Reading Books

With one of Heidi's grandmother's being a retired reading teacher, and another grandmother a teacher, I knew we had to start the good habit of reading books at an early age. Heidi enjoys looking at the pictures, and trying to eat the corners. But good habits started young are harder to break. And it is great for her brain development. I could, but won't, quote lots of research articles which describe how children who are read to have a better understanding of language and a larger vocabulary, or do better in school. Instead, I'll leave you with a picture. Look at that concentration.

Heidi and Mimi reading a book.

Thanks for the entertainment Mimi!

Productive Reading

The Horse Boy  by: Rupert Isaacson

I’ve been reading books, but haven’t spent the extra time to write about them here. I was in Half Price Books (they are only in 16 states) the other day, and was walking by a display, and saw this book. It must have been my intuition on seeing the picture, of a boy sitting on a horse, being held by dad, and it touched me. I picked it up, and couldn’t put it down, so The Horse Boy came home with me.

I enjoyed reading about a family’s struggle knowing that their son was not developing typically. It documents their journey to find help and relief for their son. It was very informative and interesting from a family’s perspective, and improves my ability to do my job.

The author had one of the best explanations of tantrums/meltdowns that I have read, on a basic level. Here is a quote from pg. 19 “Through our cyberspace trawling we did discover the likely cause of these strange, overwhelming tantrums – that they were probably neurological in origin; his nervous system was almost certainly overactive. Autistic brains, it turns out, have a much greater number of nerve cells than “neuro-typical” brains. The result can be extreme sensory overload. A breath of wind on Rowan’s cheek could feel like fire from a flame-thrower. The fluorescent lights of a supermarket or daycare facility could look like lights being strobed at one million times a second. His clothes or bedcovers could suddenly, if the wrong neurological switch was thrown, feel like lead weights or burning napalm. Not that this helped to console him when the firestorms went raging through his brain and body.”

I would definitely recommend this book!

Just FYI... there is a lot of time spent on the family's travel to Mongolia and meeting with shaman's... which isn't a type of therapy I would recommend for a child with Autism.

We love to read

At the beginning of Labor Day Weekend, I went to the library to check out a few books. Well, me and the library get along very well. Because instead of finding just a couple of books, I came away with 8. EIGHT!!!And now, a week and a half later, they are all finished, and enjoyed.

Four of the books were by Janette Oke, A Prairie Legacy. These are Christian Fiction, set around 100 years ago. I love this time period, where there was not a dependence on technology and life was part of nature, not separated.

Two books were on foster care children. I work with a lot of foster kids in my job, so I purposely looked for books to broaden my understanding of their circumstances.  Hope's Boy by Andrew Bridge is a non-fiction book. So very powerful and an intimate true story. I didn't want the story to end. The next book was Between Sundays by Karen Kingsbury. This is a fiction book; however the emotions that course the book are real.

Now on to Autism, and the struggles families go through. Not My Boy! by Rodney Peete is another non-fiction book. This was an interesting, and unique perspective of raising a child on the Autism Spectrum. Rodney Peete was an NFL member. Reading how he tried to balance his job with his child was helpful. A Child's Journey Out Of Autism by Leeann Whiffen, a non-fiction book, described the lengths parents will travel in order to help their children. There was a large emphasis on ABA therapy, and the possible link between vaccines and Autism. However, research has shown there is no causal link. Still a good book written from a parent's perspective, along with the stress a diagnosis places on a family.

What's next, you ask? Wait and see :)