Because the Monster is a child with Autism, we end up being in a number of research studies.
Some of these studies involve the Monster – they include new tests to see just how his Autism affects him, and tracking to see what he does and doesn’t pick up (and how) in an intellectual sense. Continue reading
This weekend was really the first ‘nice’ weekend of the year (if you’re into all that ‘go and play outside’ crap – I could deal with a few more weeks of cold-and-dry weather myself for my curling), so after spending Saturday with prepping to go to the birthday party, we decided yesterday mandated an out-of-house trip.
And we left it to the Monster to pick where we were going. Were we going to go to the Zoo, or go to the park? Continue reading
We took the Monster to a friend’s birthday party yesterday…
We have a number of friends who have children the same age as the Monster, and make sure to include our child along with their children’s friends, even if the Monster isn’t quite necessarily in a ‘friend’ mode. Continue reading
We’re sending the Monster to summer camp again this year.
Last year, his summer was divided between the camp at the JCC – trying to give him at least a little bit of a ‘normal’ Jewish environment – and a speech/language program run by Towson University. This meant running different directions on different days, but it was good for him and kept him occupied in the mornings. Continue reading
One refrain that we hear frequently when dealing with children who have Autism is that we should limit the choices we offer them. It’s meant as a constructive mechanism to ensure that they’re not overwhelmed with trying to decide, and helps to encourage verbal communication with children with language delays.
It’s also something that, after an entire day stuck in the house with the Monster, I’ve discovered that both the wife and I suck absolutely at. Continue reading
Since it’s a snow day here in Charm City, I’m working from home.
Not that we have all that much snow, mind you – it’s been blustery and there’s quite a bit coming down, but none of it is sticking where we live. I could have easily gone to work, but the Monster’s school is closed as a precaution, and so I’m home to lend a helping hand. Continue reading
One of our biggest concerns when it comes to the Monster getting to something approaching a ‘normal’ life is his ability to use language.
It is, in public, the biggest marker that there’s something different about him. Other children his own age are off conversing about this and that, narrating about their day, and he’s, by comparison, very quiet. Continue reading
So while I was at my bonspiel on Saturday, the wife took the Monster to go see a movie.
We’ve actually never taken the Monster to the cinema before (as far as I can remember) and this was a regular showing of a film, rather than a sensory-friendly one. (The wife won preview passes for The Croods.) Continue reading
As I mentioned, I’m attending a bonspiel this week (admittedly, at my own local club – the bonspiel is the 74th Annual Francis Dykes Memorial Bonspiel for men with 5 or fewer years of experience – so I’m coming home at night instead of staying at a hotel closer to the rink), and since we won last night, I don’t have another game until Saturday morning.
Basically, for the uninitiated, a ‘bonspiel’ is a curling tournament, meaning that for this weekend, there are forty teams from fifteen clubs on the East Coast (Carolina to New Hampshire, to be specific) at the club, so it’s very crowded, very warm and very loud in the warm room while games are going on. As you can imagine, that’s probably not a good environment for most children with Autism. While the Monster isn’t sensory adverse, it would almost certainly be too much sensory stimulation even for him, and he’d be inclined to go shrieking and running around between people’s legs.
Curling, itself, is an interesting sport – it’s a five century old Scottish sport that involves two teams of four players on a 160 foot long ice sheet, and somewhat resembles bocce in terms of scoring and chess in terms of strategy. It’s… different than a lot of sports – it’s slower paced most of the time, it’s social, it’s not loud, and it doesn’t require the tremendous amounts of physical coordination that sports like gymnastics, basketball or other activities involve.
The social aspect is important on the ice and afterwards. You have to talk to your teammates to communicate what you’re doing on the ice, what you’re going to be doing, what you want each person doing during a stone’s delivery… and you end up talking to your opponents over beverages and snacks after the match. It’s a very low-barrier-to-entry environment to socialize in a very small group (eight people generally at the end).
I’ve mentioned before (see Have a Ball) that there’s a curling club out in the Midwest that does the occasional program for children and adults with Autism. I’ve since discovered the original message I saw – it’s the Duluth Curling Club, in coordination with the Courage Center – and contacted them to find out how they run their program. Their suggestions were along the lines of what I would have expected – to manage the environment to further decrease the noise, prep the participants for what to expect, go with the adaptations for special needs curling. However, none of their suggestions are anything massive either, and it has a very open path to higher functioning participants to actually transition to ‘normal’ curling when they feel ready.
While the Monster’s not old enough yet to go curling, I’m hoping to get a program started for when he is old enough.
The musings on going on vacation continue.
I have to admit that I’m probably more putting the brakes on going away so far than the wife is – she’s very gung-ho to go on a “real vacation”, whereas I’m more reticent because I don’t feel like there’s enough groundwork laid to plan this out. Continue reading