Our entire family has had nothing but good experiences at the Doctor Everett Chalmers Hospital, the "DECH", in Fredericton and that trend continued this morning when we took Conor for blood tests at 7 am. The tests were required by the consulting neurologist to establish some base lines before starting some new medications to address Conor's seizure activities. We contacted the DECH yesterday to see if they could accommodate Conor with a direct entry to the blood works room without taking a number and waiting in line. We explained his autism, intellectual disability and tendency to have meltdowns when frustrated. The administrative staff were happy to oblige and the team that met us this morning were outstanding! They knew exactly how to interact well with Conor and everything went perfect!
Conor did well, very well, today and so did the DECH staff to whom we say, once again, Thank You!
Dear parents of Conor,
ReplyDeleteI occasionally read your blogs with interest. I am the parent of a 10 year old nonverbal autistic boy who also engages in SIB from time to time. Your son reminds me in many ways of my son. We have tried many interventions with our son with limited success and have our concerns about the romanticized notions of autism based on high functioning autistics.
I did want to encourage you to take a look at the work of Soma Mukhapadyah at HALO. We have her books and video and have implemented her educational practices with our son whose communication skills are extremely limited. It has been slow and tough going but it has steadily paid off and we are able to more effectively communicate and interact. Our son is largely unable to read or type though he has made some progress in this area. The main area it has made a difference for us was that he is doing very well at listening and answering questions via a multiple choice mode. We have discovered that he easily memorizes a lot of material and seems to have at least some comprehension of that material. I just wanted to share our experience with Rapid Prompting Method. While it has been in now way a "cure" or "miracle" it has made life better for all of us.
God bless,
M. Binkley