Welcome to the very first edition of Voices of #Autism and Special Needs Parenting. This something new that I'm trying out and I really hope to see it take off. Basically, I'm helping others to share their stories, experience and let their personal voice be heard. This is so important, at least in my opinion, because it helps to demonstrate the profound and dynamic difference there with #Autism, when going from person to person and family to family. Not everyone has the same experience, even with the same diagnosis. This is where #Autism Awareness, in it's current form is broken. Not enough people recognise that no two people with #Autism are the same. Far too many assumptions are made. In the first of many voices, I would like to share Brian W's…

I'm feeling really overwhelmed this morning.  To be honest, it's sorta residual stress I was feeling yesterday. This whole residential placement situation is so stressful.  If the funding board is not convinced that this is in Gavin's best interest, they won't approve funding.  If they feel that the likelihood of success is to slim, they won't approve funding.  If they feel that we should try other ideas first, so that Gavin can stay in our home, they won't approve funding.  Their goal is to do everything possible, not to remove the child from the home. What's happens if they dot approve the funding? Where will we be then? There is literally a 0% chance that we could fund this on our own. We would have to cover almost $500 per…

Today we received some concerning news in the mail. The results of Gavin's Ohio Standardized Test scores showed up.  They were really, really low.  I don't have the previous results on hand to compare but I will be talking to the school today. I'm really concerned about this because he's regressing still. I think that we have forgotten about the regression in the wake of everything else that he has going on. Having said that, we still very much need to get to the bottom of what's going on. This is extremely important and we are going to have to divert resources to finding the answers.

Something that I absolutely love to do, is help other people share their personal experience with #Autism. Sometimes the experience is that of a parent of someone with #Autism and other times it's a person with #Autism that wants to share their story. I always feel so honored that anyone would want to share of piece of their lives with not only me, but my readers as well. I think this is so important.  Lost and Tired is a place that openly embraces and accepts everyone. I know that everyone has a story and everyone has different life experience. I don't take issue with a persons personal views or opinions. For example, there is so much division in the #Autism community over things like vaccines, treatments, approaches to #Autism and even terminology. Lost…

We had a last minute appointment with wraparound this morning.  Our coordinator wanted us to meet with a family life specialist.  Forgive me is I got the title wrong. Basically, her job is to provide support for our family. Anyway, we met with her this morning and discussed everything that we we're going through with Gavin. We talked about our need for funding, in order to cover residential placement.  I'll be really honest, I think we got off on the wrong foot. She wanted to know if we had tried sensory processing therapy to treat Gavin's reactive attachment disorder.  At this point I got defensive because I was like what does that have to do with reactive attachment disorder? She told me that sensory integration was something that helps kids…

We met with Dr. Patti tonight. This time we had Gavin hang with Lizze's Mom so that we could talk to the boys. We wanted to talk to Elliott and Emmett about Gavin and the whole residential treatment thing. As the conversation went forward and we were trying to help Elliott to feel a little better about what will be happening, something really interesting happened. We were discussing why Gavin needed to move out and how his current behaviors were effecting everyone, especially Elliott and Emmett. Dr. Patti asked Elliott how he felt when Gavin was throwing a tantrum. Elliott replied by saying that it really scared him. Then the craziest thing happened. Elliott asked if he could draw a picture of how he felt. We of course, said absolutely.…

Let me introduce to you Captain Independent,  aka Emmett John. Emmett has been wanting to do everything on his own lately. His latest success has been putting himself into his carseat.  He can even do the buckles all by himself.  :-) Having said that,  it's not always a quick process.  We are having to leave a little bit early so that he can buckle himself in.  Today it only took a few minutes and he's so determined to do this.  Lizze and I do our very best to make sure we support his need for independence, as we think it's awesome.  Sometimes we have to help him along because we do have to get to our destinations as close to on time as possible. Most of the time he's okay…