Welcome to the TAC (Timberdoodle’s Autism Center) blog!
Welcome to the TAC (Timberdoodle’s Autism Center) blog! Since God used Krissy to introduce us to the world of autism, it seems appropriate to begin this blog by telling you a little about her.
Krissy is the daughter of dear friends of ours. She was diagnosed with autism at age 2. Despite participation in various early interventions through the public school system, she made agonizingly slow progress. At 5 years old, she finally began to talk, and at 6 had developed a large vocabulary words, but was still primarily echoic with lots of self-stimulating scripting. Before her 8th birthday, she was on heavy doses of antipsychotic drugs to combat anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, OCD and self-injurious behavior.
That summer of 2005 we borrowed Krissy for a month, both to give her family a much-needed break, and to try her with basic ABA therapy and the gluten free/casein free diet. We really fell in love with Krissy that summer, but we also began to realize how much more there was to learn about autism!
Despite our inexperience, Krissy began to learn. The gf/cf diet seemed to have a minimal impact on her, but our constant efforts at ABA had immediate results. By the end of that month she was able to answer yes and no questions.
She had developed some imitation skills, both immediate “do this” and delayed imitation such as showing us happy, sad, surprised, tired… faces. She learned to listen better, and that she needed to obey simple instructions like “come!” We started her on phonics, and were thrilled to see it making sense to her. Krissy had superb gross motor skills, but lacked fine motor skills, so we worked at that as well.
When Krissy first came, she was afraid of getting water on her head. Because of that, she was afraid of learning to swim, and timid in the water. We live on a lake and so we made it a point to work with her on that. We modeled playing in the lake, and had her earn her water toys by doing various simple pre-swimming exercises. By the time she left, she was obviously enjoying herself at the lake. She loved imitating the way others jumped into the water, and liked simply floating around in her inner tube, watching what the other swimmers were doing. We worked at using every opportunity to build communication skills, especially because at this point her primary means of communication was screaming.
At the end of our month, we sent her back home, in time for school. While her teachers noticed and appreciated the progress we’d made with her, because of class size they were simply unable to make progress at the same rate.
Meanwhile Krissy’s needs had sparked a real interest in our lives here, and we attended as many classes as we could. In our spare time, we read every autism book we could get our hands on. We studied technical manuals about the fine-tuned implementation of specific programs. We also kept up with current debates about the effectiveness of ABA vs. RDI, or the differences between PRT, DTT and VBA; and we became familiar with a completely new vocabulary: mands, tacts, SD’s, prompts, and so on.
By the spring of 2006, we were ready to try again. In all of our research, we had come upon a distance education program that intrigued us. It was 16 weeks long, and involved not only independent study but also video reviews, where we would videotape ourselves working with Krissy and send in the tape for an evaluation. We e-mailed Krissy’s family with the details, praying that God would direct them in their answer. We received back a one-word e-mail: Hallelujah!
Krissy joined us in May, and quickly began learning. During the summer, with her physician’s support and skepticism, we were able to wean her completely off both antipsychotic drugs, while seeing dramatic improvements in her behavior. (Just as a side note, we were completely prepared to leave her on the meds had she needed them. Our goal was simply to be sure that she was at the minimum dose she needed.)
We learned much more than we had expected through our course. Krissy progressed rapidly too, which was both encouraging and surprising, considering that she was already almost nine - long past the so often stated, “Critical age of 2-5 years old.” Best of all, God worked in our hearts and Krissy became a beloved part of our family during that time, despite the exhaustion that comes with caring for an autistic child. We saw this heart change as a true gift from God, beyond what we could have imagined.
As the end of the course neared, we found that we were grieved to think of sending her home (out of state). God worked this out for us too, and we are honored that her parents continue to share her with us to this day. Currently she goes back and forth about every two weeks, giving her what we hope is the best of both worlds.
Over time I hope to detail some of the progress we’ve seen in the past year, how we’ve gotten there and the laughter Krissy has brought to our house.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Incredible story. What a blessing you have been! What is the name of the 16 week program that you used?
God bless,
Amanda
June 5th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Congrats on your progress. But keep trying to keep Krissy’s diet ‘clean’. And by that I mean clean of artificial flavors or colors or preservatives like BHA, BHT, or TBHQ. That would be the first step I would recommend to any parent who finds their child not fully ready to learn. Those chemicals can be overwhelming to a little body and years of parental experience are available to back the up at feingold.org
June 5th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Incredible is an understatement! God bless you as you serve Him in this new area!
June 5th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I’ve sometimes thought about how much “easier” my life would be if my son weren’t autistic. But God has brought about so many positive changes in me through dealing with my son’s autism, and my son is so amazing and wonderful, that I don’t really regret what we’ve gone through (although I do regret how hard life has been for my son, but I have to leave that in God’s hands).
Currently, at age 11, my son is nearly “recovered” from autism (most people don’t know he was ever diagnosed w/it) as a result of biomedical interventions. It has taken us 7 years of hard work and persistence and God’s direction and blessing to get to this point. I know that biomed may not be the answer for every child w/autism, but I wanted to point out that it’s MUCH more complex and involved than just the GFCF diet–that is only one small piece of the puzzle. And even if the diet didn’t seem to produce results for Krissy, she (and others) may benefit from other biomed therapies. Check out the National Autism Association (NAA) and the Autism Research Institute (ARI) for lots of helpful info.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:53 am
What a beautiful direction God has instituted in your lives. May He give you all greater grace!
June 6th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Hi! I have been receiving your catalog and confidently purchasing your products for years now. It is such a blessing to read your comments, because knowing that you are coming from a conservative stand point, as do my family and I, makes the decisions easier. It is such a blessing to see your ministry expanding in the area of autism. I do not have any children with autism, but do have a friend with a son who was recently diagnosed with autism. I am sure that the products you offer in this area are going to be the best out there, because that’s just how you are.
I do have a question however. What is the link, if any, between autism and vaccinations?? My children are currently unvaccinated, but due to a recent scare, my husband and I are seriously reconsidering our decision. My only concern is the “supposed” link to autism. Any informatin on this would be greatly appreciated.
Keep up the good work!
June 9th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I have a 3-year old son who has been diagnosed with Autism and I am starving for godly information about this whole issue. One book that was recommended to me and that I thought was fantastic is called “Too Wise To Be Mistaken, Too Good To Be Unkind: Christian Parents Contend With Autism” by Cathy Steere. Tedd Tripp wrote the intro, if that gives you an idea of the quality of the book. I think it should be the first book any Christian parent reads when they find out their child is autistic.
After that, I’m kind of stuck. I wasn’t impressed with the author’s choice of therapy and, frankly, I’m terrified to take on the responsibility of homeschooling an autistic child. If there are any homeschoolers in Kitsap or Mason County, I would love to talk with you!
Thank you, Timberdoodle, for taking on the issue of autism from a godly perspective!
July 10th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
As a longtime Timberdoodle customer, and a parent of a child with autism, I was interested to see this forum open up. I have a couple of comments to make, particularly to Julie and Jessica. First of all, Julie, I’ll climb on my soapbox for a minute about autism and vaccines. When my son was diagnosed with Asperger’s, I asked my pediatrician about the possible links, and he said that there was enough anecdotal evidence, that if I chose not to vaccinate my successive children, he would be willing to back me up on that decision. I felt this was rather telling, and began to read. Here’s what I’ve concluded after 10 years of studying and reading. Take this with a grain of salt, please. I do believe there is a correlation between the vaccines and autism. I think there is an issue with the Thimerosol, which they used for years to preserve the vaccines. It contains mercury, so your child is (was) receiving an injection of mercury with each shot. They have since removed this from most of the vaccines, but older supplies still exist. Ask to see the bottle that your child will receive. Also, when you take a child into the pediatrician or the Board of Health, they want to turn them into pincushions. What I did with my kids was to vaccinate slowly. I do truly believe vaccines are necessary, since the diseases they prevent are killers. However, my children would only receive 1 shot per visit, and only after they were older than 6 months, and sometimes older than 2, depending on the shots. (MMR in particular.) And no combination shots, other than the standard DPT/MMR ones. In our state, you have to sign for each shot that is administered, and I went head to head with various people, with people threatening to call Children’s Services, since I was refusing to sign for any more shots. I finally found someone who would honestly listen to what I was saying, and was willing to go to bat for me with the slow-vaccination route. I would definitely encourage you to vaccinate your children though.
Jessica, about being terrified of homeschooling an autistic child- I find he is my most fascinating child to homeschool. It’s amazing to try to figure out how his brain works. You are obviously coming from a Christian perspective, judging from the books you are reading, so let me say this. Your son is still your son. He still has his same issues and personality quirks that he had before you got the diagnosis. They just have a name now. Let the dust settle from the diagnosis, and then take a deep breath and re-evaluate. One of the things I discovered was things I thought were behavioral issues for him, were actually sensory, or beyond what he could process at that time. He wasn’t being disobedient, he was being autistic. Does that make sense at all?
If you believe that God has hand-picked each of our children, and placed them specially in our families, then I just have to trust He knows what He’s doing, giving me a child with autism. (And the one with Dyslexia too!) I will say it’s made me a much better parent.
I have spend the last 10 years of that boy’s life pushing him outside his comfort zone, and I can’t tell you how much that has helped him. We don’t have any more issues with transitioning. And it gets much easier as they get older, and can start to somewhat articulate what’s wrong. One of the things I’ve found is that they are missing small but vital pieces of information you never dreamed that you would have to teach a child. For example, did you know that you actually can go to 4H in your swimming trunks?
This small piece of information was the missing link that led to one of the more spectacular screaming fits my son has had. Not something I ever dreamed I’d have to teach a child.
I’d encourage you to also check out some of the secular books that have been on the market for years- the ‘best’ book, I think, is the one by Tony Attwood, about Asperger’s and autism. Also the Out-Of-Sync Child books are good. Also I just finished reading 10 Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew. There are good resources out there, they just may not come from a Christian perspective. Take the good from them, and leave the rest.
Sorry for the long post!
July 10th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Can anyone tell me exactly how your child was diagnosed with Autim. I have begun seeking to find out about my three year old son, but I do not know how I know for sure. I would like to be able to help him if he does have a learning disability. Lynn commented that her son” wasn’t being disobedient, he was being autistic”, I am starting to wonder the same thing about my son. I would appreciate any advice given.Thanks!
July 11th, 2007 at 3:58 am
I do not have an autistic child. I do have a heart for children and families with autism, however. You have made my heart glad at your acts of service and putting the information out so others will be encouraged as well. I believe you will see much good fruit, fruit that lasts come from your efforts, just as you have in home education. May Christ continue to be the power and the point of all you do. Each and every member of your family. God bless, Maria in St Augustine
July 11th, 2007 at 11:00 am
While having a diagnosis will not change your son, early therapy can make a huge difference in your son’s life. If there is any chance that he does have autism, it is worth researching that thoroughly now, for his benefit.
Here is a list of red flags to read through: http://www.firstsigns.org/healthydev/milestones.htm
And here is a chart of typical development:
http://www.firstsigns.org/healthydev/milestones.htm
After reading them, you may find that nothing applies to him – or that you do indeed have reason to be concerned. If you continue to be concerned about him, you will want to talk to his physician about your concerns. The MD should be able to get him further testing.
If there is any way I can be of assistance to you, please don’t hesitate to email me at autismcenter@timberdoodle.com
August 1st, 2007 at 12:25 am
What a blessing this article and the rest of the wonderful comments have been to me…i have a son who is undergoing occupational therapy right now and I was badly in need of some resources and advice from christian perspective…I am just so overwhelmed and so joyful right now with all these information at hand…thank you so much!!God Bless yall…
August 9th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Thanks for tackling this subject. I am working with a teenage autistic girl on Sundays and was looking for good Christian information on what to do with her. She is very audio/visual. Loves playing music or videos over and over. Traditional Sunday School methods won’t work with her. And new information is hard to introduce. I’m looking forward to gleaning from the information obtained from this site and some of the blogs left here. Again, thank you for all the time and effort in putting this all together.
In Christ alone!!!
September 7th, 2007 at 6:43 am
A fascinating book about autism and other “incurable” diseases is “Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy” by Amy Lansky. I do not have an autistic child (the author did, however), but I found this book enormously helpful for other reasons. The author offers a lot of easy-to-understand information, stories of real people, and the account of her quest to find help for her son. We have found, in our family, that homeopathy can be a wonderful healing tool. God created our bodies to work in miraculous ways, very few of which we truly understand. Classical homeopathy supports the body’s effort to heal itself. Of course, perfect health is never assured, for perfection is for Heaven alone.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:44 am
i just love little autistic kids. They is so cute. I thinks they is cute because I have one named Rachel. She is a doll. All the boys love her. They love katie too.They love her blond hair.