The Diet of a "Spectrummy" Kid

When Michael was a toddler he lived on oatmeal and bananas.  I recall it was hard getting him to eat much of anything else.  As he got a little older we affectionately called him "Carb Boy".  He would stick to bread, bagels, donuts and other various forms of carbohydrates and sugar.

We are big gardeners and really do try to eat healthy.  He have grown a garden for the last 8-9 years.  Some years mostly weeds grew.  All in all, we tried very hard to give the twins fresh veggies and fresh fruits.  We lived on a farm for a while with another family and we had our own egg laying and meat chickens.  Still, Michael's choice of food tended to be bread-like in nature.  Cereal became a main staple, just like his older brother Dale (Aspergers).  Then one day when Michael was staring at the TV without it actually being "on", we discovered something terrible.  The horrible, awful, no-good, very bad thing was HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.

This stuff was in everything!  It was in ketchup, in cereals in most of the breads that you buy.  It was in all of the stuff that Michael craved...that Michael had been eating.  We did an experiment and eliminated HFCS out of his diet.  Many of his "spectrummy" behaviors subsided.  We were looking at labels on everything.  Every once in a while when we weren't being careful, or when we would forget, he'd eat something with HFCS and be staring off into Neverland.  Uh oh, what did he eat?  Quick check the label!  Sure enough it was loaded with high fructose corn syrup.

Now like most parents of autistic children, I had read loads of information about strict diets for autistic children.  I always took this with a grain of salt.  Surely my child is not affected by this or that!  So when we started eliminating the HFCS I was indeed skeptical.

Making cookies with twin sister Mikayla and big brother Dale.

I have seen a big change in Michael's behaviors, big changes for the good.  He is now checking for high fructose in all things.  He even says, "It makes my head feel funny mommy."  He will ask me, "Does it have high fructose corn syrup mommy?"  I will tell him, "No Michael, it doesn't."  He will often pick up the item and check for himself.  What a smart little cookie he is!  (store bought cookies are often loaded with HFCS)

So our household does not have any food items with high fructose corn syrup.  Things cost more money, but we know that Michael is safer and more "with it" if he doesn't have those things.  If you have an autistic son or daughter, you can try it.  It might help.  The only risk you take is that if it doesn't work, you are just back to where you started.  I do believe now that a controlled diet does help, but it does not solve all of the behavior problems with an autistic child. 

There have been studies done on this stuff.  Here are a few links that might help. http://www.foodwhistleblower.org/blog/23-2012/362-study-high-fructose-corn-syrups-role-in-autism
http://grist.org/scary-food/new-study-links-autism-to-high-fructose-corn-syrup/

A Team Sport, but not a Team Sport

Swimming.  We live and breathe chlorine from the local YMCA pool.  It is a sport that Michael excels at.  He is a born fish.   I'm so grateful that we have the swim team.  It is a great source of exercise and Michael can be a part of the team.  He can be a part of a group, yet swim alone in his own little world.  It is the perfect sport for an autistic child.

Both of the twins have been in swim team for almost a year now.  When they were four years old I made sure they had swim lessons.  Chris brought them to the pool that summer and they could barely doggie paddle across half of the length of the pool.  They have both come SO far.

Michael with a cap on.  AMAZINGLY.

  I don't think 

he has worn one since.

I was raised in a swimming family.  We had a community pool in back of our house and I would live at the pool in the summer time.  Swim team every morning, doing 100 laps a day.  Swim meets on the weekends.  Just goofing off with friends in the pool when I wasn't in practice.  Christopher too had a strong background in swimming.  He could tread water for hours, and did a pretty decent freestyle.  Yes, our children were going to learn to swim!  Mostly for safety reasons, but with my competitive nature, I really wanted to see if they could compete.

Michael is a natural backstroker.  He has the body that just looks like a back stroking kind of kid.  His freestyle is coming along very nicely as well.  He has the strongest kick I've ever seen.  Now breast stroke and butterfly are a bit too much for him to coordinate, so he leaves those strokes to his sister.  Michael did so well in our swim meet, he made it to districts.  Then he did very well in districts, and almost made it to regionals.

This is really a good sport for Michael.  We had tried karate in the gym at our school.  The acoustics there are a bit much for him and the karate teacher yells at him constantly for not paying attention.  The doctor at the Dartmouth Hitchcock CHAD center in Lebanon, NH said that he is externally and internally distracted.  He still attends karate, but it is nothing like the success he is having with swimming.

With swimming he feels successful.  His language difficulties and auditory processing doesn't get in the way.  He can let his perfectionism shine through.  He can be underwater and not listen to the noise of the outside world.  But beware if you forget his favorite yellow goggles!  Melt down!  Also beware if he doesn't pay attention to Coach Julie or Coach Ruben and doesn't get a sticker for the day.  His wailing really echos through the halls of the YMCA. 

Having Friends

We are on our February break right now.  This means we get a week off of school.  Not for any holiday, but I guess to go skiing?  This mid-westerner does not ski!  How can I when I grew up in the flattest part of the country?  Now the kids are home and we don't have any real plans for excitement.  I know!  Let's invite friends over for a playdate!

This is no trouble for Miss Mikayla, my social butterfly, take charge kind of girl.  She has friends lined up for miles.  She has been on more playdates and sleepovers in her young 7 years than I ever had my entire childhood.  Then there is Michael.

Don't get me wrong, I am extremely impressed with Michael.  He has moved beyond his big brother Dale and has actually called friends himself!  Dale never once called any friend.  The only friend he had was CJ, and that is because CJs mom and I worked together and I "arranged" the friendship for him.  Michael has 3 "best" friends right now.  One is a little girl who is too scared to come over our house.  Michael has been on  two playdates with her.  The first one was at the park over eight months ago, and the second one was at her house.  We have to wait and see when her mom isn't working in order to have a playdate.  Michael is too funny because he will call their house (he has their phone number memorized) and ask for a playdate.  When the mom says "yes" he immediately hangs up.  "Mom, Emily's mom said YES!"  Ok, Michael what day?  What time?  Did you ask any questions? Part communication error due to autism, part that what some 7 year olds probably do.

I end up calling the mom back.  She was at work and Michael called her cell phone.  No, he isn't actually going to have a playdate.  On to friend number two.

Our next friend we have better luck with.  He is at the babysitters this week, and we'd have to get him from there and bring him back later.  Ok!  Friend number two comes over.  Mikayla had invited her friend over as well.  Now the girls can play with the girls, and the boys can play with the boys.  Sounds perfect right?  Not exactly, because even tho friend number two really likes Michael when they are in class, friend number two also LOVES playing with Mikayla.  Jealousy ensues, Michael has a few melt downs, locks himself in my bedroom wanting to be alone, has a few misunderstandings, throws the tooth fairy pillow at friend number two, and mommy decides it is time to send friend number two home a little early.

Michael is working on making friends and maintaining friends.  He is trying really hard.  It still is a tough thing to do. We are lucky to have a wonderful school counselor that helps Michael 2-3 times a week with this issue.  I am grateful for the community in which we live.  I am also thankful for our whole immediate family who constantly works with Michael.  My mom told me once, "Michael is very lucky to have you for a mom.  He couldn't have picked a better family to be born into.  With a veteran teacher, a smart dad, lots of other family support and prior experience with autism, Michael will do well and will make it in life."

Learning to Read with a High Functioning Autistic Child

I have been a teacher for approximately 25 years.  I have taught Deaf and Hard of hearing children to read, Dyslexic children, children of various learning disabilities and regular children.  As I watch Michael learn to read, I find I am trying very hard to sort out, "What is a reading miscue?"  and, "Is this a miscue because of his autism?"

When Michael was 2, he was reading already.  He was reading all environmental signs, and he was reading pre-school and beginning readers.  He seemed to memorize the word, the more complex the easier it was for him.  He was reading words like, "chimpanzee, walking, elephant".  It seemed as if he were hyperlexic, a trait not uncommon amongst high functioning autistic children.  He was putting ABC puzzles in order at age 2, and throwing a fit if his twin sister removed any letter.  He would lean out of his crib and play with Leap Frog Learning devices for hours.

When he was in kindergarten he seemed to be in the highest level of reading group.  Now that he is in first grade, he has slipped down to the second reading group. It is not uncommon for children who learn to read at an early age to become more aligned with their classmates.  He is still a pretty good reader for age 7, but his classroom teacher was keeping him at lower reading levels to increase his fluency.

At conference time, Michael's classroom teacher showed us a recent running record.  This is a record of the text he reads and his miscues.  As Chris and I were looking at it, we noticed that many errors were due to 1.  His articulation (Michael has some speech errors...especially the /th/ sound both voiced and voiceless) and 2.  His language/grammar errors.  Michael also speaks more slowly than other children.  He has dysarthria (a speech disorder caused by disturbances of muscular control because of damage to the central or peripheral nervous system), which causes his speech pattern to sound a bit different than most children.  Many of the errors he made were because that was the way he talks.  He did make a lot of verb tense and grammar errors such as saying "childs" for "children", and "come" for "came".  One could argue that he isn't paying attention to the end of the word, or that he isn't paying attention to the vowel sound.  So therefore this must be a "reading error".  Chris was adamant that it was an "autistic" error.  This is the way Michael talks in his everyday conversations.  Chris didn't want the teacher to be "docking" Michael on errors that were mostly beyond his control.  

I brought this to the attention of the other reading specialists I work with at Jaffrey.  The other 5 Title one teachers, including myself have over 150 years of experience all together.  I have high respect for these ladies, and they gave me very good advice.  "Even though these errors might be from Michael's autism, he is still not reading what the author intended.  He would need to fix these errors whether it was a "reading issue" or an "autistic issue".  We keep monitoring his reading and trying to decipher the reasons behind his errors.  Between the Title 1 teacher he works with who is also the program manager for our Title program, the speech teacher and myself we are analyzing these errors. 

Luckily Michael's comprehension of the text he reads is not suffering.  He generally understands what he is reading. I have read to the twins practically everyday from when they were in the womb! Other children  that I have worked with, who are autistic, have a weakness in this area.  I am wondering though, that with time and when the content gets harder, he will start to have some comprehension issues.  The other day he did not understand a question that the teacher asked him about his book about hummingbirds.  She said, "Michael, point to the word that tells what is important about the hummingbird's beak."  Michael pointed to the word "beak".  When he was told he was wrong, he got mad, shoved his chair backward and went storming off.  He then used his strategies, cooled down and came back to the reading group.  A few minutes later, the situation occurred.  "Michael, point to a word that tells what is important about the hummingbird's tongue."  Michael again pointed to the word "tongue".  I believe that Michael wasn't understanding the question.  He was being too literal.  I spoke about this at length with Chris.  Then the next day I talked to his speech teacher about it as well.  We talked about having a visual drawn for him, such as the word "beak" in a circle with lines around it.  (envision a sun)  This graphic organizer would help him see that we don't want the word "beak" it is already there.  We want to add descriptions about the beak on the lines. 

I find this very interesting and would love to hear if anyone else out there has had similar experiences with their high functioning autistic child.  I think I could even see myself doing extensive research on this topic.  Surely someone is studying "Reading and Autism".  This would be a great research project, really worth looking into.