Autism

[sahib]

Now he'll only eat french fries, spaghetti, and lo mein noodles! We're working on pizza, and then we'll start with vegetables. We are in an intensive feeding program with him.

My son was the same. Although we managed to get him eat bananas and apples the breakthrough came when my sister took a year off from her lecturing job and came to Glasgow to look after him. Slowly she introduced him to Turkish food which is mostly based on vegetables. He now eats even brussel sprouts, and you know how difficult it is. The joke goes like this;

What's the difference between snotter and brussel sprouts?

You could not get your children eat brussel sprouts even if you kill them.

Keep working on him.

 

[Svart]

I don't condone encouraging someone to believe that their child has a condition simply because he likes the same food as someone who has a known condition... 

 

[sahib]

I take it you are making a general statement and not implying my or riggler's post as there is no such encouragement in either of them.

This is about a child being selective on certain types of food products and you have to work on him/her to acquire taste for different types, particularly the fruit and vegetable which are very important part of our diet.

 

[riggler]

She has seen a huge number of foreign autistic children who have never had a vaccination until they enroll in the school(by law they have to be vaccinated).  A number of which have brothers/sisters or other family members that are autistic as well.  This can either prove that autism can be spread in families which gives it a genetic background(which they've already proven genetic tendencies long ago just like any other mental disability) but also proves that the instances of autism can't be vaccinations at least in these cases.  I'd say that 75% of her class is now from immigrant families and did not receive vaccinations before.

Svart, now there is something concrete! Thank you for this.

Also, we do use a lot of cleaners in our house. My daughter eats "normally". Interestingly, on your asthma point, my son has asthma....

We all do the best we can. Was great, yesterday was a good day, he tried playing baseball yesterday and was very conversational. He's been talking a lot more to his sister, which is a big step.

 

[Svart]

Sahib, it was not a personal remark, you just reminded me of a point that I wanted to make earlier. 

I've just seen parents take things like the picky-ness of their child to have more significance than it really deserves.  Unfortunately I have also seen parent's succumb to the wills of the child to only eat what he/she likes all the while claiming that it's because of some condition when really it's just the kid wanting what he/she likes to eat.  One of the children in my mother's class would only eat jellybeans.  The parents would feed the kid jellybeans because that's the only thing the kid would actually put in her mouth.  She also had a feeding tube installed because the " mental health system" couldn't get her to eat anything else either.  If you tried to give her anything else, she would throw a tantrum which would last for quite some time.  The parents obviously would do anything to keep that from happening but as a team that has seen that and much more, time and time again, my mother and her team just wrestled through it all and found ways to "trick" this child into trying new foods.  I say "trick" but it's really less negative, this kid could see that you were going to try to feed her with something other than jellybeans and would close her mouth and tighten up like a knot!  I don't know all of the details but it involved making things look and taste like jellybeans and then lessening the amounts of sugars until the girl would eat a few more normal things.  They never did have her eating veggies and drinking milk before her family moved away but it was a good start.  In this case it was actually more of a behavior modification than anything, not only for the child but for the parents too because when they saw that it was their daughter choosing to be this way, they changed their habits too. 

Riggler: 

I've seen it first hand, children form different social bonds with other children than they do parents.  I suggest using animals as therapy too.  Autistic children always open up around animals and doing things like hippotherapy seem to really help.  It has to do with the overwhelming sensation of being around large animals it seems.  Their rhythmic movements, warmth, strong heartbeat and their sounds seem to make such an impression that brain activity goes through the roof.  I would suggest this over any pseudo-medical treatment any day.

 

[sahib]

No probs at all. I agree with what you say. I was brought up in Istanbul and my mother did not really subject us to a military like discipline. Although there was an element of our economic shortcomings to our daily diet we were left free to express ourselves. Obviously the situation is quite different now. PRR made a good point, when we were kids there was no such thing as autism. People would call you weirdo or luni if you lacked some social behaviour. Now it seems we worked all these out, put a finger on the problem but this time the kids in general are brought up in a sterile environment  which in my opinion causes more harm. Teaching is a family trade.  My elder sister lectures in architecture at a university, she is frustrated with her students' inability to make a decision. That is a result of the sterile environment that I mentioned above. From a very early age a lot of parents make the mistake of taking the decision making mechanism from their kids into their own hands. And if the kid happens to be somewhere in even mild autistic spectrum what chance he/she got?

My late aunt was also a teacher in a primary school for kids with special needs. We are talking about kids that were labelled as simply mentally disturbed, or mad. She used to work on them for a whole five year, and by the end their intelligence level would eventually come up to equal primary one. But they would start to read and write. Very hard work.

 

[Flatpicker]

My very dear & close friend Judy Lynne has an autistic daughter and has published a couple of books on the subject - "Heartfelt Thoughts from Mothers" and "Heartfelt Thoughts from Fathers". Anyone interested can purchase them straight from her.  http://www.autismthoughts.com/