AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH!!!!

Hello dear friends and family! It is already April and with this comes a time where Michael and I gear up to wear our autism awareness pins and answer questions about them when asked in public. This month I have decided to reflect and share a little of the past with everyone. Some of you may know these stories and facts and some may not but they are some that are dear to our hearts. In 2006 just after Dylon's 2nd birthday he was diagnosed with autism, which is one of many diagnosis on a spectrum. He is considered high functioning and the autism is viewed as mild to moderate. Autism host many challenges for children who fall into the spectrum but two of the hallmark features of autism is delayed communication (verbal and receptive) and a delay in social interaction. I am sure that many of you may have heard in the news that vaccines cause autism, environmental factors, diets....the list goes on. As of right now, at this present time, there is no know cause of autism. Research has not been sufficient enough to prove or disprove any of the theories above (and I will try to refrain from getting on a soap box about vaccinations!!!!:>). Early intervention HAS been proven to help decrease the autistic like behaviors in children but there is no known cure. Dylon is currently getting speech therapy and occupational therapy. Speech therapy helps him in expressive and receptive communication. Occupational therapy is helping Dylon with fine motor and sensory skills, amongst other areas that need to be met. Michael and I knew nothing of autism but we knew our duty as parents was to help our son. I researched autism and have read some books about it all in hopes to help Dylon. We learned to trust others in our mission to help Dylon. One of the most precious stories to me has a video that goes along with it. One of the therapies that we had in our house was TRIAD and they taught us the concepts of PECS (picture exchange communication system) and other such strategies. They video taped Dylon at the beginning of the training (which was a couple of weeks) and then they video tapped him at the end. In this time Dylon really took to singing, Kum By Ya was a favorite is one of a couple of songs, all from Veggie Tale CDs, I remember him singing at this time. I did not know he knew the song in the video. The girl took her camera out to video Dylon at our last session and caught him singing....not Kum By Ya but another song that was like a balm to my spirit given our recent events. Please view the video and sorry for us talking...we were trying to get him to sing Kum By Ya. Just watch the first couple of minutes... it's like 6 minutes long but you will understand in the first two.

After hearing him sing this song I thought to myself..."God is so good" and even though I was not blaming God for my son's condition I also knew that maybe I wasn't giving him the glory that I needed to. We love Dylon with all of our heart and in stressful times we don't always remember that God is good even if we aren't blaming him or mad at him. God made everything and said it was good, He is good!
Dylon has made tremendous progress over the past two years and continues to do so. One of my favorite stories of late is: One day Michael, Dylon, and I were going through a drive thru. It was a pretty and warm day so we had all the windows down. Dylon was sitting in the back seat on the driver's side. Michael orders for us and we pulled forward. We were not quite to the window yet when this little voice in the back seat says "Uh...yes, I would like a number 1 and a...number 2 and goodagoodagooda chicken nuggets...that's all...thanks!" He was so serious that Michael and I just laughed out loud! As far as the sleep study with Dylon, he is falling asleep so much easier now with no fight. He is still waking up in the middle of the night every couple of nights but we are hopefully working on that. Michael is doing good...ready for school to be over so he can enjoy his summer holiday. I am hanging in there with work and school. We hope to be available to answer questions that anyone has about autism. We do not get easily offended on this subject. Have a Happy Easter and enjoy the spring weather and flowers!