hood up. It's strange that I notice all these little things now, as before I just used to think he was being a bit strange. 

Research

I was searching for other photographers, who had worked with Autistic children and stumbled across this work by Timothy Archibald. I love that he collaborated with his son, and they decided, together, the outcome of the images.

 

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Welcome to Holland

A friend showed me this poem, which encapsulates a lot about dealing with your emotions after a diagnosis.  

 

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…



When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.



After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."



"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.



But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.



The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.



So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.



It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.



But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."



The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.



But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Written by Emily Perl Kingsley

Fire!!

There was a fire at the back of the shops where we live, one morning. Kyle couldn't wait to get to school and tell everyone about it. We were evacuated and there were major disruptions with the traffic. I think he enjoyed the attention and the fact the other kids were listening to him for a change, instead of taunting him.

Tears and Tantrums

The boys are pretty emotional. Kyle has always thrown tantrums, and I mean BIG tantrums. These often involve, crying shouting, slamming doors, kicking walls and doors, throwing stuff and hitting his brother. I don't know anyone else who's ten year old does this. The smallest thing can set him off, like making a mistake in his homework or not getting his own way.

Sometimes he can go for months without having a big episode and other times it's a daily occurrence although "moody strops" are constant.

This is Kyle crying because I wouldn't allow him to eat some Lucky Charms cereal, which I'd ordered with the grocery shopping. After reading a warning on the packet saying that they could cause an adverse reaction to children's behaviour, I decided it wasn't a great idea, to give them to my already hyper kids.

Aiden gets upset and inconsolable over things like, his team (arsenal) losing or not being the best at something. Aiden has to be the winner. he's a very sore loser. He's not great at the whole team playing thing, which is a shame as he plays for a local football team. He likes being in goal the best, and we figured out, during his assesment that it's because, he can focus on his achievement rather than the team's. They play a match every Sunday and Aiden often stands on the pitch sobbing, as they're often losing. We keep threatening to stop him from playing but he loves it.

Here he is with his football cards. He has hundreds of them! I'm not sure what all the crying about here. He probably couldn't find a player he was looking for.

Breakfast

This can be a quite time or a time of conflict and war. Kyle and Aiden don't get on. Sometimes they start arguing before they've even got out of bed. Sometimes, I don't think they've even opened their eyes and a fight has begun.

Three

I'm keeping this blog to try and make sense of it all.

Meet the kids. From left to right, there's Nancy (1 year), Aiden(6 years) and Kyle (10 years). There's THREE of them. I remember turning around one day when Nancy was a couple of weeks old and thinking, Oh my God, there's three of them, I'm officially outnumbered!!

Aiden has just been given a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A few years ago, they would have called it Aspergers, but this term is no longer used. He's highly intelligent but his social skills are not as they should be. He also has lots of other strange little quirks and habits such as a compulsion to put things in his mouth. Shoes, toys, mud, you name it he'll eat it. He once chewed through an electrical cable! Things like this, you get used of seeing and it becomes normal. 

It wasn't until his year one teacher raised some concerns, over this particular behaviour, that i thought "Oh, OK this isn't normal". She reported that he would often take his shoes off whilst they were sitting on the carpet and lick the bottoms of them. On another occasion, she caught him eating glue! I spoke to my doctor and he referred Aiden to the Child development centre at the Hillingdon Hospital. After many questions, observations, there and in school and a three hour interview with 300 questions asked, we got the diagnosis of ASD.

Kyle is currently being assessed at the same place but he was originally seen by a counselling service as his problems seemed to be more emotional. My main concern was his highly charged emotional and sometimes violent outbursts and "tantrums". His teacher reported that he was unable to concentrate in class and often makes inappropriate noises during lessons, which disrupt the class. He also has poor social skills and is often bullied at school. He says he has no friends. 

Nancy seems to be "normal". She makes sure she's not overlooked with her own little tricks of dancing, chit chat and if she's desperate, she'll just scream for as long and as hard as possible.

This is a rare quite moment at home, thank god for the telly :)