AUTISM CHILD BEHAVIOR

In March I spoke at the Thompson Teachers Association conference and also a playgroup here in town called Sprouts , then I went to Winnipeg to speak at the annual conference for Manitoba Association of Christian Homeschools . All were incredibly rewarding as I always enjoy speaking from my heart and spreading awareness.

Then , this month, I made the cross - country trek to British Columbia for the Autism Vancouver Biennial Congress  where I met some absolutely amazing people including Stephen Shore, Karen Simmons, Keri Bowers, Kelly LeBrock, William Shaw, David Kirby, Jerry Newport and my personal hero ... the amazing Eustacia Cutler (mother of Temple Grandin). All of these big names in the cause for Autism are inspirational, humble, hilarious and totally approachable.
- I had breakfast with Stephen Shore one morning before we walked to the conference centre together and I laughed almost the entire way thanks to his wit.One of my favorite memories of him (besides his incredible lectures) was when he told me he was pretty sure all dogs had ADHD whereas cats were Autistic! This had me giggling most of the way to Centre.
- I sat with Eustacia Cutler in the food court of the Vancouver Convention centre and I was able to tell her (through tears) how she is THE reason I decided to dream big in terms of advocacy for Autism (Thanks to the award winning Movie made about her and Temple) and her book (Thorn in My Pocket) has inspired me to believe my kids can do anything if I don't let their labels stand in their way. I had my photo taken with her, she signed my book and gave me a big hug, telling me to "keep on trucking!".
- After schmoozing with some of the organizers at the Friday evening Gala, I was able to help organize the "after party" (with Diana Graling) at the Railway Club in downtown Vancouver (since I had spent a couple evenings there already listening to AMAZING live music while enjoying good food) and this is where I got to know Keri Bowers and Scott Flukinger and was even more inspired to keep on advocating and doing whatever I could to bring resources to the families that need it most.

I can't even begin to describe all the lectures I took in since they were all so amazing! I am still waiting for the DVD set of all the sessions to arrive but I will direct you to all the free PDF's of the sessions HERE. 
I want to dedicate individual posts to the lectures I took in , to do the information justice , so stay tuned :)

I recorded every session on my iPhone so once I figure out how to upload them (and seek permission to share them) I will try to get them to the people who need them most.

Since the conference I have been in regular contact with Karen Simmons (CEO of AutismToday ) as we try to plan a conference in the Prairies.

Diet Changes
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It was thanks to the Vancouver Conference that Jason and I decided to finally give the GFCF diet a real try. We had heard about it and even considered it before now but when I saw all the research on the effectiveness I knew we had to see for ourselves.

You can see information about the diet via the tab at the top of my website but here I want to share the differences we've already seen ... in less then a week.


We started the diet slow by replacing our favorite foods with GFCF alternatives and then giving away the items we wouldn't be using. We decided to put everybody on the same diet for 2 reasons : 1) it couldnt hurt to have us eat a little healthier 2) We didnt want to deal with explaining to Avery and Colin that there were foods in the house that they werent allowed to have.
We are all taking a liquid Calcium w/ Vit D supplement in the mornings and will likely add more as we see if there are any reactions to the diet.

day 1 and 2 on the diet were hard on Avery's energy levels. He was really lethargic and wasn't interested in focusing on the ABA sessions or eating. the research I did said this was a normal reaction to the Gluten and Casein exiting his system.
By day 3 he was energetic and actually gave us more eye contact and said a few things we had never heard him say before :
" I want this" (while holding a package of rice cakes) ,
"Colin, come here." (while motioning with his hand for Colin to follow him).
 then he started to make up a story about some of his favorite characters from a movie and a PS3 game, completely unprompted " Ratatouille, Funky Lab rats and Avery went to ....." then he started to trail off into mumbling and wouldnt repeat it. His ABA tutor (Lindsy) and I were shocked with all these sudden attempts at communication -- unprompted and not from things he had heard before! He was making up his own ideas of how to share what was going on in his head.

Day 4 is when Colin started to go through the withdrawel of the Gluten and Casein exiting his system. He was lethargic, very moody and complained of a constant head ache to the point of tears. He had interest in eating but not much else.
Avery, however, blew our minds with the following interaction between him and his father:
Avery had stolen a toy from one of his brothers and despite repeatedly being told, by his dad, to return it, he kept ignoring the direction. Jason disciplined him and while they were hugging afterwards, Jason said "You need to listen when daddy tells you to give it back". To which Avery looked into Jason's eyes and said "Daddy.... I'm sorry." Jason jumped back and told him to repeat what he said and then Avery said it a second time. At this point Jason crumbled into tears at the realization that this was the first time Avery had told us how he felt without just repeating what somebody else told him to say. It was incredible to say the least!

On that note I leave you all to do your own research on the GFCF diet and I will update again soon as we continue to work all the Gluten and Casein out of our diets.

Thank you for reading this looonnnng post :)