Super Autism Help Book #1

As promised, I am writing a post about the book I sent to Dayton's school I mentioned in my last blog post.  You know the one where I literally copied and pasted the email I had sent to Dayton's school?  Yeah, that one.

Autism help.  We're all looking for it.  When our kids are first diagnosed with ASD, we almost go through the 5 stages of grief for the future we had envisioned for our child.  We end up looking for "the cure."  Which is why Jenny McCarthy really gets under my skin when she claims to have "cured" her son of autism...  Want to know the cure for autism?  Unconditional Love And Acceptance!!!

I should back up a little here...  Totally unrelated to autism, but you'll see how it ties in eventually...

During our Christmas holidays, we packed up the family and went to Regina to visit our daughter Charlie-Anne along with Glen's cousin and wife.  While visiting, Glen's cousin shows me what he bought for his wife for Christmas...  A beautiful Kindle!  I had never seen one before in my life, but OH MY GOD!!!  Once he showed me what it could do, I was hooked.  For those of you who love to read, you need to get one of these babies!!!  They're amazing!  It downloads books in less then 60 seconds, and the price of e-books is cheaper than buying the physical book itself, and you don't need your book shelves anymore, saving you a ton of space.  It fits in my purse and I dig it out during Dayton's social skills group class for which I have to wait in the lobby for him, bored out of my mind.  The most mind blowing thing of all...  I can carry about 35,000 books in my purse by having this Kindle.  AWESOME!!!  Naturally I'm downloading tons of books on autism, and as I read them I will tell you my favorite ones, ones that I think are helpful and definitely need to be read.  The funny thing is, and my friends will attest to this, I am the most non-techie woman on the face of this planet, but I can use this Kindle.  It's super user friendly even for people like me.  I LOVE IT!!!

OK, back on topic here...  We were talking about Autism help...  Autistic children develop and bloom if their spirits, talents and self-esteem are not destroyed by bullies, prejudice, doggie-training, and being forced to be normal.  


In order to help our children fit in more comfortably and see gains in their growth is to first of all understand our kids.  How do we do this???

Two lovely ladies, both named Leslie have come together to write a spectacular book called:  Making sense of Children's Thinking and Behavior.  Follow the link below to find out more about the book.  You can download it on your Kindle or order it from www.amazon.com.  I had it downloaded to my Kindle, and found it so amazing, I ended up buying a hard copy of the book to pass on to Dayton's school after our triage meeting which if you read my last post, was very disappointing and discouraging.  It's like I'm dealing with idiots at his school.

OK, so the one Leslie is a mother of a son with NLD (nonverbal learning disorder) who got together with her son's Occupational Therapist (the other Leslie) and wrote this book for kids with NLD, Asperger's, HFA (high functioning autism), PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified), and other neurological differences.

The authors created a tool called STAT (Systematic Tool for Analyzing Thinking), which they've diagrammed for us in the book.  The book is 180 pages long, it took my about a day to read it.  The STAT offers a step by step method for understanding a child's behavior by revealing the thought processes behind it.  Only by understanding the thought behind the behavior can you correct your child and teach them to as my dad says "change their mind."

People are forgetful that our kids need to be taught the simplest of things, things that other children pick up on by instinct.  This does not mean that our children are stupid, far from it!!!  I had given up on my flash drive thinking it was broken and was about to throw it out when Dayton asked me if he could look at it.  He fixed the darn thing in 5 minutes.  My son is far from being stupid.  His brain is wired differently, therefore he thinks about things "outside" the box, something we're told to try to do ourselves!  He saved a flash drive full of curriculum work that I thought was lost to me forever!

Back to the book and some autism help...  I just can't keep it together this morning...  I think more coffee is in order, definitely!!!  Starbucks, I'm on my way...

Anyway, the book explains how our kids have (and I quote) "an atypical view of the world, unique to their particular disability, which can make their behavior confusing and, at times, challenging.  Often, the child's unfairly punished."  It also addresses the 12 common deficit areas and gives examples with the STAT on every single one of these areas, in some cases 2 examples.  And believe me, I need examples in order to learn.

This book was absolutely AMAZING!  Loved it!!!  If you have a child on the spectrum, have a friend with a child on the spectrum, are a teacher or a para educator, this book is definitely a MUST READ.  I'm ordering a couple more from Amazon today to hand out to my friends and family, yes, it's that good.  It's just unfortunate I can't find anymore in the city.  If someone finds one in the city, let me know before noon!!!



Consider yourselves hugged!

Lou


PS.  If you want more info on what a kindle is....


Seriously AWESOME!