Coping with the Diagnosis

This post is for parents, parents, who, until now is in denial of their childs condition. I can relate to this, I've been there, and God knows how much I was hurt, (and still hurting) how my heart, my whole being suffered for my daughter, but I tell you, give yourself some time, its hard, yes I know, but one day you'll see and realized life is not over. Accepting your child and the condition will ease the pain, it took me 6 months to finally learn, tears, pity, hatred are not the answer and will never help my daughter. Let me share how I conquered Autism. On January 03, 1998, my daughter was 27 months old, the day she was diagnosed having autism, on this date and 6 months after was the darkest time of my life, one night I found myself playing with her like we used to do, and I saw my daughter, my princess, she's still my Michaella which I thought I have lost because of autism. We didnt lost our children, maybe they are different from other children but what they need is the same with the so called normal kids all we need to do is to love them more, try to be in thier said "world" and be patient as we can with them. In one seminar the speaker said... WE ARE SPECIAL IN GOD'S EYES THATS WHY WE HAVE SPECIAL KIDS.

Talking to Autistic Child

Since communication is one of the main problems of Autism, parents, guardians and nanies should learn a strategy or style on how to talk to them. Use simple words like sit, come, eat, walk and also some gestures to help the child understand. Facial expression and intonation can also be used to clarify meaning.


With my daughter, I always use the word "look" for the eye contact. If your child does not respond with it, hold the childs face on his both cheeck facing him and say "look", once she did look at you even for just a second, say "good looking". Start with the childs name, look and whatever the command is, example... ella, look, command. Pointing at the object can also help her understand what the command is, with my daughter I "introduce" things to her, I always ask her "what is this?" if she does not respond then I tell her what the thing is called. Then I ask again until she understand and remember.


To a non-verbal child it is not easy or even impossible to explain why things are like this or like that, but this does not mean if your child is verbal it will be different, maybe easier in some point. Since my daughter is considered non-verbal (although she is trying to express herself on her own way) we, always make a point to talk to her and explain why we cannot buy certain things she wanted, in shortest sentence we can possibly do...

examples:

asking for things for boys or men... "for kuya not for ella"
"for daddy not for ella"

asking for very expensive toy.... "no money"

asking to go to a mall..... I schedule when we are going. then I ask her "ok?" but if you promised you will go on that date just make sure you will.

asking for junk food.... eat rice and chicken then chips

The key to this is be creative, and learn how to cope with your child, your child is not the one who will adjust for you, you and your family should understand his moves, his weakness, his tantrums. He will not tell you what he wants so we as parents should know even without the words.

Babbling Autisic Child

Babbling (also called twaddling) is a stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words. Babbling begins at approximately 5 to 7 months of age, when a baby's noises begin to sound like phonemes. Infants begin to produce recognizable words usually around 12 months, though babbling may continue for some time afterward.

Seminars are offered to parents to help us how to deal with autism. Problems that occur one after the other. One those is the communication, communicating with an autistic child is very hard since most of them are non-verbal. If your child starts to babble, you should always pay attention to the words or sounds they emit, example if the child says " dada" then take him to his daddy, do the same with "mama". If the child is saying "bol, bol" then show a ball. Be creative always find a thing with his "words"

Echolalia on Autism (echolalic)

Speech delay... the most common sign of Autism. Although some children are speaking before they reach the age of 18 months, eventually it will disappear. My daughter was starting to talk at the age of 1, but then it was all gone by the age of 18 months, everything she learned disappear.

This post is about how to teach a child to communicate, its not easy but with patience and love everything is possible... children with or without autism start to talk by babbling... with autism it can be very hard for the child since they dont know how to imitate, but when they learn to imitate they tend to display another problem being an echolalic. Echolalia - is like this, the child is talking but only repeats all the words she/he hear, example.. if they are ask "how are you?" she/he will reply with the same question. This can be corrected... you will need somebody to whisper in her ear, when you talk to the child make sure someone is there to tell her the right words to reply, example.. if you ask the child "what is your name?" then the 3rd person should whisper the name of the child to the child. This should be done everytime you are speaking to the him/her, that means 24/7. Until she/he gets the point.