Boy Lacer had speech therapy this morning, nothing overly exciting, he's progressing, he's getting there apparently on understanding two instruction sentences. Before speech therapy I made the snap decision to tell Girl Lacer briefly about Boy Lacer's diagnosis, as I was worried that the A word would crop up in conversation and she'd want to know what it was. So I told her that the doctors' now think they know why Boy Lacer is not very good at talking and making friends (her definition of why Boy Lacer has his hospital appointments) and that they thought he was on the autistic spectrum. She asked what that was and I said that is was when people had problems talking and making friends, to which she replied "Well I think they're wrong, he's getting better at talking", which he is actually but she sounds like the mother-in-law. I wish I could have told her about M, an older brother of a friend who she knows quite well, he's on the spectrum but neither M or his younger brother knows, so I didn't want to let that cat out of that bag. In the end the A word didn't crop up in the appointment, I think deliberately because Girl Lacer was there.
I mentioned Boy Lacer's latest aversion, he finds the air conditioning in a certain part of our local department store too loud, so will walk round the entire store taking his hands on and off his ears. Funnily enough (or not really), quite a lot of the speech therapist's patients have an aversion to that store, in a town full of big shops, that just that one store can be 'singled out' by these children shows that it can't be particularly well designed just for anyone really, these children pick it most obviously but perhaps a lot of people go in there picking up vibes that they're not even quite aware of.
After speech therapy we walked back home through the park, unfortunately the playground we were heading for was shut, so just a walk along the path from one gate to another. Summer has most definitely gone and it's nothing but drizzle but we saw toadstools (yes I know they're probably just plain old mushrooms but I prefer the name toadstools and I'm trying desperately to forget the mycology component of my Masters in Microbiology), wood pigeons, parakeets (a unique quirk of local wildlife) and a heron.
Boy Lacer was walking for a bit and managed to fall over again, he fell over when out yesterday and on both occasions he landed face down, mouth open. Yesterday it was a mouth full of grass clippings and god knows what else (trying not to think about all the dogs going to the toilet on those verges) and today it was a mouth full of dirt, I literally had to get a wipe and smear off a thick layer of dirt from his front teeth. His lips and chin are scraped now. I'm trying to think now when are children meant to put their hands out to stop their faces hitting the dirt literally, I know it's a sort of reflex and I think it's probably another thing he's delayed on. I hope it develops soon because all that dirt must be giving his immune system one hell of a work out.
Edited to add - after a chat with a friend whose son has dyspraxia, the not putting your arms out when falling over seems sadly 'normal', I suspect although Boy Lacer is just listed as probable autistic spectrum at the moment, once they've done the playgroup observation (scheduled for the end of this month) and we have the next doctor's appointment it will be changed to either aspergers or high functioning autism plus dyspraxia, I think the dyspraxia is blindingly obvious. So (according to my friend) I have broken front teeth and broken arms to look forward to.
Original source: http://lacer.wordpress.com/?p=1239
