Update: 16 years old and still with autism

It seems like it is forever in time that we will deal with autism of Ax. I hope there will be an end to it since he is getting older and we, as a family, are all getting older. That is the danger of having a kid with this kind of disability. The fear envelopes you. I think, it would be a better case if you are dealing with poverty than with autism. Every now and then, I ask Ax's two other siblings questions when they are all adults, how will they treat Ax. Somehow it is changing based on how Ax presents himself. There are times since 2 summer school periods ago that he is getting angrier. Halfway when he was 14 years old, he was just angry most of the time. There would be good days but somehow the dark clouds will always cover the bright blue skies. We were always on the edge that the school will call us to pick up the student or that we will have to talk to the assistant principal. That is the kind of thing we confront from day to day since Ax was not himself at all. I felt pity and angry at the same time because we were helpless in making a change for the better. It is Ax who has to pick up the pieces and be responsible for his actions. His parents are just there for support. I know we are doing all we can to avert any negative actions so much as we would like to have bed of roses, it can not be.

Fucking Powerpuff Girls mesmerized him like he had to create havoc once he sees them. He watched  them on his own even though we kept telling him not to load the video in youtube.com. It was blocked in all the computers, tablets and laptops in the house but he was still able to see them. He just looked at them jump and uttered non-sense and will do this forever. We broke the cycle all the time but he kept doing the mesmerizing stiff gaze. All of these took place in 2016 and 2017. He damaged the wall, he shouted, he wailed, he cried, he stumped his feet, he threw his hands on the air, he hit us, he was angry and then he stopped. He stopped. The menace stopped. It just fucking stopped and that's about it.

Towards the middle to end of December 2017, he was beginning to be at peace and for whatever reasons peace settled for like 4 months now, it is better to just flow with the water. We could have not been happier with this development and for that, we are thankful.

At present, he makes himself busy with opening and closing his teeth, clashing them like a bunny eating carrots and making a sound. He walks and walks around that house and just stops in wherever place he is and stares at whatever for a long time. He can be stopped but he does it again. At this point, you do not know if one thing that was lost, another thing comes up to replace it. This is better but at the same time very annoying since he might damage his teeth. Another thing that he does over and over is watching the same movie repeatedly.

Update: 15 years old and still with autism

How long has it been when he was diagnosed? It seems like it is forever. The battle with the school system is also forever. I do not think we will let him stay beyond 18 years of age. He will graduate by age 17. It might be better that way.

He goes to a regular high school. He is in autism classroom for Language Arts and the rest with regular education kids who are low functioning for Social Studies, Math and Science. He goes with regular education students for encore subjects. He still has behavior issues cracking up his system in different times of the day. In fact, the case manager wanted him to see a psychiatrist. At first, the case manager told us over the phone that it would be good for Ax to to be seen by a neuro-psychologist. We talked to her face-to-face and she now claims the person to see Ax is a neuro-psychiatrist. Upon seeing the name of the person on paper, it states: Names of Person, Psychiatrist. It is hard if parents are not too aware of what the special education is doing to your child in order to augment their tasks. Still, they want us to sign for them to get the federal special education dollars for him. It is really so ironic. The school gets a big amount of money compared to regular education students but they would not spend much time, effort and patience to help the students with disabilities.

I do not like to plan anymore. It is too much frustration when things go south while your hands are tied up. I am taking things step by step and it is better that way. Less frustrations, as they say.

He still goes to private speech therapy 3x per week paid for by the school district. We asked for that specifically. We are now asking for a behaviorist but so far the school is giving us a run-around. I really do not know if this speech therapy helps but it keeps us busy going to another town 30 minutes away from our place so he can be seen by speech therapists. He is still unable to communicate spontaneously but he has so much knowledge inside his head that he is not using his words to communicate as normal kids of his age.

FBA was initiated by the school this January 2017 and up until this minute, nothing has resulted in the "study".IEP has not been updated even though we have sent changes in March 2017. Anyway, we requested for a change of case manager. This has to be granted because we need someone who is not an subtle attacker.

plucking eyebrows and eyelashes, licking, games, minecraft and autism

Since we arrived in the state with 4 seasons (hahaha), Ax has been putting out his tongue all over his mouth during the cold days. Also, he started plucking his eyebrows and eyelashes for being excited not due to stress. There were weeks that he almost removed his eyebrows and also months that his eyelashes are hardly visible. Of late, like 9 months now, he has been displaying a normal behavior - no plucking his eyebrows and eyelashes and no licking all over his mouth. At the moment it is so cold and he has been on his best behavior. He also began venturing to playing games again but many times did not like it and just left the console everywhere. He does not like the idea of losing in a game and that drove him to just leave playing games all together and just browse the internet. Minecraft was born and he first sat beside his father and watched the game intensely. He only became interested when his 2 siblings began playing and becoming so interested. Still, there are times that he skipped playing and just went to youtube.com. Toward the 4th quarter of 2014, he had been playing again just like when he was 2 or 3 years of age. There were also times and even until now that he could not accept getting killed in Minecraft. He would wail and be angry at the same time. He is asked sternly to go to bed because we might lose another laptop or computer this time around. He is not playing normally in Minecraft like his siblings. He just wants to kill the zombies, spiders or whatever enemies that come along his way. Sometimes, he also kills the Minecraft pets of his sister. Then, his sister cried and kept telling him not to kill her Minecraft pets. This time around, I think, he understood.

Having autism and food that he eats

Since he was a young child, he has been eating as normal as possible. He is not afraid to taste new food and once I see that he may like the new food, I keep giving it to the kids and that includes him.

He likes to eat rice and a viand or shall I say, I serve rice all the time so he eats it. He eats all sorts of viands and would try them all yet he is skinny. I also make sure the kids eat vegetables all the time. They may vomit at first but since I keep giving the same vegetables, they had adjusted to eating vegetables, rice and meat/fish. All three kids eat bittermelon that I sauteed. It is bitter! We do not have a supply of soda in the house. The kids just drink water all the time. Although, when we go to fast food restaurants, there is a tendency to drink soda. In regular restaurants, we just ask for water all the time.

At school, I normally give him celery and the ranch we get from the fast food restaurants. He likes them. I limit the intake of sweets. We have piles of chocolates on the table but the kids rarely get them. The candies are also not part of our household. They just collect candies from birthday parties @ school and during Halloween and leave them. However, there are few times I saw Ax trying the candies. He likes cookies but like I aforementioned, the kids are limited in their sweets. I would rather throw the ice cream than have him eat all that is served to him. His siblings are not into ice cream as well.

As for fruits, he eats mango, strawberry, peeled apple, watermelon, melon, grapes, banana, blueberry, peaches, pineapple. I remember that at first, he did not like the strawberry and was about to vomit but I was persistently serving the fruit so he got used to it. It is the same story with his two siblings.

Playing Minecraft and "dying" - autism

A comment I made in one of the websites talking about autism:
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Hi. We have tried Omega 3 Fatty Acids for more than a year now. I do not see that much improvement though. We have also been using Olive Oil only for like 10 years and it still does not make a difference. What we notice though is that, it comes with age, meaning, there comes a point in one's life that aggression is lessened as he grows older. Also, we are doing time-outs if he gets angry over the fact that the youtube.com is taking a long time to load the video or the video is stalling or he is not yet done watching the video or he is losing/dying in Minecraft. We ask him to go to bed and just rest and behave there. Last year (12 years old), was his notorious year of aggression. This year, it has subsided significantly.

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12/7/14

I hope he continues to have a good year and the next years thereafter. You see, we have lost like 5 tablets and 3 laptops because he was angry that he was losing in Minecraft. I know it costs money to have these and just be damaged but they are just things, so we need to move on. When he gets angry about losing or dying in Minecraft, he goes to the screen and just pierce the screen so hard as if it has a bug that has to be killed. Hence, we lost all of those.

He still plays Minecraft and this time, we told him that if he loses, he has to go to bed and rest and be calm. It has been working so far. His newest PC is still there.

Write-up when he entered the school system

For now, life is still as edgy as life in the streets. We are just some notches above the people who live in the streets and living/fighting day to day for our son who has autism. I, for one, has been his very vocal advocate. I have never stopped believing in his capacities and capabilities as a person since I made a terrible mistake when he was still in potty training. It turned out, I was just not that patient with him in the success of potty training. I should had never doubted that he might not move away from the use of diapers/pull-ups. I was wrong. He learned fast enough once his pre-K teacher Ms. D and her school assistant also helped in the potty training for AX. He finished his pre-K with few mishaps on his pull-ups. He had successfully transitioned to wearing underwear when he was in K. Since this incident, I have promised him that I will always believe in him and that has never failed. There are times that I felt spending too much time researching/studying/learning/writing about autism. However, I am still able to care for his two younger siblings. I just find time-crunching when all three have many school assignments. I really have no qualms about school assignments. I just hope they do a lot of school work @ school since the kids spend 6 hours there.

Update @ 13 years of age

 Below is part of my comment to a mother with a son who has autism in his mid-20s.

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I am trying to track down the transformation of my son when he was still so young going up to his current age because I want him to function as normal as possible just like us. I have not given up that idea. Hence, I taught him and still am teaching him from academics to life skills. He goes to a school in a classroom for children with LLD. However, the school right now wants to kick him out to a Multiply-Disabled and/or ABA classroom. Well, I am still fighting that. It seems like that students with autism in NJ are usually being just prepared for life skills so I can not understand the fact that NJ has best schools for children with autism. I want kids to learn, be taught and be knowledgeable to prepare them for life but I saw also in one of your videos that you did not like the idea of teaching him how to use the seat belt and how to open the car as he might bolt out. I understand the issues for some people who have a tendency to elope but sometimes, teaching them what should be done over and over, they will surely get it into their heads. Well, I believe so much in children or adults with autism that they can function like us if we and the people around them just give them the chance to learn. Learning is a lifelong process for all people. We constantly learn things, if we do not, then life can be boring and useless. Somehow, I am still full of hopes no matter what happens but of course, at the back of my mind, there are still worries of what will happen when he grows up and such. Then, I reminded myself back when I was young, even though, there were no apparent disabilities in me and with my siblings, we were extremely poor. I would worry so much where we will get our next food, if we will be able to go to college. Life is always uncertain and that makes it interesting for we can devise what we will do next if one fails or is not what we expected. I know, there is still a long road ahead but I try not to think of it too much so it will take its own course.