All About Autism

[Couragemom]

pinkamoon:

fluttershy:

Hi Couragemom,


What are the therapies & programs that you enrolled your son at? and how many hours per week? previously my son attended ST & OT once a week but he cried even before the session begin until it ends. I found them to be ineffective at all (we tried 3 months). From my point of view, I think that the behaviours & sensory overload need to be addressed first before even trying on ST, OT or both. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Every child is unique and different. Therapies that work for one may not work so well for another. However, I think we still have to keep on trying.

I was in denial for the longest period of time. At 2, the pd suspected him of autism. My sister told me he was not having eye contact. I was in denial. I brushed things aside, saying he was fine. Deep down in my heart, I was scared. Finally, at 3.5 years old, I enrolled him in a church nursery class and within 1 week, the school wanted us to withdraw him. That began our journey to KKH n CDU.

However, I took control of his life from there. The doctor was saying 'that's it', nothing except OT, ST, early intervention can help. I remembered he told me that there was nothing else I could do. NOTHING. :mad:

For my son, I sent him for OT and ended up paying each session but with myself playing with my child. The reason being, my therapist felt that I could reach out to my child more than he could. After a while, I felt silly paying to play with my child and ended up changing to another OT. My review of the new OT was that the sessions were task oriented. There was minimal communication, only instructions to follow, 1 step, 2 steps etc.
After about half a year, I decided to pull him out of the sessions.

As a mother, I did not feel that OT is very useful for my child. That being said, it does not mean OT sessions are not useful for all children. Every child is different. The basic principle of OT, I feel, is play. Playing should be fun, engaging and child centred. Very often, OT sessions became instructional. How can we expect our children to enjoy playing when what was expected of them was unenjoyable. We should go into their world instead, enjoy what they enjoy and laugh over what makes them happy. When I told my therapist what I intended to do, he was unconvinced. When I shared my dietary intervention with him, he too was not very supportive and cited examples of dietary interventions not working on other children.

My point is, keep trying, parents. Do not give up! Do what you feel can help your child. Spend more time playing with their own child. There can never be just 1 thing that works miracle for our children. It will have to come from all areas. Dietary intervention helps my child to sleep and be more aware of his surroundings. I lost my child in shopping centres because he was not able to stop moving. He was attracted to many things. We had to put him in push carts and 'fed' him with Ipad to make sure we can do grocery shopping. Now he shops with me, helps me take my basket (because I told him to), but still have a tendency to look at things he likes but he comes back, shouts for mummy and approaches other strangers for help when he cannot find me (I always hide behind columns to see how he reacts).

Last year at 6, he was still not able to talk to his sister. Now they talk (babyish talk), play and laugh together. Even my siblings can see his changes over the past years. So for me, playing and getting interested in his games (scripting, running basically enjoying his games), diet, supplements and brain training have helped him.

Our children's body is loaded with toxics, mercury, arsenic, lead. It takes a long time to heal their body. It takes years. I started my son on dietary intervention at 4 and at 7 this year, he is still on special diet. I know he hates it as he smells my food nowadays and says 'It's yummy' and looks at me with his innocent eyes and asks if he can eat them.

He is still on the journey. I know he will be there one day.

Hi pinkamoon,

I totally agree with you! Whenever I feel down, I always tell myself 'the only way to look is forward!' I will keep on trying for both my NT girl and my special boy as long as I am able!

[Couragemom]

Hi parents,


I have just started toilet training my son last week and so far to now he seem to get the idea that he needs to urinate and/or pass motion in the potty as long as I time it correctly or when he is off his diapers. My next step is to get him to communicate his wish to pee/shit to me then after that, shift the use of potty to normal toilet bowl then finally tell teacher to get him to use the school toilet bowl. I am now worried that he cannot make the transition to the school environment.

It has been 3 months since he enters the new pre-school and he still rejects the school snack (I don’t give him home snack anymore), so I am worried he cannot do his ‘business’ in school. Any advice or past experiences to share with me?

[Double E]

Couragemom:

Hi parents,


I have just started toilet training my son last week and so far to now he seem to get the idea that he needs to urinate and/or pass motion in the potty as long as I time it correctly or when he is off his diapers. My next step is to get him to communicate his wish to pee/shit to me then after that, shift the use of potty to normal toilet bowl then finally tell teacher to get him to use the school toilet bowl. I am now worried that he cannot make the transition to the school environment.

It has been 3 months since he enters the new pre-school and he still rejects the school snack (I don't give him home snack anymore), so I am worried he cannot do his 'business' in school. Any advice or past experiences to share with me?

Is he on diaper in school? u also have to check when is the teacher ready to guide him.

[Double E]

Haven’t been here for a while.


My boy in K1 had his first spelling test in school last week. He had to spell 5 sets of 3 letter words. And luckily for me, he has no prob with spelling, only practice 2x with him. But I guess, I expected too much cos when the result came, he scored 4/5, he missed out a letter in the last word. I know I should be happy about his achievement, but hiazz, I am actually upset cos I think he can score 5/5. This incident made me realise I am a KS mother after all. Like scoring B is not enough, must push the kid to score A*. I am quite upset and angry with myself to have such thoughts.

Anyway, sorry for ranting here. Hope all mummies here have been doing well with your kiddos.

[Couragemom]

Double E:

Couragemom:

Hi parents,


I have just started toilet training my son last week and so far to now he seem to get the idea that he needs to urinate and/or pass motion in the potty as long as I time it correctly or when he is off his diapers. My next step is to get him to communicate his wish to pee/shit to me then after that, shift the use of potty to normal toilet bowl then finally tell teacher to get him to use the school toilet bowl. I am now worried that he cannot make the transition to the school environment.

It has been 3 months since he enters the new pre-school and he still rejects the school snack (I don't give him home snack anymore), so I am worried he cannot do his 'business' in school. Any advice or past experiences to share with me?

Is he on diaper in school? u also have to check when is the teacher ready to guide him.

Hi Double E,

Yes, he is on pull-up pants in school. In his N1 class, only 3 (including my son) out of 12 students are on diapers still, the rest all toilet-trained!!! The teachers bring the kids to the toilet every hour. Before i start to toilet-train him last week, the school teachers told me my son shows no resistance towards going toilet but he will just go and make the shhhhhhshhhh sound and 'pretend' to urinate, that is all. Now that it is the real deal, not sure how he will react!

How about your son?

[sharonkhoo]

Double E:

Haven't been here for a while.


My boy in K1 had his first spelling test in school last week. He had to spell 5 sets of 3 letter words. And luckily for me, he has no prob with spelling, only practice 2x with him. But I guess, I expected too much cos when the result came, he scored 4/5, he missed out a letter in the last word. I know I should be happy about his achievement, but hiazz, I am actually upset cos I think he can score 5/5. This incident made me realise I am a KS mother after all. Like scoring B is not enough, must push the kid to score A*. I am quite upset and angry with myself to have such thoughts.

Anyway, sorry for ranting here. Hope all mummies here have been doing well with your kiddos.

Relax! Everyone makes mistakes. Did your kid mind? What I do when this happens to my kids is to say \"What a pity you didn't notice that! You could have got full marks!\" This kind of turns it back to them, and helps them realise that it's within their control, and hopefully they will want to improve.

[pinkamoon]

Hi Couragemum,

Celebrate his successes! If he poops or urinates in toilet bowl, cheer and shout hooray! (I mean really show him how happy you are) I even took a video of how he did it and played it for him to see. Our children need visuals. Let him flush the toilet and have a sense of accomplishment when he does well.

Double E, I am sure your son can do better! For me, my son had problems with not being perfect. He wanted perfect results. He cannot accept failures. I had to train him to accept failures and be happy with 0. I mean he can do his spelling, addition, subtraction etc.
The real challenges come when he has to read and understand comprehension passages and problem sums. I have to tell him 0 is such a nice number, we cannot live without 0 and make funny remarks like if there is no 0, numbers go like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1 again to make him laugh. He can cry for a while when he cannot get his answers correct.

Slmkhoo, I salute your efforts in helping your child! We shall learn from you and keep on moving!

[Blokus]

Double E:

Haven't been here for a while.


My boy in K1 had his first spelling test in school last week. He had to spell 5 sets of 3 letter words. And luckily for me, he has no prob with spelling, only practice 2x with him. But I guess, I expected too much cos when the result came, he scored 4/5, he missed out a letter in the last word. I know I should be happy about his achievement, but hiazz, I am actually upset cos I think he can score 5/5. This incident made me realise I am a KS mother after all. Like scoring B is not enough, must push the kid to score A*. I am quite upset and angry with myself to have such thoughts.

Anyway, sorry for ranting here. Hope all mummies here have been doing well with your kiddos.

Hugs! I think you behaved that way because you know he's capable of full marks. If he's at 3/5 level and he scored 4/5 you would have cheered to the moon and back. Don't worry, there's plenty more test coming up to prove himself. Mistakes are great because it helps the kid pay more attention next time. Use the chance to teach him to check his work.
Always use failures as a teaching opportunity for him & yourself. Don't despair!

[Double E]

Thanks all for the encouragement.


I feel that he hasn’t grasp the idea of having to do his best and that he should aim for 5/5. So I told him that he needs to get 5 correct, all ticks then teacher will give him 3 stars. I told him because he has one mistake, now only has 2 stars. So I asked him if he wants 3 or 2 stars, he said 3. I m not sure if I have used the correct method to motivate him, but I hope he understands and will not treat failure lightly or knows that he needs to improve

[BB3]

fluttershy:

Hi Couragemom,


What are the therapies & programs that you enrolled your son at? and how many hours per week? previously my son attended ST & OT once a week but he cried even before the session begin until it ends. I found them to be ineffective at all (we tried 3 months). From my point of view, I think that the behaviours & sensory overload need to be addressed first before even trying on ST, OT or both. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Hi Fluttershy

From my own experience ST & OT were not useful until my son was able to focus on instructions from the therapists. We focused on ABA in the initial years and only re-tried ST & OT after he was compliant and able to follow the therapists instructions. I have also learnt that you need to keep re-assessing every now and then to determine if your child is continuing to benefit from a specific therapy or if its time to move on to another; there is so much to be done and you need to choose your \"battles\".

Its a long road but take heart, my child has progressed so much but there is so much to be done as well. From not being able to speak at 3 yrs of age, he can now speak in full sentences; our next challenge is to get him to initiate a conversation.