Children's Hospital visit

Every 6 months or so, John goes back to Children's Hospital for an evaluation. The goal with these evaluations is for people who does not interact with him on a daily or weekly basis to give him an assessment. His two doctors there have been with us from the start, and it's always helpful to get their feedback in this way. We were there last Friday, and here's what they said:

If John came to us now, with no history of an autism diagnosis, we wouldn't classify him as autistic.

What this means: John is who he is. Autism isn't something that is cured, at least not at this point. The goal of treatment plans, and particularly early-intervention treatment, is to "rewire" the brain's neurological processes and to teach the child coping strategies for dealing with the outside world. More and more research is showing that autistic spectrum disorders are the result of the brain's inability to process sensory and other related neurological information appropriately. In very young children, it's possible to help rewire some of this and to train their brains to process this better (In John's case, lots of speech and occupational therapy), and in addition, to help them learn to cope with the things that bother them (i.e. how to avoid stressful or problematic situations).

What this really means: John's doing so absolutely wonderfully that it's hard to tell, at a glance, that he's autistic at all.

Make no mistake about it, he's still who he is. He's just coping with it extremely well.

Further, they want us to consider putting him in regular classes next year, as opposed to the special education class he's in now. Their thinking is that, since he's learned to model other students so well, that he should be exposed to "normal" kids to use as his role models. See, for John, his biggest hurdles right now are in social interaction and fine-motor skills, and for a kid who likes to copy others, nothing beats throwing him in a room with others who *want* to write with crayons and who carry on more normal conversations.

The next step happens on Friday. We go back to Children's for a full cognitive evaluation. This will help us quantify just how well John's cognitive abilities are, and will be an indicator to how he'd do in a mainstream pre-kindergarten environment. He'd probably still need some help in occupational and speech therapy, but we'll get a good idea of whether he can hack it in the rough-and-tumble of "normalcy."

We'll post again once we get back from that appointment.

John's World and Ours

First of all, we apologize for the lack of posts of late. Joyce had foot surgery last week, and this has meant that Eric had to actually do stuff around the house. The horror!

John is learning to apply what he learns in his world to his understanding of others' activities. Of course, this being John, he's doing this in humorous ways.

The other night, while putting John to bed, he asked what Mommy and Daddy were going to do after he went to bed. We told him we were going to watch a movie. As you know, John's world is basically Thomas the Tank Engine, with occasional helpings of Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, the Wiggles, etc. Thomas, however, reigns supreme. At hearing that we were going to watch a movie, he inquisitively asked if we would be watching Thomas and His Friends Help Out. We said no, but he was undeterred. "Are you gonna watch Best of James?"

This Thomas-themed life extends beyond movies. Last week, his aunt and uncle had come over for dinner, and as Eric took John upstairs for his bath, John heard Mommy's voice downstairs, talking to Aunt Amy and Uncle Bryant. John asked, "Is Mommy talking to the engines?"

We're wondering if the train thing is going too far. Just about any occurrence in life can be addressed by a quote from a Thomas video. If he sees a problem somewhere, John's response might be "Disgraceful. Despicable. Disgusting" or perhaps "Oh, dear." As you can guess, these are lines from the videos. When boredom hits, such as driving around town, train dialogue is a great way to liven up the mood. John will carry out an entire scene's worth of dialogue. At a restaurant? No problem. We have a travel Thomas set that is used only when eating out, and we get Thomas replays. All for free!

Beyond Thomas, the other thing John knows is that he does not like Daddy. And by "not like" we mean that Daddy seems to be unbearable. In the mornings, John often comes into Mommy and Daddy's room (which he calls "Mommy's room") and climbs up onto "Mommy's bed." If he gets a boo-boo, he runs past Daddy to get to Mommy. When Daddy scolds him or gives him a time-out, he responds with "No, I want Mommy. Where's Mommy?" The simple yet direct "Go away Daddy" is Eric's favorite.

Still, Eric seems to have some redeeming value, typically involving chasing, tickling, or playing outside with John. Daddy also seems to be a competent train-track builder.

"No, not the TV"

Note the date and time: John uttered these words on Saturday, January 8, 2005 at approximately 8:00am.

John got a Leap Pad for Christmas, and also received several "modules" for it. One of these was for Dora the Explorer. He woke up on Saturday, and we went downstairs, where he said "I wanna watch Dora." Being a Bad Parent (TM), Eric gave in, and grabbed for the remote. He then said "No, not on the TV. On this" and help up his Leap Pad. Fortunately, neither of us sustained injury in falling out of our chairs.

John's language is improving dramatically these days. On the way home, John and Eric typically talk about their days. Well, Eric does, and then asks "How was your day?" John seems to be tiring of this thinly-veiled memory quiz. He used to dismiss Dad by saying "Toys" as though that would be enough. This week, he's added "nothing" and, best yet, "Let's not talk about it."

He's a prodigy! They say this doesn't usually happen until the teenage years!

Take your Burrito to Work Day!

Last week, between Christmas and New Year's Day, John's schools were closed. Thanks to a lot of people's help, we were able to find babysitting which made it so that we didn't have to take the entire week off. On one of those days, John came to work with me and was then handed off to Joyce's sister at lunchtime.

So, John and I headed to the office. He did very well on the drive in, except that I forgot his sunglasses and we were driving into the sun. This prompted him to demand a correction to the problem, which he did by repeatedly saying "Go away sun." Indeed.

Upon arriving at work, we did the obligatory tour of the place and introduced him to co-workers who hadn't seen him in a while. The verdict was unanimous, that he was cute (this is his one redeeming quality) and that they can't even tell that he's autistic (music to my ears!). However, he wasn't finished yet.

Task number one, once he got done with the tour, was to have Daddy build him a train track. In his office. John especially liked the "cave" which was under the desk. Never mind that it's a bit hard to work with a kid pushing a train under your desk chair and feet. This was only the beginning.

When John plays with the Thomas trains, he likes to watch the Thomas videos, and sure enough, he wanted to watch a video. Unfortunately for Eric, his laptop HAS a DVD player, and thus his work environment was transformed into a theater and train track.

Then it was bathroom time. Taking a child to a bathroom, especially a child who is still working on that whole potty training thing, is a funny experience, or it would be if it were happening to someone else. Add in John's, er, inquisitiveness, and hilarity ensues. Every noise he heard was greeted with an inquiry. "John, that's someone flushing the potty." "John, that's the door closing." "John, never mind what that noise was."

Are you done yet?

Now, going to the potty is cause for celebration these days, and his success was marked with a declaration of "I did it. I went pee-pee in the potty."

Why oh why did the bathroom have to be FULL OF PEOPLE?!?

So Eric did the mature thing, which was to wait in the stall with John until everyone left. John was helpful, asking if we could go back and play with trains, followed by "What are we waiting for?"


John's become very inquisitive of late. This is a good thing, by and large. There was a time where we never thought he'd notice enough of the world outside his head to ask those sorts of questions. Now our frustration is that they are unceasing. Truth be told, it's a refreshing problem to have.