AUTISM CHILD BEHAVIOR

In a previous post I discussed some issues and research on Autism and Aggression.
I wanted to update you briefly on my findings with Avery:

First issue is that Avery suffers from gastrointestinal issues (no need to share details on a public post) which I have found is extremely common with children on the Autism Spectrum. I am determined to research this connection more as there is plenty of studies discussing this issue.
As you can imagine, this would play a major part in how his mood is when he is uncomfortable so we are trying some dietary changes to see if that helps at all. Taking away his dairy would be like telling him not to run so I'm gonna save that option for last and hope something else helps.

Second issue is that Avery likes routine. We have meal times that we generally stick to (730am, noon and 530pm) so if it ever wavers he gets not only frustrated but confused. A big part of his refusal to eat, it seems, was because we had daddy home for meals for the first time in a long time (he traveled a lot over the last 4 years) --- which equals change ---- but we also were getting kinda lazy about meal times. SO instead of Avery thinking "oh  boy I'm hungry , when are we eating?" he thought "if I can't eat at the right time, i"m not eating at all!"

Once I did some trials of different foods and different times (and no snacking or eatable reinforcers in ABA) I could clearly see that he just wanted us to stick to a familiar routine and be mindful of how change is hard for him.
Problem solved! --- for now anyway! :)

on a unrelated topic (I didnt feel like writing a whole new post ) we have added a dog to our family that we are adopting from the Humane Society. Since this blog is about Autism I wanted to point out that the calming effect the dog has had on Avery and Colin , in just one week, is so neat to see! Colin is showing empathy and trying to figure out what she needs (a hard skill for kids on the spectrum) and Avery is showing communication attempts when he thinks the dog is "talking" too much . Its quite funny (and reasurring) to hear him say things that we usually say to him like "Say it once" or "calm down" and to know he understands the goal behind these requests.

A future post will be discussing different Apps by Apple (for iphone, ipod and ipad) that are designed with the Autistic child in mind.