Thursday, January 29, 2009

1/29/09

Lily's separation anxiety continues to improve greatly. I'm so excited about her new found comprehension. Seems with a little notice and some explanation she does better at most things. I didn't explain a whole lot to her before because she was never able to understand, but finally she is understanding things now! We went to the park and she wanted to bring her blanket to the playground and threw a fit when I told her she couldn't. Then I explained to her that she was going to be playing on the playground and would need two hands to climb and that no other kids had their blankets. She then let out a little whine and put her blanket back in the car HERSELF. I was so thrilled! Today I had to do a similar thing with some toys I wanted her to leave in the car. Tonight, I told her that I didn't know where her CARS puzzles were, so if she wanted to play with them that she would have to find them herself. She went right to the cabinet and found her puzzles. It's so thrilling to me, though a little sad at the same time.

At playgroup today she did very well playing with the other children and listening to me as well. She has also been searching me out whenever she has a problem, which is fairly new.

Tomorrow we have an appt. with Dr. Berger (he's a DAN Dr., which stands for Defeat Autism Now). I'm anticipating a list of supplements to try and also some lab work being done in the near future. I'm excited about all of that because she has responded so well with the supplements that she has been taking so far, so I'm hoping for more of the same!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

1-25-09

Lily has been doing wonderful. Her speech is continuing to improve, now she is able to do two sounds (one right after the other) with prompting. I’ve learned it helps to break up the word, like AAAA----PUL (for apple) and it makes it easier for her to say. She’s starting to say more without prompting. The other day she was trying to carry a bunch of her characters and couldn’t hold them all so she gave one to me and simultaneously said “ep” which for her means “help”. She has finally started to say “no” sometimes when asked to do something! I must be the only mom around here that gets excited when she tells me “no”, lol. I actually wish she would do it more often so I wouldn’t have to ask so many times!

Anthony taught her the sound “pssstt” so that has been her sound of choice recently. That along with snoring while pretending that she is asleep, lol. She knows what it means to be quiet and when you tell her to be quiet because someone is sleeping she will put her finger up to her mouth and say “shhhh”. She can also make a happy face when you tell her to (she laughs while she does it) and sometimes will give you a sad face when you ask. She can now correlate tired with sleeping, hungry with eating, and thirsty with drinking. Her separation anxiety is still improved, but still needs work.

The battle of wills continues daily, sometimes taking up to 20 minutes to get her from the car to my door (getting her out of the car takes the longest because she tries to crawl into whatever space is farthest from me and get into a ball to make it nearly impossible to pick her up). I try to look at her power struggle issues in a positive way. It means that she has a deeper understanding of who she is and what she wants and her stubbornness has been an asset to her so far. It’s so hard to remember that though! She is getting heavier everyday and it’s difficult to have to physically move her out of areas that she does not belong (on top of the kitchen table or counters, for example) over and over and …..over again. Or places in the store, or running right for that pile of dog poop! The scenarios that my day encompasses are endless!

We’ve recently had a lot of family visiting and that has really been great for Lily. Though she can get over stimulated if too much is going on, she really enjoys interacting with everyone and gets excited to see them.

I recently did a little video taping of Lily for my sister and noticed something that I thought was interesting. She was watching her favorite show (Yo Gabba Gabba) and they were giving directions on how to be a dinosaur (where to put your hands and so on). She was very good at following direction, but towards the end she paused what she was doing to get a closer look at the tv and seemed to have stopped listening and following direction, but had about maybe a 5-8 second delay in finishing what was asked. They had moved on to another clip and she turned around with her arms in position and roared like the T-Rex. I know sometimes it takes her a long time to process information, but this gave me a new perspective on her and how she may operate sometimes.

I bought Lily a set of Cars puzzles (she’s really been into that movie lately). They are 6 piece cardboard puzzles and there are 4 of them. She can now do them all by herself, even when given all the puzzles together. We have been playing more with play dough recently, but she’s still been snacking on it. Not sure how to stop that, as she doesn’t seem to mind the taste.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

1-20-09

As usual Lily is doing very well! She is still having trouble with her speech, which I believe will be a long road of struggles for her, but over all she is making great progress. She has been tantruming less (but to me it felt like anything would be an improvement, lol). She has been doing much better with her separation anxiety....finally! She seems to do well with a 10 minute good bye notice. She gets upset when I tell her I'll be leaving, we have some hugs and some playtime, then a reminder that I'm leaving, a few more minutes of play and then a sad goodbye...but no tantrums now (or at least for now, she's a day to day wonder, lol). She is starting to grasp the concept of time, which is great.

Lily has been showing improvement in her interactions, her comprehension, and her overall mood has been better. We have increased her dosage of one of her vitamins and it seems to have helped in a lot of areas. I think her teething has stopped for the time being which would account for her being less irritable. Her schedule for therapies has decreased (due to cancellations and the holiday) and she seems to be happier for it, but she didn't have OT today and I could definitely see a major increase in stemming behaviors. She has been spinning a lot and staring at her hands, so I am really looking forward to wednesday when she has OT again and see if that makes a difference.

Her speech therapy is decreasing to 3 times a week now, which I think is fine. I'm thinking about putting her in a mom's morning out program to see how she does playing with other kids without me around for a couple of hours, but I'm still on the fence about it. She has such a hard time communicating that it would be hard for her to be understood. As it is I have a hard time with it, but it would be impossible for someone who doesn't know and understand how she is. I know I'm probably being overprotective....ok...I AM being overprotective, but I can't help it. I watch her struggle to even still understand the concept of yes or no, which is hit or miss most of the time. I watch her frustration of not being able to get her point across, struggling even with gesturing. I just want her happy and I hesitate about putting her in a situation that might increase the anxiety that she so often feels. I know I'll have to do it at some point, but I'm not sure she's (Ok, I'm) ready for that. I'll keep mulling it over and let God decide what's best and at what time. He's done an outstanding job of guiding us so far!

Friday, January 9, 2009

1/9/09

Just thought I'd put in a quick blog about Lily's latest few things:

Lily looked at Anthony last night at bed time and said "kisses" (which is what Anthony says to her all the time). She then gave him a big kiss :)

Today on the walk to the car, Lily was running ahead of me and I said stop. Not only did she stop, but she said stop and then I said "let's go to the car" and she said "car".
When we came home I was going to give her a piggy back ride and I said "ready?" and she said, "set, go!!" (very clearly) She's starting to say things after me as well, like if I say "you want me to open this?" Then she says, "open this." (though when she does that it's usually muffled).

Her latest thing is climbing out of her car seat and climbing into the drivers seat instead of getting out of the car. Then I have to walk around to the drivers side again and she just giggles her little head off. Today I asked her to lay down so that I could change her diaper. She climbs up on the couch, lays down, and looks at me with a big smile and starts to giggle, knowing full well that is not where I wanted her to be. She's really been trying to mess with me, and I LOVE IT :)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

1/8/09

Lily has been verbalizing so much the past couple of days! She really is having a quite a speech spurt :). She has been trying to say words after me very routinely now and has been spontaneously saying sounds and words without any prompting. One of her speech therapists thinks she may have hyperlexia, which is pretty much the opposite of dyslexia. Here is some info I pulled up about it:

What Is Hyperlexia?
Hyperlexia is a syndrome observed in children who have the following characteristics:
A precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at their chronological age or an intense fascination with letters or numbers.

Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language
Abnormal social skills, difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people

In addition, some children who are hyperlexic may exhibit the following characteristics:
Learn expressive language in a peculiar way, echo ro memorize the sentence structure without understanding the meaning (echolalia), reverse pronouns
Rarely initiates conversations
An intense need to keep routines, difficulty with transitions, ritualistic behavior
Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity
Self-stimulatory behavior
specific, unusual fears
Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression
strong auditory and visual memory
Difficulty answering "Wh--" questions, such as "what," "where," "who," and "why"
Think in concrete and literal terms, difficulty with abstract concepts
Listen selectively, appear to be deaf

Of course not all the characteristics fit, but quite a few do and I do think she can read some words. My nephew, who is on the spectrum, taught himself to read when he was 2.
It's always a plus if your child can read, so I'm hoping she does have some concept of it because it can only help her speech development.
Today in therapy she actually said "pig" when she saw the pig. That was a first for her. On the way there I tried to pass her her harmonica and asked if she wanted to play some music (it's a good warm up for her) and she said NO! (first time for that too) she will usually say "oohh" and only after I prompt her for it. This morning I showed her a wind chime and she perched her lips into an "o" and said "wow".

I talked to her therapist about all of Lily's activities lately, including her clinginess for certain groups of objects and apparently that is a very good thing. For almost a week it was her blankets that she had to have everywhere she went, then it was her cars, then her mickey characters, etc.
Today for the first time in a long time she didn't have the need for that though.

Yesterday my sister babysat Lily and she didn't care at all that I was leaving. Anthony got home before I did though and she had a complete meltdown that it was him instead of me. Luckily I came home shortly after. I'm going to try to leave again tonight and see how it goes.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

1/6/09

Time just seem to pass so quickly these days...anyone else feeling that way?
Well Lily has been out of sorts lately, course it seems that's more the norm now since she started teething her 2nd year molars. I'm not sure how long that whole process takes, but I'm hoping that she will get over it quickly. It must be hard to be in pain and cranky and not be able to explain why or get some help. It has just made her much less patient and more frustrated it seems (understandably). She had a good second part of her day today and was relatively happy.

We went over to a friend's house to play and she had a blast. She was pretty chatty today. I think it really helps for her to be around her peers that are talking. Her spontaneous speech is getting more frequent, not clear, but frequent. She has been continuing to point more, which has made me very happy. Her speech therapist thinks that she is ahead of schedule for kids at her level, which also makes me happy. One of Lily's favorite shows is Yo Gabba Gabba and in the intro they shout that out in a long drawn out "Yoooooooo Gaaabaaaaa Gaaaabbaaa" and Lily has been doing her own variation of that, it's really cute.

I know they say a lot of tv isn't good for kids, but Lily really interacts with the shows in so many ways and it has increased her speech. I think it's actually good for her (to an extent of course). The other day there was a show on that she seldom watches and they had the word "cat" up on the screen (no pictures) and they said "what is this word?" and she said "cat" then they switched the 'c' to a 'b' and asked what that word was and she said "bat". I thought once could have been a fluke thing, but two in a row? Makes me wonder how much she actually knows but can't verbalize. She had never even said bat before!

Tonight I went out to the grocery store before Lily's bedtime and it went so much better than usual. She was sad, but no huge tantrum. I handled it a little differently and I'm hoping that helped so that I can do that routine again. Though it also could of just been a fluke thing as well. I'll try again tomorrow and see how it works.