Lack of brain synchronisation cause for autism
Researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh claim to have unravelled the mystery behind autism, a system wide brain disorder that limits communication and interaction skills.
The study to appear in the British journal Brain next month, suggests that autism is caused by under-connectivity.
Settling down now
Well, it was a pretty eventuful week. As I noted, Zoë's great-grandfather, who she saw pretty much daily, died unexpectedly last week, and then all sorts of weird things happened, from Zoë's perspective.
Nanna turned up, and that's a good thing. There have also been lots of strange people around, and the house is full of flowers, which is very odd. Then we went to church on Tuesday (for the memorial service) and that was weird, too. We had to sit in the part on the other side of the glass walls, and listen to the service through the speaker (there was no way Zoë could have managed to behave herself through the whole service in a packed church). And then there were all these people at the reception after the service and Zoë wandered around among them for a couple of hours (she's fearless). When we came home, a little later than Nanna arrived at the house, there was a dog here! Nanna's friend, who raises puppies for the seeing-eye dog program, had come to visit and brought one of her dogs-in-training. What a thrill that was!
We kept Zoë home from pre-school on Thursday, although she went to early intervention on Wednesday and did fairly well once she settled in. Zoë's behavior was really getting bad, mostly from all the overstimulation and changes in her normal life and routine. We figured that sending her to pre-school was just asking for trouble, and judging by the mood she was in all day Thursday, we were correct.
She seems to finally be settling down now, thankfully. Her behavior is improving and so is her mood, and she had a decent sleep-in this morning so she's rested.
Zoë has asked about Grandad a couple of times, and I've just told her that he's not there, which she seems to accept.
I'm not sure what she's going to do when Nanna leaves again in a week's time, but gosh, she'll be thrilled when Nanna returns permanently (with Grandpop!) in a few months...
Nanna!
Zoë's great-grandfather died rather suddenly and unexpectedly on Thursday, and things have been weird ever since. All these people are here! Uncle David, Auntie Robyn and Uncle Greg, Jim (the minister from the church), even some people Zoë doesn't know at all... And Grandad, mysteriously, is nowhere to be found... It's all very perplexing.
But the good part is that Nanna's here! Nanna's been away for a very long time (two years) and now she's back! And Zoë very clearly remembers her, it's pretty amazing. Zoë does have extraordinary visual memory and Nanna's certainly in her memory bank.
So far, Nanna's taught Zoë two new songs (one of which she used to sing to her when she was little, so that may be part of why Zoë caught on so quickly), and it's all pretty good as far as Zoë's concerned.
She is getting overwhelmed by evening, though, and she gets very, very difficult when that happens, lots of tantrums and other bad behavior, but for the most part, she's taking it all fairly well.
I don't know what she'll do when Nanna's gone again, of course, since Nanna's only here for a couple of weeks before returning to England to finish their tour or Europe. Last time Grandad went on holiday, Zoë was quite upset at being unable to find him, and I suspect she'll be upset that Nanna's gone again, as well. Happily for Zoë, Nanna and Grandpop will be back permanently in October.
Not a good day
I had a meeting this morning at Zoë's early intervention centre, but I didn't get to go to it. The plan had been to drop Zoë off at pre-school and then go to the meeting, which is just a planning meeting for the next term, setting goals, that sort of thing.
However, I dropped Zoë off at pre-school and I wanted to tell them that if they needed to reach me I'd be out but I had my mobile. I had just finished saying that I didn't anticipate any problems when the teacher had to rush to break up a pushing fight between Zoë and one of the little boys... I must say, this one gave as good as he got, and they were both pushing!
It seems he was where Zoë wanted to be, and she decided to just shove him out of her way. This is pretty unusual behavior for her. She's normally not aggressive like that...
Well, she repeated the behavior a couple more times in different play areas. The poor little boy she got nasty with the next time looked so shocked! He was honestly trying to play with her and she just went ballistic on him, and the poor kid just looked completely gobsmacked.
Anyway, I decided to take her home because she was just impossible to manage and unreasonably aggressive. I had to reschedule the meeting (to tomorrow afternoon). And in the car on the way home, she was being nasty to her little sister for no apparent reason, smacking her in the head!
I've put her in bed, because it was pretty clear she was tired, but I don't think she's sleeping. I wish she would. I think it would improve her temperament considerably. She hasn't been sleeping well at all lately, and it shows.
As she gets older, she's getting more and more difficult to manage, unfortunately. I have to say, it's pretty discouraging. I already worry about Zoë and her future and her progress all the time, and this doesn't really help to soothe my fears...
Frustrating
The biggest frustration with Zoë is not that she doesn't communicate that well, it's that she's extremely willful. Generally speaking, I think a strong will is a good thing if it can be tempered and you can learn to use it properly. In a developmentally delayed four-year-old, it's not such a good thing, though...
You can't turn your back on Zoë for a minute, and you can't put anything high enough that she can't find it. Seriously. She has broken all the shelves out of her tall bookshelf as well as the one in my room with her climbing, and she's been known to scale other tall objects, as well. The piano, other shelves, you name it. Turn your back on the kid for two minutes and the next thing you know, she's on top of something tall, holding some fragile object, and when you rush to get her and the object down, she frequently responds by throwing the object (in a sort of, "What? I'm not holding anything!" type of gesture).
She has now, by the way, destroyed two clocks that were on her wall, one of them mine (as already reported) and one of them hers, a gift from a family friend.
I know people will probably say to "put things where she can't get them" and to "watch her more closely" but in all honesty, the only place you could put things where she can't get them is in a locked safe (we haven't got one), behind a securely locked door (she can open some locked doors, for what it's worth), or in some part of the house that she literally is unable to access, like, say, the garage...
And about the only way you can watch her closely enough is is you tie her to your body in some way, and even then I'm not so sure she couldn't figure out how to get into mischief when you take your eyes off her for a second or two...
Needless to say, she can be extremely frustrating to have to deal with. Lately she's been in a particularly stubborn and willful frame of mind for some reason, and it's really pushing my limits. I'm hoping that now that school is starting up again, she'll feel a little better. She was thrilled to go to pre-school yesterday (no playgroup today; next week) and she'll go again tomorrow, and Monday she'll be going to the child care program again, so I'm hopeful that it'll be enough to keep her stimulated or whatever it is she needs to get out of this very annoying mindset she's in.
Interesting Links
Helping Kids with Mild Autism
What is Autism?
I've added both of those the the sidebar, as they both have information that I think describes Zoë's particular disability. It's very clear that there's nothing wrong with her intellectual ability. She's very definitely smart, and she puzzles out all kinds of things, purely by observation and/or experimentation. She also very clearly has an active and vivid imagination, and she's very affectionate and can be funny (she does have a very clear sense of humor).
She's just very severely speech delayed (and impaired; her ability to understand language/communication is clearly not normal) and has some pretty notable social impairments (for example, she tends to get too close to people and invade their "personal space"). She also has some pretty unpleasant reactions to change in routine sometimes, and when she's prevented from doing something she things "should be" done a certain way (yes, I'm talking about tantrums, although they're not as awful as they used to be, thankfully).
In other words, she's not "Rainman" or anything. She's entirely normal in most ways. She's got developmental problems, but the classic picture of the autistic as being mentally retarded or wholly unresponsive to the world around them or whatever is just wrong. In fact, as I'm typing this, I have to look around Zoë's head because she came over and climbed up on my lap and gave me a nice big cuddle, and now she's singing a song about how she'd like to have a tickle....
A classic Zoë Moment
Andrew took Zoë to the grocery store with him, which she loves. When they were through with all the shopping, he said to her, "Okay, we're done. Let's go buy stuff." Zoë looked at the stuff in the trolley and waved and said, "Bye, stuff!"
Doctor appointment
Zoë went to the pediatrician today. The doctor mostly talked to us and observed Zoë, but wasn't really able to do much of a direct assessment, since Zoë wasn't going to cooperate. To be fair, she was somewhat overstimulated and on the tired side, but she does get in these kind of uncooperative moods quite often and I know perfectly well that when she's like that, there's no making her do what she doesn't want to do.
The doctor finally decided that there's not really any need to keep on assessing Zoë's developmental disorder (for official purposes) and just made a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. She did note that Zoë is extremely high-functioning and that in time, with enough therapy, Zoë will appear more or less "normal" and able to function in school and society and such, although she'll always probably be a little quirky.
That's pretty much what I figured. She'll be a geek, like most of the rest of the family...
The purpose and point of giving an actual diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder rather than just saying it's an unspecified developmental delay is so that we can continue to get the government aid for her without having to constantly re-submit the paperwork.
So, that's the size of it for the time being.
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