Coping with Autism

I've finally gotten around to moving the copingwithautism blog over to WordPress. Unlike my politics blog, this is currently a WordPress.com blog. At some point I hope to purchase a web address for it and have it set up for independent hosting but at this point WordPress.com is a start. The new address is copingwithautism.wordpress.com .

I apologize for being far more inconsistent than I thought! The last post here was in February(!) and so much has happened since. Nathan improves daily and we have seen an explosion in speech, pretend play and social skills. We suspect that he will always have some autistic characteristics but he is doing very well. Peter is improving too! While his speech abilities are still on the level of a maybe a 2-year old, he is using pronouns correctly about 75 percent of the time and he is beginning to use adjectives in describing things such as, "I want water, cold water. I want cold water." (This was a request just from this week.) We also went to Disney World again this year and I will post more on this later today or tomorrow. Nathan's birthday is Monday and I want to write more about how excited he is about this as well as his requests for toys and such for his birthday presents.

I'm hoping that over the next few weeks I will be able to convert this blog to a WordPress Blog also. I did that with my politics blog and love what I am able to do in WordPress. If I am able to do the update, this blog with stay up for at least a year to redirect everyone to the new site.

The spinning top I bought for Peter was a huge hit but it couldn't hold up to his abuse and was destroyed inside of a week. He kept it around as long as he could but when it fell apart, it was basically shaped sheet metal so there were sharp edges that prevented us from keeping it past a certain point of destruction. But Peter did love it. Nathan, of course, loved just about everything he received. The light saber/swords I bought broke within the first week also but the boys continued to play with them anyway. Nathan loved a put-it-together-yourself Handy Manny toy and still carries it around from time to time. Nathan's newest obsession is R2-D2. I bought them the LEGO Star Wars game for the Wii for Christmas and Nathan is head over tails for R2-D2. Now he wants R2-D2 this and R2-D2 that. He even wants to build one a life-size working robot (uh, no, not happening--too expensive).

More evidence is coming out about Oxytocin as a possible treatment for autism. I don't want to use the word "cure" because I think a healthy dose of optimism should be tempered with a healthy dose of caution. The Washington Post reported on the story today. Oxytocin is also known as the pleasure hormone because we release under certain cirmcumstances. It's also released by a mother's body during delivery because it causes muscle contractions. I think for some children it could be a great help. I know my son Peter engages in all kinds of stimming activities and if we could calm those down and get him to focus, he is capable of so much more. He's already reading and doing well in school. His teachers and therapists all agree that his speech and focus are his biggest challenges. Oxytocin has the potential to help with eye contact and possibly even stimming. There is hope!