Learning

Things have been hectic. Skyler's parties were good, busy, lots of people he got lots of toys and clothes. If you want to see the pictures from the birthday and a slideshow I made of his life go check out his blog.

As for yesterday I had my last Autism workshop and got my certificate for the completing it. It was another extremely long day and by the end of it I was just completely drained, but I did learn some new things. I even learned something about Chuck. For as long as I have known him he has hated gentle touches. I have this thing where if someone runs their fingertips down my back or my arm I am just in heaven. When I do this to him, he freaks out. He either has a full body shake (kind of like when you get a really bad shiver) or he jerks away and gives you a dirty look (which may or may not be accompanied by an earful). He also hates the feeling of certain fabrics on his skin, and won't wear his underwear if it has fuzzies in it. He throws it out and gets a new pair. Me I just don't care that much. So I have always kind of bothered him about it, I thought it was just him being picky and a bit weird. Also he is not opposed to nice big hugs and deep massage, as long as you use enough pressure he is happy to be touched. Which is apparently the way a lot of people with tactile hypersensitivity feel.

So last night when they started talking about tactile hypersensitivity and we watched a video of Temple Grandin talking about how she hates gentle touch, and will even turn her underwear inside out etc, a lightbulb went off in my head. I came home feeling like a big jerk, both the boys were asleep when I came in, so I waited until the morning to talk to him about it. When he woke up I explained to him what I learned and I apologized for always bothering him about it. I know the reason why he has it, it has to do with childhood trauma, not autism. Regardless I feel like I at least understand one more little quirk about his personality, and now I know some ways to deal with it too which is nice.

I also learned a lot more about Autism and how to help Autistic kids. Our little guy at my program is doing great by the way. Now that I am fulltime I work with him a lot more and I can see him learning new skills and just having fun which is so awesome. We're working a lot with sequencing and using the "First this, then that" approach with activities, and using picture cards to remind him of what we're doing. It seems to be working quite well. Anyway that is what I wanted to share with you guys.