Taking the Awe out of Autism

Here's my monthly contribution to Hopeful Parents . I hate to break it to you, but your preschooler watching Sponge Bob Square Pants that's not a good thing.  Your cute little child that is now sitting in front of the TV screen will one day turn into a teenager that will want to watch You Tube and anime movies all day. I remember the days when Jacob was little.  Such a beautiful boy and such challenging behaviors.  His bright blue eyes beautifully accentuated his golden blonde hair.  But that sweet angelic face masked the challenges that lie within his small little body.  I look at pictures of him when he had just turned 5 and I remember thinking back then that he if only he wasn't so challenging, if he could just do what people told him to do, maybe he could give modeling or acting a try.  The behaviors caused by his autism prevented that from even being a remote possibility, but I've never let that bother me.  Jacob is a terrific young man who will find his way

S orry I've been away, but I'm really focused on opening the College Internship Program in Long Beach.  Here is my monthly contribution to  Hopeful Parents. It's a quiet Sunday night. My husband is in the studio making music, me in front of the computer on the night my Hopeful Parent contribution is due, and Jacob is in his room building Bionacle figures.  He really enjoys doing this by himself in his room, and he spends a lot of time doing this and watching TV.   I've never really paid much attention to his hobby, until tonight. This is the first time I've sat down and watched him build his creations, and he really surprised me at how good he is.  His pallet of Bionacle pieces is a combination of I don't know how many kits that have been purchased by me or gifted to Jacob over the yars.  He knows the exact piece he wants, then he finds it in the large plastic bin that stores his vast collection of Bionacle pieces in all colors, shapes, and sizes

My monthy contribution to Hopeful Parents Jacob loves to stay at home and hang out with me.  He has great appreciation for inappropriate TV shows (think Southpark, Family Guy or The Boondocks), and one of his favorite things for us to do together is watch one of his DVDs or stream one of his shows online.  I actually think these shows are pretty funny, and I manage a chuckle or two during each episode.  His buddies also like the shows, so it gives him a socially appropriate reference point with peers. As nice as it is that my son enjoys my company, I am so ready form him to transfer his in-person social connection to someone his own age.  For young men like Jacob, those that are higher-funcioning on the autism spectrum but not so high functioning when it comes to social-connectedness, it's perfectly natural to hang out with the family.  A fun Friday night for Jacob is for me to make popcorn, order a pizza from our favorite pizzeria, and watch one of his preferred movies like

Waited until the last minute AGAIN to write my contribution to HOPEFUL PARENTS  & here it is   One of the things that I deal with a lot is Jacob's appearance. He's what I call a "shulb", always content to wear the same wrinkled t-shirt and sweatpants with holes in the knees.  He likes to limit his shaving to once a week.  His hygiene is pretty good, but he usually uses as little toothpaste as possible and almost every morning he asks me to smell his hair to see if it needs washing.  He's a nice looking young man, but I sometimes I think of how he could have movie-star good looks if only he'd work out and shop for some cool clothes. Jacob and I have been enrolled in a program called  Relationship Development Intervention  for a few years now, and I absolutely love it.  It has really helped to remove the conflicts that used to be common between us.  With the help of our RDI consultant, Chris Mulligan, I learned that I was constantly telling Jacob wh

This was my monthly contribution to Hopeful Parents . If you didn't hear anything about Autism Awareness this past week, you must have been living in a cave somewhere in Pakistan with Osama Bin Laden.   You definitely don't watch TV.  You probably don't have a Facebook page.  And you probably don't know anyone with autism, though that is rare nowadays.  With the CDC estimate of 1 out of 110 individuals (it's closer to 1 out of 90 for boys, and in New Jersey it's closer to 1 out of 84), it's pretty much 1 degree of autism separation.  There is a very high liklihood that you are a parent, a sibling, an aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, neighbor, co-worker or classmate of someone on the autism spectrum.  You might just be married to someone with autism, which would explain your spouse's brilliant and quirky mind as well as his eccentric and sometimes difficult behaviors.  The United Nations General Assembly declared April 2 as World Autism Awa

T his post was originally published on April 6, 2011   as a featured article for Autism Awareness  at   Moms LA . April is Autism Awareness month, and it’s been amazing to see the amount of awareness that there is today. Autism Speaks has been heading up this campaign, and I must say they have done a super job of spreading the word. They helped shine a light on autism by ‘Lighting it Blue’ on over 1,000 buildings around the world. I’ve been inundated with autism awareness on my Facebook page by some of my favorite Facebook friends (and they know who they are!). I’m a huge LA Clippers fan, and the announcers even talked about autism during the game on April 2nd against the Oklahoma Thunder. The Clips won too. Chalk that one up to autism empowerment! When my son was first diagnosed in 1997, I was anything but aware. Jacob’s behaviors were challenging, but he wasn’t anything like the character in Rainman. Jacob could talk.  He played with other kids. He could be a handful, but nothing ab

April is the officially Autism Awareness Month.  Autism Speaks helped shine a light on autism by "Lighting it Blue' on over 1,000 buildings around the world.  I've received lots of information on my Facebook page.  Celebrities are helping to spread the word as well. But, every family that is touched by autism, awareness is not limited to one month out of the year.  For us, autism awareness is a constant state of being, something you wake up to every morning and go to sleep with every night.  To say that we're aware of autism feels to me like a bit of an understatement.  It's more like we're constantly reminded of autism.  All the time. In the 13 years since Jacob was diagnosed, I have been reminded of autism in many, many different ways. When he lined up his Thomas the Tank Engine trains up in a neat row, train after train after train. When he ignored the entertainment at a birthday party and retreated to quietness of the host's bedroom. When he

Here's my monthly contribution to Hopeful Parents . I entered into this parent thing with no real preconceived notions or expectations.  When I was a teenager, I babysat the neighbors kids every once in a while, but I never really had an experience with infants and children younger than 6 or 7.  I was one of the first of my group of friends to have a child, so I didn't get to hang around many Moms and their sons and daughters.  I was not one to plot out my future, so I never had a master plan how many children I wanted or what age I would conceive. Having a child is something that my ex-husband and I decided we wanted, and I got pregnant on the first try. So after we made this decision, it happened very easily and very quickly. Having Jacob is something I've never regretted.  He'll be 18 this September, so he'll be a legal adult with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with it, and, oh boy, is that a scary thought.  He's not graduating from

I have been so busy lately that my blog as been neglected.  I do miss it, but my post this month of Hopeful Parents will explain why. I so enjoy being a monthly contributor to Hopeful Parents.  The depth of talent of my fellow writers is truly awesome.  Each entry is a unique expression, and the moving stories I read each and every day never cease to impress upon me how fortunate I am to be included with such an amazing group of writers.  Christina Shaver is our founder, and she has done an amazing job creating this wonderful site.  I'm sure everyone the entire Hopeful Parents community feels the same I'm well aware of the challenges faced by our young adults on the spectrum.  An overwhelming majority do not transition into to happy, successful, and productive members of their communities.  Many are not employed, do not live independently, and do not have a network of close friends and personal relationships.  This is true across the board, no matter what the family'

Over the holidays, our household experienced some mild upheaval but it all ended happily ever after. Right before Christmas, a huge tree in our backyard feel on and took out the lines for our Verizon Fios internet, cable and home telephone lines.  It had been raining heavily over the previous week, and the tree was dead enough and the tree's root system week enough that all it took was a massive amount of rain and down the tree came.  Luckily, no on was hurt and the broken fence will eventually be replaced.   Verizon sent a rep came out to inspect the damage the following Monday.  The only way to enter our backyard is through a gate that is secured with a padlock, and when the Verizon rep left, he didn't close the lock so the gate was left open. Just to give you an idea of how cute my doggies are, here is a pic  - Lucy is on the right & Ringo is on the left. About 6:30 that night, right after I had discovered I'd lost my cell phone, Doug tells me "I can