Here's my thing, I can't tell you what to do make your child functional. It's a miracle that Booga talks. It's been a lot of prayer and a lot of work making him tell me what he wanted instead of pointing to it and a lot of listening to what people thinks is inane babble and deciphering words from it to get to where we are now. They don't always say what they mean, however, you can tell by their body language and by listening what they might be trying to get across.
Another thing that is important is not to treat them like china dolls. Treat them like any other child. Give them chores, make them learn to sit in church, (Booga knows that he can go to the bathroom during church and that he can stay there until he can get his "stims" out because, it's hard to sit somewhere where it's echoing for an Autistic person.) make them listen by pointing to your eyes and saying "Look at me" and then talking to them directly.
Hug them when they do well and tell them when they are wrong. Celebrate what's right and discipline what's wrong. Good heavens. They aren't going to kill you in your sleep. They're heads are not going to split open and lava flow out like a Ray Harryhausen movie character!
I mean there are limits. I know it's easy to loose your temper but try to understand they can't help this…This is something they would rather they didn't have either.
Basically to the best ability that you can muster and that they are reasonably able to do, treat them like any other child in your family. It has limits, but you will find those limits and here's the big thing….Make it understood in your extended family and with your friends that this is what you are doing. They need to know this fact so they aren't acting like he or she is deaf by speaking loudly or ignoring them or freaking out and thinking they can't be trusted with the cat or something ridiculous like that. (??? People, people, people…)
Some will try to be unreasonable with expectations, because people have this "savant" idea in their heads when it comes to Autistic kids. Which is rare and you can tell them that. Just firmly and kindly tell them, "I know this child and what they are capable of and this is not one of those things. I appreciate your input, but this is just one of those times when you can't know because you don't live with it." And then if they persist find someone else to hang around.
Gold C, Wigram T, Elefant C (2006, April,19). Music therapy for autistic spectrum disorder. Music therapy for people with autistic spectrum disorder, Retrieved aug, 10, 2009, from http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004381.html
Authors' conclusions
The included studies were of limited applicability to clinical practice. However, the findings indicate that music therapy may help children with autistic spectrum disorder to improve their communicative skills. More research is needed to examine whether the effects of music therapy are enduring, and to investigate the effects of music therapy in typical clinical practice.
It's true.
From the time Booga was small our house has been filled with sound; with music in the car and in the house. He has been bombarded by it and surrounded by it and loves it. He listens to classical and rock and to show tunes and movie sound tracks. He loves Michael Jackson and The Beatles. He loves Celine Dion and he loves Frank Sinatra. Booga doesn't discriminate.
He loves country and jazz and Bach and Beethoven and he loves to dance. He will dance to just about anything that has a good beat and sing (albeit off key sometimes) to any song he thinks is worthy of it.
He was the hit of my nieces wedding, when everyone got up to catch the garter and he got up and danced to the "garter catchin" music. He won my nieces new in-laws hearts by dancing non-stop with anyone who would ask.
He sports an MP3 player and listens to it in my car because he doesn't always agree with my musical taste.
His MP3 player is full. I don't think I could get one more song on it if I wanted to….
When people see him in the car listening to his MP3 player, they think that they are looking at an average nineteen year old man trying to not listen to his mothers taste in music. They don't see an autistic man. They don't know.
My family has always had music in it.
My mother was in a girl band in the forties and was first chair in her high school band. She sang all her life, for funerals and weddings and choir performances….Etc. She still does….
I was in Choirs in church and at high school. I sang all the time. I did musicals at my school. I learned piano and guitar, because my mother made us all learn one instrument. She never really made us do any of it. But we knew it pleased her and so we did it. I was more into art and drama. But I wanted to make her happy.
I can still sing, I just don't have the passion for it she does.
My nephew is in Europe- singing his way through it. Of all of us, I think he exemplifies my mother's love of music. He has always sung, although sometimes it took its roots to the more rebellious with growling metal band rock (when his voice was more made for gentle ballads and classical). Now he's simply a studious young man, even more in love with his very first love than ever before and excelling at something so wondrous and beautiful.
I can't imagine what it is like not to like music, who doesn't like music? I mean what kind of person wouldn't like some kind of music?
And music does heal….Oh yes it does.
.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·..·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·..·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
Arthur Conan Doyle
0 comments:
Post a Comment