Autistic Grandchilden - http://www.autismspeaks.org/

These picture epitomise the symptoms of autism.  There are a couple behaviors shown in the picture above that are very typical of an autistic child,  First and foremost is the fact that even though they are are playing together; they are also each doing their own separate activies.  There is no social interaction.

When I was growing up and my siblings and I all faced abuse, we still faced it separately.  My phrase for it is 'We were all in it together, separately.'  How much better it would have been growing up if my siblings an I could have talked and worked together, but alas it was not to be.  We still do not discuss it.  It makes for great loneliness, feelings of self questioning and doubt without that social interaction.  While my siblings could have had that interaction, due to the abuse it never happened.  With autism that social interaction is missing; it is part of the autism condition.  How very sad to go through life, to be an insular individual devoid of the comfort of human interaction.

This lack of interaction is again shown in the fact that autistic children lack interaction with their playthings, also.  Instead  of playing with their toys and having them interact; they line them up.  Notice that Wyatt is lining up the crayons while Hayden is coloring.  Hayden has been in therapy and Laura has worked hard in encouraging some kind of interaction, but when Hayden was little he often lined up he toys and heaven forbid you moved them.  It was meltdown time.  Now he can interact with his toys sometimes with great enthusiasum.

There is great hope in the research and therapies now. I believe every person has their own special set of talents and gifts, but autistic children need extra help in coping and developing social skills so that their own personal talents can show and shine. 

For more information on autism please go to http://www.autismspeaks.org/.

If you go through this website to Amazon I have a wish list under my name Johnina Young and under my wish list Autism look for items that help with autism if you would like to learn more or would like to help me help my grandchildren.  Or you can go to the Amazon link or my wish list on my sidebar.  I have checked these books out at the library when they were available so I know most of them to be helpful and informative.

ENJOY

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

I'm back

I've been busy the last several days getting a display of my photography ready for a program at our church. I promised myself that I would listen to my body and rest when I needed to and not worry if everything didn't get done. I pretty well kept that promise and since I usually write my posts at night that was what didn't get done. I am proud of myself for keeping that promise and I recuperated from the extra effort quickly.
The program at the church was to give many homemade quilts to the Linius Project. This is a project where children who experience traumatic events receive a quilt to snuggle with to help them through the crisis. Policeman carry them with them in their squad cars, hospitals have them on hand so they can be given out in time of need.
At the same time we celebrated the many talents of the ladies of our church. We displayed our talents and gave a little speech on how we got started and what our talents and developing them meant to us.
It was a truly wonderful inspiring evening. I've got a couple of pictures edited and ready to go except for permission of the person in the photo to post it on the Internet. I'll put up what I can and put up more later.