What's with YouTube?

I have been trying to upload a video of Alex onto YouTube to share with you but it just wouldn't want to know. I tried a few times last night and then again this morning - just have to try later.

Alex learned to hum the intro of "Eye of the Tiger" and it's just so funny.

Anyway, we had our third Early Bird course today and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I would definately recommend anyone whose child been diagnosed with ASD to attend the Early Bird. This will be more beneficial to parents in the early days of diagnosis. The course really give parents the confident to work with their child/children and to understand how, what and sometimes why things happen the way they do.

Alex was diagnosed in May 2007 just after one of the Early Bird courses started. We had to wait until September for a new course to begin but there weren't enough families to start a new class. So, from September was delayed to November and then finally a confirmed date in January 2008.

While waiting for the course to start, Christina Watson one of the Early Bird trainers gave me many tips to work with Alex. That helped quite a bit and I know she wanted to tell me more but she knew I would not benefit from the course if she said too much.

Back to Early Birds, I have been practicing most of the things discussed in the first three weeks for sometime and I knew it worked. All these were either read from various books, research from the internet or tips from Christina. It seemed like a long time ago since the diagnosis and because of the knowledge we acquired from various sources, our life with Alex improved tremendously. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the last three weeks of the course and look forward to the rest.

Note to parents with children recently diagnosed with ASD:

It's not an easy thing to accept that your child is autistic but through our experience and the joy Alex gave us, I wouldn't want it any other way. You may feel sad and you are allowed to be down BUT pick yourself up as soon as you can because your child needs you.

There are three things that we have to remember:

START Accepting (Accept that there are no cure for ASD, accept all the help you can get because we cannot do it all alone);

STOP Expecting (Don't expect too much from your child. The lower your expectation, the more you get out of your child. When he's able to do the things you want him to, it gives you extreme joy)

START Believing (Have faith and believe that the days ahead will be better)

At Early Birds, we are able to share our experiences, what works for one might work for you. If it doesn't, there are always other ways to explore. The possibilities are unlimited.

"I wished I could live in Alex's world for 24 hours" said Jeremy as we came out of the children centre.

It's D-Day, our first Early Bird Programme - a two and a half hour session of introductions. At the beginning of the session, we were told to keep everything we discussed in the programme to ourselves. There are six families including ourselves in the programme and we will be discussing and sharing information about our children. Some parents would prefer to have their children's condition kept private and you are right, I am not one of them (ha ha ha).

I guess writing a blog about Alex and my personal relationships will not qualify me as a private person. But I respect other's wish for privacy and I will not discuss their problem directly in my blog.

We started introducing ourselves and our children. We were each given one minute to talk about our children, followed by a two minute video of our children playing with us (Sam, the organiser came by our house last week to film us playing with Alex). There were four girls and two boys in our group which was quite unusual as Autism affect more boys than girls. The ages are quite equal with 3 three year-old and 3 four year-old. Five of them are already talking quite fluently and one not talking .... hmmmm Alex.

After all the introduction by parents, I thought to myself ..... my god, we are the luckiest among us. Most of their children have terrible tantrums and outbursts (some go on for hours), Alex hardly ever and even if he does, it's for very good reason and for 30 seconds tops. Some of them only eat certain food and had to be cooked or prepared in a certain way - Alex would eat anything. Some cannot tolerate labels on their clothing and only wears cotton - Alex can't be bothered. One has "leaky gut" but since she changed her diet to gluten and casein free, problem solved. Two could talk for hours non-stop and driving their mums crazy. One is violent towards her sibling and another has an obsession with helicopters.

There are of course some good things too. One 4 year old can read anything from newspapers to supermarket posters and food label. She can't always understand what she is reading and use words in the wrong context which is quite embarrassing for the mum. Another one could complete a 70 piece jigsaw puzzle in minutes. Alex ..... could recognise all the logos that he has seen only once. He will know something is missing even if he only seen them once. He has impeccable memory.

Then, we talked about what autism is, the myth and facts, the triad of impairment etc. Things that I already know from reading and research. These things are new to Jeremy because he doesn't read much and he find this course beneficial - Good.

Towards the end, we were shown a video "A is for Autism", showing us what it's like in the mind of an autistic person. Their world is so full of information which they find it hard to digest - I could understand why they have sensory overload and zone out.

They see and perceive things differently, fascinated by opening and closing elevator doors, trains and tracks, counting, numbers and the list goes on and on. After watching the 11 minute long video, I just don't know what to think of it.

Sitting down hours later, writing this blog, I can still see the video in my mind and it's quite disturbing. There are so much going on in their mind - all at the same time? If this is what's happening in Alex's mind every minute of the day ................... sob

I don't know if this is Alex and I know every autistic individual is different, that's why it's called a spectrum.

If God ask me what is the one thing I could change about Alex? I would say, no thank you. I love him just the way he is. I am sure he is what he is for a reason and I know I will find out soon.