Micromanaging #Autism: Dealing with feeding problems

I wanted to take a minute and drop this video here, as well as pick your brain. Feeding problems can be quite common in kids with Autism, for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not something that is always outgrown, as evidenced by the fact that after 18 years, it's still a problem. I'd love to hear your experience and find out how you've addressed feeding problems in your family. https://youtu.be/nJUhA5_aPJM

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This is what #Schizophrenia looks like to my family

Over the years, I've tried to document the many things we deal with as a special needs family. It's important to me that I help to educate the public because there will come a time where I will no longer be here and I take a small comfort in the knowledge that my efforts today might make the world a more forgiving, understanding and compassionate place for my kids. That being said, I wanted to share this video I shot a few years ago. It shows Gavin, who's living with Schizophrenia, talking on an imaginary phone. This video is approaching 1,000,000 views and one of the more frustrating comments I see in regards to this particular video is that he doesn't have Schizophrenia, he just has an active imagination.  The reality…

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Emmett’s Martial Arts Tournament Results (Tons of Pictures AND Video)

It's been a long day, but I've finally recovered enough to write this post. I'm going to keep this brief and let the pictures/videos do the talking. ☺ Emmett had his martial arts tournament on Saturday morning and it was a pretty awesome experience. I had originally thought this was going to be something that wouldn't have any actual competition but I was wrong. There was no sparring or contact anything, but they did compete. Everything they did was scored by the judges and the highest score won. He competed in the Empty Hand Kata and the Weapon Kata. I'm super excited and incredibly proud to share that Emmett took first place in both competitions. He had the highest scores of anyone who competed today and there were a ton…

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Review: Bit Charge Stereo earbuds (@RowkinInc)

This post is sponsored by Rowkin. They were generous enough to send over a Bit Charge Stereo to unbox, review and help generate some Autism Awareness. The opinions in my review are my own and were no way influenced by anyone or anything other than my experience with the product. The Unboxing https://youtu.be/w239BMxQl7A The Full Review A couple weeks ago, Rowkin, maker of the world's smallest, truly wireless earbuds, sent me over a Bit Charge Stereo to unbox. Having unboxed some really expensive truly wireless earbuds already, I would be lying if I told you I wasn't skeptical of the Rowkin Bit Charge Stereo. After all, they're in many cases, less than half the price of more well-known brands and I've always been of the opinion that you get what…

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A new way I’m raising #Autism Awareness

I've been working on doing more product reviews and it's taking off like crazy. The whole point of this is to capture people's attention with the products and while they're reading, they'll learn something about Autism. I used to do something like this when I was developing for Android. During the installation of my ROM's, the user would read the Autism facts on the install progress screen and learn something. This was wildly successful but after a few years I stopped developing and that is no longer a project I'm working on. As for the reviews, I have had a huge response from a ton of companies. Here's an incomplete list of current sponsors: Shark (Robot Vacuum) Neato Robotics (Robot Vacuum) Jabra Bose Touch Point Tile Anker Arteza Rowkin ELF…

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Unboxing and Review of U-Lace No-Tie-Shoelaces

It's not very often that I become aware of a product or service that I absolutely love. In the past, it's really only been Vivint Home and Project Lifesaver. Having said that, I was recently introduced to a company called U-Lace. They may sound familiar and that's because you probably saw them on Shark Tank. As for myself, I missed that episode and so I'm learning about them now. Before I get into my brief review, I want to show you the unboxing video for U-Lace, so you can see for yourself what they're all about. :-) https://youtu.be/vfbX5UnGvSw As the above video demonstrated, U-Lace helps people gain independence by transforming tie shoes into slip-ons. This can be of enormous benefit to people with Autism, fine motor issues, arthritis or even cognitive…

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Unboxing a special surprise from @Hexbug

Today's unboxing video is sponsored by the amazing people over at Hexbug. They sent over a big box of surprises to open up on camera and help raise a little Autism Awareness as we do it. The included Autism Awareness lesson was quite appropriate for this particular situation and you can learn from the current mistakes of a veteran Autism parent. lol Did You Know: Kids with Autism often struggle with significant levels of anxiety. Anticipating anything, good or bad can cause a great deal of anxiety for many on the Autism Spectrum. Hexbugs are an amazing creation and perfect for any kid that likes robots. We've had Hexbugs in our house for years and they are one of the kids favorite things. We've also found the Hexbug Nano's to…

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Grocery shopping with my dudes and learning life skills

I meant to share this the other day but like many other things in my life, it's fallen through the cracks. The other say, I took the boys to the grocery store, along with our recycled bags. I picked them up after school and went straight to Giant Eagle. Taking kids with Autism anywhere can prove to be very challenging. Taking two of them is challenging.. lol One of the reasons I like to bring them along, is because I want them to be a part of what we bring into the house. Feeding them is becoming increasingly more difficult and my hope is that by helping me pick out the food, they'll be more likely to eat it. They actually did well on this trip. They didn't fight too much…

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