The Call of the IEP, The Grapes of Aspergers, Crime and Punishment and Other Great Classic Stories of Parenting...

Now if that title doesn't suggest a future best-seller, I don't know what does!

Yesterday the hubby and I went in to help author our family's second IEP. In case you're wondering, IEPs are not like potato chips. You CAN have just one... We just have this little tendency to defy the odds and all sense of logic - but I digress.

It goes without saying that if you have a child with Down syndrome, you will likely be called upon to peruse the pages of an IEP on a yearly basis. If you have a child with Down syndrome and another child with Aspergers, you will find yourself with stacks of papers amassing in the strangest of places, detailing every possible way the little fruits of your loins are NOT like the other children. Good times!

Admittedly I went into yesterday's meeting with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. You see, last year I requested testing for Iraq in the hopes of getting an IEP set up. Unfortunately not only had her teacher never heard of Aspergers, but the school psychologist and the specialist who performed the testing didn't think Iraq seemed "autistic." Why do we keep coming back to the old "but she makes eye contact" thing? They also decided that since she tested within the "average" range on all the academic scales, that it was not necessary for them to provide any extra help. Needless to say, I was frustrated!

We were thrilled when we learned of the opportunity to switch Iraq to the same elementary school that The Skink goes to, and even more pleased to learn Iraq's 2nd grade teacher has experience with children in the autism spectrum... and yes, she's heard of Aspergers... and she even recognizes the "Aspie" things that Iraq does and understands why she does them AND she employs techniques to keep Iraq on track! Thank goodness. Yet going into the IEP meeting, I was ready once again to be told that Iraq had tested within the "average" range academically, and be asked the question, "Well, what do you want us to do?"

Much to my relief and consternation, that is not what happened. Yes - Iraq did test within the average range academically, but they also recognized that Iraq has some unique "qualities" that require more specialized attention and guidance. Wow! School officials that understand that a kid can have an IQ within the normal-to-high range AND have special needs! Oh my! These people may have not only stepped OUT of their box, but re-assigned their box as a place to put out-dated material! Call Big Brother and warn him that someone is thinking!

I can't tell you how happy we were with the meeting! (Yes - it's top secret information!) No... Let me rephrase that. I mean I can't find adequate words to express the joy I feel over being understood and listened to, and from having Iraq be understood (at least to the degree that the school understood that Iraq needs someone to invest lots of time trying to understand Iraq and that Iraq is a person who may not ever be fully understood but that the very act of trying to understand Iraq will be beneficial to Iraq's understanding of the world and to her academic life... understand?).

Is it strange that I am happy about getting an IEP for my child?

Anyway, we are happy.

It also came up that Iraq's kleptomania (impulsive stealing) is still alive and well despite efforts from both home and school to exterminate that nasty little issue. We noticed that the school has a Sheriff's Office liaison - a police officer who spends a fair amount of time at the school. The next time Iraq steals something (which will likely be today) she will be arrested.

Yes. You read that right. Arrested.

Call it tough love, call it imposing permanent psychological trauma on our child, but because we have exhausted every other possible deterrent we could think of, we are going to try it. Think about it. The kid steals regularly at age 7. This does not bode well for her future... or ours as her bank account, bail bond providers parents.

On a completely separate subject (just because I like tangents and I'm dragging you along for the ride for my own personal entertainment) I am reading Thinking In Pictures by Temple Grandin. If you have a kiddo in the autism spectrum, read this book! If you ARE in the autism spectrum, read this book! Even if you are neuro-typical and don't know anyone at all in the autism spectrum, read this book! It is amazingly insightful and a very interesting read!

* I am not receiving compensation of any form for the promotion of this book. If you are the author, publisher or a reseller of this book and wish to compensate me for this glowing review, please contact me as soon as possible and I'll let you know where to send the check.

I have mentioned in prior blog posts that I myself have Aspergers. Reading Grandin's book has proved amazingly enlightening for me. I never realized neuro-typicals were so weird! (Just a little Aspie-humor thrown in there). The title for starters - well... I never realized that people could think without pictures. Yes - every last word in my vocabulary conjures an instant visual association. Suddenly a lot of puzzle pieces from my past are coming together, like why it took me longer than other kids to learn to read a clock with hands, count money, and why to this day I still don't spell well. Prior to having a visual concept of what "yesterday" is (I now visualize 3 days from a calendar appropriately labeled "yesterday," "today" and "tomorrow" in that order) it was nearly impossible for me to understand the concept of the word.

Well, I think there might be some legal copy write issues with my rewriting Grandin's book here in my blog just to share my excitement with you over it, so I'll stop there and just reiterate my opinion that you should read this book! And they even have it for Kindle (which is how I have the opportunity to read it... it's not like I would ever have the opportunity to venture into the grown-up section of an actual book store... at least not without 2 kids griping incessantly over being dragged into the "boring" section!).

So I'll leave you with that. And because I usually put tons of photographs in my blog which makes me feel like I'm depriving my cherished readers of visual stimuli in this particular post, I will now overload your senses in one fell swoop with this:

Feel better?
What do you mean "headache?" Oh... sorry.

Enjoy this blog? Let me know by voting on TopMommyBlogs! 

Follow the link and scroll down until you find Adasperdown Town.

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Book Review, and Another Giveaway!

Review:

1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls

Everything You Need to Know About Diagnosis, Doctors, Schools, Taxes, Vacations, Babysitters, Treatment, Food, and More

By Tony Lyons

 

Congratulations! If you don’t become over-stimulated by this book’s subtitle, you probably aren’t in the autism spectrum :o) But if your kid is...

Click here to see the book's official web site!

This new book is crammed full of pertinent and useful information for parents of children in the autism spectrum. If you happen to have a boy and not a girl, you’ll be very happy to know Tony Lyons didn’t forget about you - there is also a “1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Boys; Everything You Need to Know About...” [all that stuff mentioned above] Yay!

 

So – you have a kid in the autism spectrum. Just flippin’ great, huh? And now your plethora of doctors, teachers and therapist are telling you to read up on the condition so you will be better prepared to handle your child’s scheduling needs, sensitivities, angry outbursts, melt-downs in WalMart, freaking out on Christmas morning, anxiety over school, lack of social skills, propensity to forget to wipe, limited tastes in food, random medications, gluten-free diet, strange or destructive behavior, terror over the sound made by the vacuum…

Yeah – you don’t have enough on your plate, and now your well-meaning doctor makes a recommendation for a 1,062 page compilation of medical studies for you to memorize so that if you’re lucky you just might remember what to do when little Suzie hides in a very inaccessible part of the giant, plastic tube-maze at a McDonald’s playland while the employees are yelling at you to “get her out” because the over-stimulation and noise made her lose her recently-eaten lunch somewhere in the ball-pit. Not feeling it…

For those of us who live in the real world – “1,001 Tips” is for us!

The tips are exactly that – short, precise thoughts about handling all sorts of situations. No long-winded, graduate-level psychology lectures. Just direct, to the point, points. For instance:

“5. A child with autism will often experience sensory overload; they will cover their ears to sounds which overwhelm them, cover their eyes or look away from painful visual impressions, and may self-limit their diet or attempt to taste non-food items to avoid or satiate acute tastes.”

(Page 5, 1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls / Lyons)

 Christmas... make it stop! (Iraq at 18 months)

Lyons also uses poignant quotes from other autism authorities like:

“133. When I was a child, loud sounds like the school bell hurt my ears like a dentist drill hitting a nerve. Children with autism need to be protected from sounds that hurt their ears. The sounds that will cause the most problems are school bells, PA systems, buzzers

on the scoreboard in the gym, and the sound of chairs scraping on the floor.

—Temple Grandin, PhD, author of Thinking in Pictures and

The Way I See It, www.autism.com/ind_teaching_tips.asp”

(Page 56, 1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls / Lyons)

The great thing about these tips is that I can reference relative subject matter right when I need it, keeping my other hand free to continue its death-grip on the wrist of my wailing, flailing child who has just been caught red-handed writing on the walls... again.

For Example:

Table of Contents:

…

Chapter 64: Responding to Undesirable Behavior 303

…

Fast forward to page 303… skim… skim… Ah!:

697.  Don’t threaten a punishment you’re not prepared to enforce. If you’re not really going to cancel the birthday party, don’t say you will. Don’t count to three, or ten—your child will learn that she always has that long, and you didn’t mean it the first time. If you teach a two-year-old, gently, but firmly, that you mean what you say, you don’t have to keep teaching it—at sixteen, she will still know that you meant it the first time. Too often parents allow their children to push them around because they want to be liked, but your child will neither like nor respect you. Children crave boundaries.

(Page 304, 1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls / Lyons)

Result:

“Iraq, if you write on the walls again, I will never let you use another pencil or pen for as long as you live!”

No, not really. But I WILL put her markers in “time out” for the rest of the week. And NO… even though I have upheld a “no means no” rule from the beginning, Iraq STILL tests that theory every single day. Every kid is different.

1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls covers everything from getting through daily home life to surviving the IEP process. It is so solidly based in reality, in fact, all I had to do was read, “Chapter 6: Individualized Education Program: Your Child’s Weapons 31” in the table of contents and my eyes glazed right over - just like in an actual IEP meeting!

That’s not to say that every nugget of wisdom is helpful to every person, for instance:

698. Use positive discipline methods that work. Many parents use time-outs, yell, or take away privileges as their top three discipline options. If those methods aren’t working for you, it can be frustrating, and can lead to more arguments if you’re not feeling successful.

—Toni Schutta, M.A., L.P., Parent Coach, Author, and

Founder of www.getparentinghelpnow.com

(Page 304, 1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls / Lyons)

Ok – so perhaps this isn’t as obvious to everybody as it is to me, but with 3 very different kids, each with their own special diagnosis, to me this sounds just a little like, “If the engine falls out of your car, don’t get in it every morning and try to drive it to work. Instead, try having a new engine installed.” Really? So that’s why I’ve been late to work every day for the past 5 weeks! Wish I’d thought of that sooner. 

I also wouldn't have minded seeing a long, creative lists of discipline methods to try instead of simply a suggestion not to try the same thing over and over. I always try to stay one step ahead of Iraq, but I've exhausted dozens of options now and would love to have a few more to fall back on. Then again... that subject matter might make for a great sequel by itself.

Other information the book offers will sound VERY familiar to parents. For me, lots of the points rang true, like:

• Does not understand typical social boundaries or behavior in social situations

 

• Extreme tantrums—uncontrollable (sometimes since day one - and still happening 7 years later)

 

• Inappropriate playing with toys or prefers objects that are not toys

 

• Difficulty with transitions (could be location or activity transitions)

 

Oh yes, and the list goes on!

All in all, I would say this is a must-have book for any parent wading through the quagmire of the autism or autism spectrum world! As I read through it I found myself thinking, "Oh thank goodness! I'm not the only one whose kid does that!"

And now for that giveaway! One randomly selected commenter on this blog post will receive their very own copy of 

1,001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls

Everything You Need to Know About Diagnosis, Doctors, Schools, Taxes, Vacations, Babysitters, Treatment, Food, and More

By Tony Lyons

Leave a comment - let me know what your biggest autism-related challenge has been this month. Be sure to leave an email address (you can format it like: "bulldogma[at]emailserver[dot]com" to avoid spammers).
I'll announce the winner on Wednesday, November 24th in the evening in a new blog entry, so be sure to check back then!

Of course, you'll have to add your own illustrations. Mine don't come with the original :o)

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On A Side Note

If you are a return visitor to my blog, you may have noticed a shiny new banner just under the one for my book The Littlest Sister. I honestly didn't feel like going through all the rigmarole with a publisher again  - why take months on end when you can publish your own book in under an hour??

 
This one is just for fun! It's comprised of a silly poem and some artwork. As crazy as it sounds, the poem came to me in a dream. All I had to do is hop out of bed and type it. Of course I did that back in 2007 and it's been sitting on my computer ever since. I did the illustrations in 2008... ahhh yes... fine wine takes time... and a little procrastination. I haven't received my first edition in the mail yet, so I can only hope the layout is correct. It seems to be, but you never know for sure until it's in your hand!

Today was teacher appreciation day, so Iraq liberated some of our neighbor's flowers to give to her teacher.

I don't think the neighbor will notice. Her Wisteria is running rampant!

At least Iraq couldn't reach the neighbors roses.

Although the trellis looks like it just might be fun to climb :)  I'm afraid our roses and trellis aren't it as good shape, but as a renaissance girl, I rather like the cracked & peeling paint look.

I'm pretty sure that's lead paint...

I don't like it when the kids at the bus stop start playing rough. Eventually they end up in the road, so this was my solution. I draw a new one after every rain, and all the kids seem to really enjoy it! Even the boys play... of course they turn it into a timed event...

And finally, our garden is still growing, despite my brownish/black thumb. We just might get edible tomatoes yet! Iraq is still taking good care of her garden and enjoying the experience! Broadway shows little interest, though he keeps asking when the strawberries will be ready.

And peas...

So that's it for now. I gotta go get The Skink. I put her down for a nap an hour ago, and I can still hear her playing in her crib.

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