Breakthroughs

(I realize this photo is not recent--Josh's first day of school--but the sun and the shorts and t-shirt made me long for summertime so I thought I'd share it)

Chris and I signed up to do an immersion workshop offerred by the folks at PACE place in Oregon. Basically it's all about Chris and I learning how to help Joshua learn how to appropriately regulate himself emotionally so that he can focus better, learn better and have more meaningful and positive relationships (no small task here ha ha!). On Sunday we attended an all day seminar and learned some surprising things about many autistic kids (we participated in this seminar with 7 other families so we heard about their kids too). First off, the RANGE of behavior problems is huge. I guess we already knew that because autism is a spectrum disorder, but I never knew that there were kids higher functioning than Joshua that were on the spectrum (I always thought Josh was real high functioning--he talks great, is almost potty trained, reads and writes like a pro etc.). There are some kids that are totally disabled--can't talk, can't bear to leave their houses, etc, while there are kids that are very verbal, very social, very competant. Interesting. No wonder people have such trouble understanding autism. A quote from one of the parents that I loved: "If you've met a kid with autism, then you've met a kid with autims."--no two kids are alike...that's why they've had so much trouble writing the book (so to speak) on this disorder! The other thing I learned was that ALL of the families participating in the program said their kids were VERY social--they just had trouble learning HOW to be social. Everyone used to always tell me that there was no way Josh was autistic because he was too smart and too social--Well, that seems to be pretty common I guess!
Anyway, yesterday was our immersion day. We spent the entire day with the two program directors from PACE learning how to deal with Josh's focus problems, his tantrums and his tendancy to run off in public (a really difficult one for me since Lena was born). We learned A LOT. I had no idea all the things I was doing to encourage his bad behavior and that there really were ways that I could stop them! In short, within hours (yep, hours!) Josh's eye contact improved, his awareness of our presence improved and his focus and attention--HOLY CRAP is all I can say! I realize that we've just learned a bunch of new behavior strategies and that we may be in a honeymoon period for a week or two but for the first time since Josh was diagnosed I am cautiously optimistic--and giddy at the prospect of finally being able to reach him! It's amazing the amount of CONTROL that I'm feeling now. For the last day or so, I haven't felt at all like Josh is running our house anymore. I make the decisions, I tell him what we're doing...I am the parent again! Woohoo! Saturday we'll have our "wrap up" day and then we'll be on our own to implement this "new world order" (as I like to put it he he). I'll keep you posted...