The miracles of early intervention of mild autism

[nyxpooka]

How old is she? My son is 4 and its so nice to see some hope for him in your child...

[ostermomof4]

@nyxpooka She will be 6 in a couple of weeks.

[blcolonn]

My son just got diagnosed recently of mild autism. Please if you could tell me the help you gave your beautiful daughter. My son is 2 1/2. I really appreciate any advice. He has been in speech therapy for 6 months and has picked up on a lot of speech just needs help with behaviors and such, Thanks again!!!!

[blcolonn]

My son just got diagnosed recently of mild autism. Please if you could tell me the help you gave your beautiful daughter. My son is 2 1/2. I really appreciate any advice. He has been in speech therapy for 6 months and has picked up on a lot of speech just needs help with behaviors and such, Thanks again!!!!

[ostermomof4]

@blcolonn We were lucky that our pediatrician started the process for us. My daughter started the Early On Program, which included a home visit once a week. This was to help her interact. Before this, she kept to herself and spent a lot of time stacking blocks and lining the blocks up. It took some time before she warmed up to our house guest. About 6 months into it, we started one day a week visits to the learning center (where she will later go to preschool), but continued the home

[ostermomof4]

@ostermomof4 visits. The home visits were extremely helpful because we were able to learn techniques to work with our daughter. She did not talk before the visits. Then, one day she was playing with her grandpa and he looked to the sky and said, "an airplane." After that, she opened right up and started talking. She was so excited about the airplane...it became her next obsession. Most importantly, she was talking!! Just before her 3rd birthday, she started preschool at our learning center.

[ostermomof4]

@ostermomof4 This preschool was a small classroom with only 5 other children who have the same needs. We have IEP meetings in the Fall and Spring to discuss her progress and to set goals. She is into her 3rd year there. She receives speech therapy and occupational therapy for motor skills. She tends to cross her eyes and stiffen up when she gets excited. She is a visual learning and she learns by pictures. Her speech therapist makes pictures for her when she struggles with something.

[ostermomof4]

@ostermomof4 For example, she has days where she doesn't want to go to school, but now we have a picture chart that shows the days of the week. During the week, there is a picture of a school bus showing her that she has school. Her speech therapist also made her a book about potty training that had all her favorite cartoon characters, as well as pictures of herself...she wasn't potty trained until just after she turned 5...so don't worry if you are in the same situation.

[ostermomof4]

@ostermomof4 We are going onto our next phase, which is kindergarten at our local public school. This means a lot more students and a different teacher. But, I am reading, "Opening Doors, Opening Lives; by Jennifer Greening," which is helping me prepare for this.

We were also very lucky that our daughter has an older sister, and the two are only 2 years apart. This has helped with the socializing.

I really hope this helps, and if there are any other questions, please ask.



[ostermomof4]

@ostermomof4 For the behavioral, maybe you can ask the speech therapist about using pictures. My daughters teacher told me that when my daughter gets bossy in class, the teacher will hold up a sign, and my daughter knows to "chill out." If she's not ready to "chill out," she will step away from the situation until she cools down. I really think pictures work. We have been using them since the home visits started. That was one of the techniques that helped us, and still does.

[desirablehyna]

How old is she in the video?

[ostermomof4]

@desirablehyna

She is 5 years old. She has been receiving treatment since she was 18 months. She has come along so well. I am so proud of her.