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Autistic kids and CM
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Do any of you have advice for using CM with autistic children? My dd is newly diagnosed with PDD-NOS and has good speech and is bright, but has many autistic characteristics as well. I’ve heard that CM is great for autistic kids, so was wondering how you all use this with them? Thanks!
I could use some advice as well. I have a 10 year old son that was diagnosed with autism. I use CM with him and my 13 year old son. I do LOT of reading out loud to him. He is unable to narrate in any form so I have no proof that he is taking any of this in. I just have faith that it is making a difference. Of course, I do other
non-CM work with… just teaching him the names of household objects; how to call his grandma, etc, on the phone. But he is agreeable to lessons and sits and listens nicely. I only began homeschool for the first time in the fall of this year so I don’t have any other great experience to share with you. I’m looking forward with you to hearing from those with more experience.
Angie in KY
We’ve used several aspects of CM with our daughter — more in recent years. Let me first say that, Angie, your faith is not misplaced. I read to Hannah for five years after she was diagnosed and unable to give me any feedback. It’s only been this year that she has started to narrate, one or two sentences is all, but it’s a huge deal to me!
Sounds like your situation might be different, allycat, since your dd has good speech. That will be a huge plus!
Short lessons, of course, have been helpful. And we’ve tried to include her in our family studies of picture study, music study, Scripture memory (she still won’t recite with us, but every once in a while I hear her mumble a snatch of a verse when she’s engaged in doing something else by herself), hymn study, geography/map drill (adapted a little for her abilities), and history, poetry, and literature read-alouds. Again, she gives little to no feedback, but she cooperates so I keep spreading the feast for her.
We’ve used ABA techniques to teach facts and RDI techniques to encourage social skills. And the GF/CF diet has helped a lot too. You can read more about all that over on my other Web site: Intentional Parents. Just look under the Dealing with Special Needs section.
A friend of mine, Tammy, has a wonderful blog where she documents and explains how she teaches her autistic daughter, Pamela. I’ve learned a lot from her posts, and I highly recommend her site — especially to those who like CM.
Sonya, I was so encouraged by your Intentional Parents website. The principles there reflect exactly why I chose to homeschool! I, too, had used ABA with my son, Duke, with huge success. I had never heard of the RDI so I am going to study up on that right now. I have considered the diet repeatedly but haven’t done anything so far because I believe the whole family should change to this diet. My husband is not in full support and without that I refuse to undertake such a huge endeavor. I would be fighting too many people’s flesh, and I refuse to do that. When everyone decides they want to do this, I’ll be up and running. However, I had never thought of giving my son enzymes in the meantime. I am going to start that immediately. I assume the enzymes needed are for the digestion of wheat and dairy?
Your blogs about Hannah sound so familiar!! Her narrating a sentence or two is a HUGE DEAL! It sure would be in this house! And you’re right, as hard as it is, it is also a blessing. And it has brought my family closer because we all deal with something only we understand, and no one else. (No one close to us). No one else understands why we must avoid the aisle where the magna doodles are, because my son might see one in a color he doesn’t have and scream to add another one to his “set”. No one understands the “sets” and how we’re okay with them, but not eager to start a new one.
I have been to the other site before, the Aut-2B-Home and enjoyed it, too. I will be referring to your site a lot. Thank you!
Angie in KY
The RDI people are moving heavily toward being only consultant-based, which is very expensive. If you can get ahold of the two or three books that describe the RDI concepts and give some examples, and maybe the 5-hour DVD too, you’ll have a great foundation for implementing the ideas on your own. I do love that their focus is on training the parents rather than having the consultant work with the children and bypass the parents. If you can afford to work with a consultant, that’s great! But if not, you can still learn a lot and do a lot on your own by reading and researching (as we homeschoolers know so well :-)).
RE the enzymes: Houston Nutraceuticals makes enzymes of various kinds to help with digesting various kinds of foods. The one we use, AFP Peptizyde, is formulated specifically to help break down the proteins in gluten and casein so the kids’ bodies can digest them better.
You probably already know this, but for anyone reading who doesn’t know: the theory is that many children who exhibit autistic symptoms have a problem digesting those proteins found in gluten (wheat, barley, rye) and casein (dairy). Those undigested proteins leak out of the gut and make their way to the brain where they affect it kind of like opium. Some of these kids show dramatic changes when put on a gluten-free, casein-free (GF/CF) diet — either strictly eliminating those foods and/or using the enzymes. With Hannah, the change was not dramatic, but we can tell now when she gets some gluten or casein back in her system because she “spaces out.”
One word to the wise: some children have withdrawal symptoms when the gluten and casein are first removed. Their “opium”-dependency rears its ugly head. So if Duke seems to get worse, be encouraged. It means you’re on the right track.
I had to chuckle at your description of his “sets.” I can SO identify. With Hannah, no one else understands why she gets upset if you touch her shirt. I tell ya, if a well-meaning person at church touches her shirt, we all hold our breath. 🙂 She’s getting better now thanks to the RDI ideas, but it still makes for family-unity adventure time!
Thanks for all the suggestions! I found these links as well:
(Moderator’s note: Link removed here. Please see explanation below.)
My dd is being evaluated by an RDI and Gentle Teaching consultant/psy. RDI seems to be awesome. Since much of our dd’s problems are anxiety and social issues, I think RDI is an excellent fit for her. He is really reasonably priced and usually works intensively for 6 months with you and then you only might see him once a month or so after that. I think I need someone to walk me through it and for encouragement that I don’t think I could do on my own. He has given us a lot of reassurance that I need at this point.
I’m considering doing the enzymes too, thanks for the links! Has anyone done biomedical? Our psy. recommended it to us since my dd has always had reactions to shots and had changes around the time of shots.
Your websites and info. are excellent Sonya, thanks so much!
allycat (and everyone), we highly encourage linking to other sites; however, Ambleside Online has requested that anyone linking to their site must have permission and, then, must link only to their home page. We want to honor their wishes. So I have reluctantly removed their link from your post above. I guess readers will just need to do a search on their site for “special needs.”
We adopted our DD almost 3 yrs. ago when she was shy of 4. Her pre-natal exposure was a 15 yr. old female doing alcohol, marijuana, and meth.We know the paternal donor used meth. She was removed from her home at 7 mths. due to coughing up blood again. She had been severely abused, bones broken inc. in her face, and neglected sometimes up to 4 days alone.
Anyway, at 7 mths. she began her foster journey that consisted of at least 5 homes and sexual abuse.
When we got her, she had screaming tantrums for upto 1 hr & 45min. Hitting, biting, banging her head, climbing the furniture at 3 1/2 yrs. old.
At 6 1/2 now, the screaming tantrums are gone however she’ll do the stomping (not to me) or body jerks. She’s very manipulative. She’ll lie right to your face though you were standing there watching. Then she’ll twist and turn the “truth”. We haven’t had a biting in a while, nor the head banging though she still hits her brother. When she angry she throws things and hits. Again, my DS receives all of this behavoir directed at him since they play together. She breaks things and play roughly. She frequently hurts animals, seemimgly from getting too excited and unaware of the consequences, though she loves animals. She yells at the slightest touch. I could go on and on…
I started doing research on Sensory disorders after I compared notes w/a friend w/an autistic child & there were alot of simularities. She fits into every area of disfunction of the senses. She has physical eye problems and low muscle tone. It continues to amaze me how someone so active can be so weak and easily fatigued. She misses at least 50% of what people say and mostly what she hears she misunderstands. I could go on about all areas of interacting w/her. My son gets the brunt of interacting w/her. He loves her dearly.
I know she is faking her way through life, being confused half the time and frighteningly impulsive w/her decisions and I need something more than her Speech, physical, & occupational therapy are offering, but do not know where to go now. I have an herbal treament, inc. cod liver oil and b vit. that helps w/her attention. I looked at the RDI site and it made alot of sense. Also, would the book recommended on Sonya’s site for young children be a good start? What more testing should I request of our GP? To the outsider she seems fine, but she functions only on the surface w/people.
I know deep down that there is MORE that we can offer her in training to give her what she needs for her future. I would desperately appreciate some direction.
Thank you
Have you considered post tramatic stress disorder and/or fetal alchohol syndrome? Possibly a drug syndrome as well? So sorry that your dd is having so many problems and such a terrible early start to life. Praying that you can find help for her and wisdom to know what is wrong and how to help.
Thanks for responding. I have considered the Fetal alcohol syndrome. She doesn’t exhibit the facial structure of it, however she has the low muscle tone of it. I haven’t thought of PSSD. I really don’t even know where to begin as far as testing and questions and such. It took alot just to get her current therapies approved.
We have an adhd/AI kiddo. sometimes I say ‘severe’ adhd and sometimes I say AI. also HI. But we do ‘informal’ / lone ranger / w/o a consultant RDI. You are welcome to peek at the blog. I have only blogged a bit on CM and RDI together mostly because I am new to CM and an RDI lone ranger. But I do have an inconsistent kitty and have use various forms of ‘scaffolding’ to get things working for us. I will say that I read about CM 6 years ago (Andrew was 1)….and have done various things since then but am back to where I started and have discovered as I read more of CM that I really have been doing much of it all along. RDI does fit well- however it is VERY expensive. If you can borrow the DVD it will give you a flavor although the program has had quite a bit of changes lately.
We are also gfcfsfef (gluten, soy, casein, egg free as well as no dyes and such. I have recipes and favorite foods on the blog as well.)
Feel free to leave me a comment there if you want to disucss it further off the group.
amy390, my friend Tammy is also an RDI lone ranger and has been blogging about the connections she sees between CM and RDI. I think you would enjoy her blog posts as you continue on this journey.
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