Autism Spectrum Disorder
CJ was diagnosed at three years old with Autism. The chart up above shows the symptoms shown with Autism. CJ had almost all of them at three years old. Thanks to extrensive therapy, which was every day of the week for him, he's over come an extremely large amount of those symptoms.
Like most Autistic babies, CJ couldn't stand being held sometimes. He cried often and only the infant swing seemed to help at all. The one wind up swing we were given finally broke from lots of use and I ended up purchasing a baby operated swing. After CJ outgrew all the baby stuff, a friend from work found out her daughter was soon to be a mom of twins. She and her family had helped us out after my husband passed on. She and I worked together at Walmart. I passed on the baby swing, the two bouncers we had gotten, a high chair, and goodness knows what else. They inturn really helped them out.
Autistic children have trouble standing still, and as many have seen..in CJ's earlier days he was in almost constant motion. He also didn't talk until he was four years old. The most I'd get out of him was baby babble (expressive jargon). He also delt with Sensory Intagration problems. He went through therapy for that. Now he tolerates clothing and baths well where before it was so over whelming to him, sensory wise, that all he would do was literally scream during a bath. CRD, Center For Rehab And Developement, really helped this kid out. He was into speech therapy 5 times a week, and while there he recieved physical therapy and occupational therapy for the sensory dissorders. When angry CJ was also known to slam his entire body again the metal door in the apartment we used to live in. Thank goodness for strong fire metal front doors. As a baby he would bang his head on his pillow when he was sleepy. He would also self stim by jumping from his wooden toy chest onto his knees. This hurt me just to watch him, but to CJ the joint compreession actually felt good. After going through sensory intagration therapy, this soon ceased as well.
He still self limits on foods. That's one therapy I want to look into as I think there is one to help desensitize the mouth to over stimulation. Anyways, it's a never ending search for information and new resources.
The form of Autism CJ has is Asperger's Syndrome. Most with Asperger's will seem like little professors in whatever subject that their obcession is in that week. Obcessions with CJ have lasted for years. It's amazing just how much their brains can hold.
At three years old CJ decided he liked my human anatomy book that I had used in Nurse's Aid class. He would literally carry that book, twice his size, up the stairs. I was afraid he'd fall with it. Luckily, I found a CD rom for the computer when Hill's store was still in business. They had some of their computer games on sale for $1. That sounded good to me. I purchased him a CD called "Body Works" which shows in 3D the inside body parts. The subject can be moved in many directions and angles. They also had a "dr" like person in the program to tell you everything you could want to know about what the body does. CJ would set for hours on end almost everyday absorbing everything that this holigraphic dr. could tell him. That was his obcession up until a year ago. He never ceases to amaze me in how much knowledge he can hold.
Now his latest obcession is a cartoon called the Transformers. It's robots that can change into things, cars, animals,planes, etc. You should see his toyshelf. It's now lined with Transformer toys from Christmas.