Typical days lately, and a reply to “Sullenbunny”

The past couple days have been much the same with Liam. He has continued with the pajamas going on and off. He has continued to have his tantrums when his mind is set on doing something and we don’t allow it. Now his tantrum is not because he is acting like a spoiled brat, but because is mind gets set on what he wants to do, and any variation off that raises his anxiety. The increase in anxiety is shown in the form a tantrum. We have been doing our best to ignore his tantrums lately and it seems to be helping. They end much quicker and Liam will settle down more quickly. Sometimes he will follow us around and keep bugging us to let him out, usually to go to Kelly’s or our neighbor’s the Stasko’s. Ignoring him isn’t as easy, so we try and find ways to distract him. Sooner or later the tantrum is over. We will keep dealing with this each like we have. I can’t say if it will ever end, who knows. Hopefully with time, age, and continued therapy Liam’s tantrums will end.

Wednesday Jill and I attended our second meeting of the Autism Society of Greater Cleveland. I have started work with ASGC to try and help make this organization a bigger asset to the Cleveland area. Each meeting we’ve gone to has been excellent. We have met a lot of people that share the same concerns and questions as we do. Each meeting the ASGC tries to have a speaker. This meeting we were fortunate to hear Dr. Derrick Lonsdale speak. He truly offered a lot of insight into the biological aspect of Autism. I would highly recommend him to anyone. While at the meeting Jill and I ran into Jared. We got to know Jared through the More Than Words class we took through the county. Jared is the father of twin boys with Autism. His hands are definitely full. We exchanged information in hopes of getting together soon.

Thursday Liam had his Adaptive Aquatics class again. Liam had another excellent class. This week Miss Karen worked with Liam on his diving. As I’ve stated in the past, when Liam dives, it is more of a belly flop. It is kind of funny to see actually. Liam is making slow progress diving. There is quite a bit of technique that goes into diving. You can see with Liam that all the mechanics most people take for granted is really a struggle for Liam. We are in a new phase of swimming with Liam and he has a lot of work to do. We’ll see in a few months how progresses. Hopefully it will be as much as he has since early this year.

Friday Liam had his therapeutic horse back riding. He again had a great time riding the horse and doing the different exercises He had a new exercise to do today and it was called a 2 point stance. He had to stand on his feet while in the stirrups and balance himself. Jill said it was quite a challenge. Liam still has trouble holding the reins in his hands. He should be holding them in each hand like an ice cream cone, thumbs up. Liam has struggled with this since I went to one of his early lessons. It is almost like there is a mental block for him. So, we will continue to work with him on this. One thing Jill has noticed with the instructor is that she doesn’t really seem to understand why Liam and his riding buddy Kennedy are the way they are. Sometimes she just thinks the kids should just respond. Jill thinks it is a little more hectic in the morning because there are very few aids to help the instructor. Jill also said that outside today there is so many other things to distract Liam. She had to keep reminding him to pay attention to what he was doing. Jill thinks Liam has actually responded better riding while someone other than her is his aid. Hopefully some more aids can show up on a regular basis.

Now I have a response to an email I receive from “Sullenbunny”. I did not have a mail address to reply to, so here it is. Sullen, you had a question about Risperdal (click on the word for info)and its side effects. Risperdal was prescribed by a pediatric neurologist to help calm him down. We tried other medications in the past and the one common side effect was Liam would be drowsy, sleepy, and anxious to where he seemed worried all the time. We both hate drugging Liam as it is merely only a way to cover the symptoms, not treat them. The one thing it has provided is that it calms him down enough to a point that he is able to learn. We believe this has really helped. We have not found any documentation on side effects in children. Luckily, we have not seen any side effects in Liam. We hope for the same success with your son. The Risperdal has not stopped the tantrums for us, so Liam is also on Prozac now. That seems to have helped a little, but it is still a little early to tell if it has been effective enough to keep him on it. We really hope to eliminate the drugs one day. Let us know if you have anymore questions, and please leave an email address next time!