Published on 12, July, 2020
My name is Susie, my 8yr old daughter has autism and was diagnosed 2 years ago, she has 2 older brothers neither of which are on the spectrum.
I've been through it all with the heartbreak of diagnosis to eventually accepting the fact that my daughter is different, and loving her all the more for those differences. It's a hard road at times but I would not change her for the world.
My daughter is in a mainstream primary school but spends half her day in the learning centre (special needs school) where she needs one to one supervision all day. She has speech but it is limited and there's a lot of repeating whats been asked but not knowing how to answer, routines are extremely important as I'm sure every parent on here will be familiar with. She gets very anxious and upset and self harm at times (thankfully not as much as she used too). I'm looking forward to hearing other peoples experiences and joining in discussions, and also be interesting to hear from people with daughters on the spectrum or they themselves are on the spectrum.
Hi Susie
People say that a lot-that I am good at communication by typing. Maybe I do not always realize it but I suppose I am quite lucky that I am good at this. I like being online best because I can use websites the same as anyoene else can. (exept from possibly sometimes needing to use a overlay if it has strange colours)
It sounds like your dauter will catch up and probably end up like I am now with reading. I was slow at reading in primary school, always towards the back of where I should be, it just took me longer to read all the books. Sounds really obvious why now. But somewhere in school I caught up to nearer to where you should be at the age. I struggle more with understanding what I read though-I still do read things slowly-and more than once to help me understand them. Reading fiction is where I find it hardest, if they have complicated story lines or it is hard to follow it. But then I am much more instereested in a book with facts anyway so not reading stories does not really bother me.
That keeps happening a bit to me at college, when lessons get changed I end up going to the LSC (learning skills center-basically its support for people with extra needs). It is just the time of year, Neurotipicals want to celebrate and change things and us with ASD hate everything about it so it is never easy. I have never really found what to do to help with this. Because you never know about the suprise fun lessons becaue they are supposed to be a suprise. I then end up shutdown in the lesson doing nothing and being ignored. At school I used to take a nice fact book and torch so if they were waching a film I could read-but they do not do that in college so I do not know what to do now.
Apps are different if you have a apple product or a product that usees Android, mine is android so I only know for that. their is loads of them out there for apple though if you have that instead. Oh, and I have not paid for any of these, some of them may have extra bits you can buy but I can not remember exactly. Some of the better one I have and still use are:-ACC Talking Tabs (it has pictures that you touch and it says what they are, nicely aranged so it is easy to find them, I think their is a version to pay for but I just use the free one)-Jab talk (basically you have to make all the symbols and sound yourelf and arange it how you want, bit of a pain to do but means you get it exactly how you want) -Alexicom (this one deffinatly is only a demo version for you to buy the full app. Similar to some of the others really just I like the range of things on it even if some is missing)-ACC speech (this has a lot of words on, it might be too complex for your daughter being younger than me but I would recomend it for when she is a bit older) -Alternative communication type & speak (has some common sentaces written, but other than that you type whatever you want and it speaks it-really easy to use if she is able to type/spell-sometimes I end up spelling things wrong and it does not make sence and I have to show it to the person instead)-'type to speak' and 'speak now' are the same just they do not have common sentances there.
I have tried and still got all these ones. I think the ones I use most are Alternative communication type & speak and ACC speech but they all get used at different times. If you can't find any of them ask me and I will try and describe them a bit more.
I really agree that their is not enough people at schools and colleges that understand ASD. And in lots of other places too. I wrote a 'about me' information sheet which really helps. I just wrote a paragraph about what ASD is generally, then how it affects me and what theings they can do to help. It is 1 side of A4 so not too big and it really helps (if people bother to read it), because just saying I have ASD is not enough when people do not know what it is. If you start ending up going new places or meeting new people a lot it is a really good idea. I mostly use it when I go on courses with cadets, and so I can just give it in with the other forms for personal details and parent permition and medication.
Amy