Being that its Autism Awareness month here is a small excerpt from my 20 page neurology paper and a short response about my sons Autism- When trying to understand my own son’s Autism, I have a great desire to understand what isnt working in his neurological “self”. If your child broke his or her arm, you might guess it is broken by their reaction to the pain, or the fact that their arm was swollen; but does the medical community just diagnose a broken arm by the behaviors of the child? No! Doctors investigate further, they do an x-ray, or they do explorative surgery to pin point not only the location of the break, but the severity. My son’s diagnosis process and therapy plans are based only on his observed behaviors. Here is a bit of his journey with autism... A few years back, (well, eight years ago this past November to be exact) my world was altered by a little baby boy named Isaiah. He was born on a cold, crisp and somewhat stoic November 11. The irony was that not that long after he was born, the whole hospital observed a moment of silence in honor of our veterans. Little did we know that we were about to enter our own battle for our son. Isaiah was born just 13 months after my first daughter; so this was not my first child delivery experience. Everything from my previous experience with my oldest child was still fresh in my memory; but this was to be nothing like my first experience. His heart was beating and he was alive, but no one appeared home - it was like he was stuck inside. I clammed up in fear because not long after I held him in my arms I realized something was not right. At this time, my husband was still optimistic, but I just knew this wasnt a good neurological sign. He was given medication to “wake up” as the nurses put it, but I knew he wasnt sleepy. He wasnt responding to my voice, to feeding, and certain touches where (already as an infant) beginning to cause him to scream. He spent some extra time in the hospital, but the consensus was that he was healthy; and so even though there “could” be something neurological amiss, Isaiah was discharged and were told things would be figured out in time. Life continued and throughout Isaiahs first year, we noticed unusual behaviors and atypical neurological development. The poor eye contact (or lack there of) was evident from day one. He often fixated his gaze on things that moved, like celling fans, his swing and other mobiles. I remember feeling jealous of a ceiling fan at a hardware store. Could he not fix his gaze on me? We soon confirmed he was not blind. We also noticed that he often did not respond to his name. Sometimes he would notice, but in other instances, I could look straight at him say his name and not get a response. This was an incredibly frightening experience which we referred to as the “on and off switch.” I was terrified Isaiah wouldnt switch back on. If Isaiahs switch was programed to “on,” he was more verbal, his eyes sparkled, he responded to his name being called and could be made to laugh. However, when the switch was “off,” the world was shut out and he often fixated or stimmed on the same activity - like stacking and sorting. We also knew Isaiah could not be deaf because he would overreact to certain sounds, and place my hands over top of his ears. The sound of a construction site would almost certainly make him upset, and as a toddler was often found in the check-out isle of a grocery store laying flat on the ground and screaming. I realize now that it was the sound of the ticking and all the commotion of people that was overloading his sensory filter. (Sounds like a classic feature of Kanner’s definition in the impairment of the Sensory Motor Function.) This was a very odd behavior for us to process at the time as he was usually a pleasant child. My husband and I knew there was something neurologically amiss, and were often advocating for our Doctors to help us figure things out even at the time of his infancy. Ironically, I am now the one being asked by my Dr. to explain Isaiah’s autistic features. When Isaiah was around 16 months, we went to a book store and I picked up a random book called, “Is My Kid Autistic?”. Time stood still as I read the check list, and in that moment I had no doubt that this was what we were facing. I passed the book to my husband and watched his head drop and we just looked a few moments at each other with our eyes welling up with tears. Now this sounds like a sad story, but what I really want to focus on in this research paper is how far we have come from that moment. It was a day of grieving normalcy, but eight years later I can tell you my son is one of the brightest people I know. In fact, he is incredibly talented in Math and his grade three teacher has never seen a child solve advanced logic puzzles so quickly or with such ease. However, he is very misunderstood by a large portion of society due to the many misconceptions and stereotypes about autism. Since the age of 23 months, Isaiah has been receiving intensive therapy. Isaiah benefits from specialized services, which is an in-home program derived from behavioral analysis (observed behaviors) that includes a team of four therapists and one aide. Isaiah has both social and sensory impairments like those of Kanner’s classic definition of autism, but he also has his own variations that we called the “on and off switch”. Could it be that sometimes he was autistic and other times he was not? No, I don’t think so. Strategies can help Isaiah exit in and out of his social and sensory world, but why his sensory filter gets overloaded in the first place and why he has a hard time understanding his social world, still remains the neurological mystery. I’ve never been fully satisfied with just treating Isaiahs autism through an applied behavioral approach. Hopefully, with advances in technology and further research, we can find out why children like Isaiah have these neurological conditions.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 00:11:52 +0000
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