The kids were sick last week and then lucky me I got it too. Fortunately Darrin was off on Monday and I got a sick day. I have not had one in a long time. It was quite nice.
Because of all of the sickness (not as bad as other families have had it) my week is a bit off. I thought all of the doctors appointments were this week. NOT. They are next week.
Because I thought they were this week I filled out a new Autism Treatment Check List, called an ATEC, for Taylor. You can see what we progress we are looking for here:
http://www.autism.com/ari/atec/atec-online.htm
The saying that you can not see the forest for the big tree that is right in front of you has been so true for me over the past month. I did not see the progress. I started to wonder if what we were doing was truly worth it. Well.... the ATEC score is on a scale from 0-100, 0 being the best and 100 being the worst. Taylor was in the mid 60's in November. Today when I did his ATEC........46!!!!
This is close to what Spencer was in January. So very exciting. Now it may go down a bit after Darrin goes over it and changes some answers. But he has made huge progress in just 3 months. We still have a ways to go, but we are going and that has made my day. We have covered a vast amount of the road. Wow 46!!
The tantrums are gone! He is seeking me out for hugs and play time. The other day he came up to me and said "let's play together." He wanted to do a puzzle. He is also starting to use 5 word sentences consistently and telling us what he wants instead of pointing or grunting. He is also using the scripting language that he has in an appropriate manner.
Last week Darrin caught him playing with a car on the car rug appropriately. He was pushing the car down one of the roads and following it as it curved.
As I said earlier, it is hard to see the progress day to day. This ATEC really helps us see by numbers what ground has been covered.
The day we hit the single digits we are going to have a huge party.
To top it all off I lost a pound this past week! It was a very stressful week and I still managed to lose a pound. Life is good today!
We are a family of 7. When the boys were 2 I knew that something was not quite right with them. Our pediatrician told me that they were delayed because they were boys and twins. They would catch up.... Not so. No one would listen to me. In November of 2007 we finally got a diagnosis of Autism. This is the chronicles of our journey. We are using a biomedical approach with the boys and their younger sister, who also has an Autism diagnosis. This is our journey.
2 comments:
That is so exciting that progress is being made! I think it is always hard to see progress day-to-day, but over time it is different.
I'm reading "unraveling the mystery of autism..." right now and it is really helping me to understand better some of what you all are going through. It's helping me to see just how discouraging it must be at times, and yet how wonderful it must be when you do see that progress! May God continue to strengthen you and bless your efforts.
YAY!!! That is so exciting. Praise God.
Way to go with losing 1 pound too!!
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