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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Autism Awareness Day 2


Autism Awareness Day 2 - Communication can be very difficult for children with Autism. For us this lack of verbal communication was one of the things that tipped us off that our boys had Autism. At 3 yrs old when Gatlin was diagnosed he was only saying "No" very rarely and Draiman at almost 18 mos had not attempted to say anything. We had plenty of "tantrums" but no real communication, that is until we (the parents) learned one very important lesson. That lesson was that behaviors are not merely behaviors but rather a form of communication. It's easy to assume that the child with Autism is merely acting out or being a brat but that is not always the case. Now I'm not saying that they don't misbehave because let's face it, everyone does, even adults. What I am saying is that when working with a child with Autism (in my opinion even neuro-typical children) you should always make sure that their behaviors are not in actuality a form of communication.

Once I began trying to decode Gatlin and Draiman's behaviors I started seeing that my kiddos had been trying to tell me all kinds of things the whole time but I just had not been "listening." I was failing to understand their messages. When Gatlin would smack himself in the head he wasn't trying to injure himself for no reason, he was trying to tell me that his head hurt. When the boys would scream and fight me when trying to get them dressed it wasn't because they were brats, it was because I was putting scratchy jeans on them that caused them sensory issues and irritated their skin. Draiman's random crying wasn't actually so random, he had noticed that I was wearing different clothes and putting shoes on which meant his Mommy was leaving him. Gatlin's screaming and crying because I turned on the blender wasn't just him being ridiculous, it was because the noise was so loud it hurt his ears.

Suddenly I realized that they had being trying to tell me so many things but I just didn't get it. At first I felt awful, like a bad Mom. How could I have missed this? Why didn't I see it before? Later I realized that I had just as much to learn as my boys did and that it was going to be a wonderful journey together. I was finally beginning to understand them and the "tantrums" were subsiding because we were finally getting the message.

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