Autism Family Life

As we’re starting to near the end of this series, I’m realizing just how much I didn’t cover. As I may have mentioned in previous posts, I plan on making additions to this series so I can cover everything that I didn’t get to with the initial run through. I hope that you will continue to join me for those. And for today, we’re going to talk about the types of therapies available for autism because T is for Therapy. What Therapies are Available for Autism? As a part of her schooling, Sweet B receives: Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Social Work, and Music Therapy. After her initial diagnosis, she received physical therapy as well but has since outgrown the need for that. Music therapy has…

So, after checking the tag for my Autism A to Z series, I realized an oversight…. I had never posted my J topic. I’m not sure how this happened but I’ll attribute it to my general tendency to being scatterbrained and attempting to multi-task. Maybe this is why I should just give up that and focus on one thing at a time? Anyway, here’s my out of order J post… on how to handle judgment from others. Having dealt with this for most of my childhood and well into adulthood, judgment is one of those things that I’ve gotten used to ignoring. I try to keep with a ‘judge not, lest ye not be judged’ mentality but I’ll admit- even I can get pretty judgmental….

If you’re just starting out on this journey, you probably have a lot of questions. Or, as your child with autism becomes an adult with autism, there are sure to be many questions that you’ll want to ask. Whatever the case may be, there are a lot of questions so that’s why Q is for Questions. The only part that I’m not really covering is questions to ask during the special education process. But that’s because I think those could be a post entirely on its own. Questions to Ask During/Right After the Diagnosis: Should we get a second opinion? What type of services will my child need? Can you provide a list of recommended service providers? How are we going to pay for these…

While I could have done this post about occupational therapy, I’m going to save that for another post. Instead, O is for Overload as we continue with our Autism A to Z series. When I say overload, I actually mean sensory overload. We’ll also talk about occupational therapy in brief but it will definitely be covered more when we get to the letter T. So just what is sensory overload? Sensory overload happens when the brain gets overstimulated by the environment. Contributing factors could be: noises, smells, lights, too many people, texture of clothing, etc. It could really be any number of things. After awhile it just becomes too much for the brain to process. Too much sensory overload or sensory stimulation could lead to…

In the next part of our Autism A to Z series, I want to talk about transitions and introducing new things. So, that’s why N is for New. This could apply to a new house, a new food, a new article of clothing, etc. Whatever the case may be. I’m going to include a few tips as to what’s worked for us during transitional times and hope that these will work for you as well. Initially, I had thought about having this post be N for Neurotypical but I thought against it. Maybe we’ll get into that another day. Change can be difficult to handle for almost anyone. But for an individual with autism, change can be overwhelming and result in great difficulties. Most individuals…