Tag: stimming
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Meet Sawyer
Since this is a new blog, I thought it would be a great time to reintroduce my “sonshine”, Sawyer! Sawyer is 12 years old and in the 7th grade. Sawyer absolutely loves Roblox, and thinks McDonalds’ chicken nuggets are “bussin’”! Sawyer loves playing basketball with his friends, drawing and creating games on his phone, and…
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“It’s Just What I Do”
Sawyer has developed a new “tic”, or stim. He kind of “chews” or smacks his lips a little on the left side now, and that’s new. I asked him why he does that, and replied “Um, I don’t know. It’s just what I do.”
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World Autism Day
This was originally supposed to be published on April 2, but for some reason my post scheduler didn’t push the post out. :\ April is National Autism Awareness Month, and April 2nd is World Autism Day! There is a saying in the autism community that if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one…
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Help Them Thrive: Training Teachers to Spot Autism
When my girls started school, I didn’t have a lot of fears about it. Both Emily and Caitlyn were social butterflies who had shown me that they would thrive and flourish in a school environment, and I was mostly worried about things like making sure they had the “cool” backpacks, lunchboxes, and clothes; I didn’t…
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Is There a Cure for Autism?
I had a conversation last night with a woman I met on Reddit in a group for special needs parents. Her child was recently diagnosed with autism, and she was freaking out. I felt for her; I remember how overwhelmed I felt when I first realized Sawyer was probably on the spectrum. I reached out…
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Am I Autistic?
“Am I autistic?” I knew there would be a day when Sawyer would realize he was different than other kids. I have thought many times over the years about how I would explain autism to Sawyer, and what that meant for him, but I never thought it would come so early in his life. I…
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Meltdowns
A meltdown is different from a tantrum, even though to those who don’t have a special needs child it looks very similar.