From He Likes It To Dental X-Ray Success: A Hodgepodge of Updates
I would love to tell you that this was going to be an orderly and comprehensive post. Alas, I spent far too long trying to make some sort of headway in producing a more cohesive blog appearance, and therefore…
We’re just going to do a Jackson Pollock style splattering of updates and hope at least one of these happier moments colors your day with a happier thought or moment from our family. Our son has never really been enthusiastic about gifts or toys in general. It’s a rare day when he likes one. But this year, I had a better than Grinchy idea than just buying him more clothes because he’s growing (which often bore him unless it’s a special interest themed item) after observing him fixating on something from the sensory room at school. So I bought him some pinwheel building pieces, and he loved them! He grabbed them from the midst of his gifts as if nothing else existed and immediately sat down to play with them. He then independently grabbed his speech device and said “I like that.”
Now he does not like to participate in social communication. He’s very happy to tell you what he wants and needs. He’s getting better about saying “hi” to someone without me telling him to, both verbally, and via his speech device (AAC). He’s had more emerging verbal language lately, and he sometimes finds it easier to say “hi” than use his device. But he’s still not so fond of telling me how he feels about things, so it was a real treat to see his reaction and that he was so happy he actually chose to communicate about it. Because his motor planning and fine motor skills are both impaired, he couldn’t build anything with them at first, but was just sorting them by color. But we’ve been working on it in habilitation therapy by chaining pieces, and now he’s able to put together one layer or row all the way.
Probably by far though, the most meaningful and emotional success for me this past month was that we were able to get some dental x-rays for him without sedation for the first time ever several days ago. We have for a while been working on him tolerating a dental clip in his mouth during habilitation therapy in the home. This is an ongoing desensitization progression. His current dentist is super awesome about letting us come in every three months to practice in office, and they were able to get done many cleaning steps as well. Though they couldn’t get the roots because he didn’t want to bite down all the way on their x-ray clip, it’s just a matter of time. This is huge for him, because with this type of progress, soon he won’t need anesthesia anymore to get a complete set of dental x-rays and that is a gift that will go with him for the rest of his life.
He’s also managed to complete his first 70 piece puzzle independently in habilitation. Now, when he gets to 100 pieces we will be mastering this out as a therapy target. This is a progression, where we started years ago with him completing two piece puzzles and then moving to puzzle sizes that gradually increased the number of pieces. Often puzzles with 16, 24, 36, 48, and 60 pieces can be more easily obtained because these are produced for Alzheimer’s patients. I found it a bit more challenging to get puzzles sized in between 60 and 100 for the chaining progression, but I was able to do it.
I also want to thank my good friend Nancy for her lovely visit this past weekend. And thank you for saying I look way better in person than my photos, seriously, you are a sweetheart for saying that <3
And even though this isn’t her pictured above, I am going to end with a picture of myself, my mom, and our daughter Hannah from Christmas day. As this represents a photo of three generations of Autistic women, I would like to take this opportunity to share a news article from a few days ago that affirms that there is no link between Tylenol use and Autism. Tylenol was invented after my mom was born, so my grandmother didn’t take it during her pregnancy, my mom didn’t take it during her pregnancies, and I didn’t take it during my pregnancy with Hannah. You can click on the title below for a link.
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