Calling all wise advisors:
Irlens Syndrome: Heard of it? Believe in it? Should I spend $1000 and drive an hour each way to drag my son to yet another evaluation to find out if he has this visual processing problem that will require him to wear unusual looking filters on his glasses and potentially help him see/read/process/visualize better? Very tempting...
Goodnights: When do you encourage kids to try sleeping through the night without them? Peaches, NT, will be 4 in March, and it's tempting. Roo, with autism, is 5 1/2 and I'm guessing not ready for a long while... but I don't want to add to the problem.
Melatonin: Bad to use it every night forever? I mean, yeah, I know it is, I think. But. Well. You know. Can I? I mean... talk to me.
Forgive the greedy cries for help. Only if you have a sec. Oh, yeah, it's Christmas and New Year's and you have kids of your own... forget I asked...Love you anyway. Kiss kiss.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Two kids, two full time careers - lots of people do it gracefully, but for me it's a challenge, particularly as I struggle with my boy, the rooster, and his "constellation" of health and developmental issues. Medicine so far fails to cure what ails us, so I'm trying a self-prescribed intensive dose of blogging to see if that does the trick.
5 comments:
My answer to #1 is NO. Spend some time reading things like this: http://specialed.about.com/od/disabilities/a/Irlen.htm and try some of the things they suggest to see if it makes any difference. You could also read Irlen's book (mentioned in article).
#2 When she's consistently dry in the mornings. Start by having her go to the bathroom as soon as she wakes up and see if she can go. If so, you may be ready to try (just use extra mattress pads!)
#3 We use it every night for Nik but it seems to lose it's efficacy if you don't take short breaks once in a while. Um, we haven't done that either.
Holidays? What holidays?? ;-)
No advice except for the GoodNights--my (NT) son used them until he was maybe 9 or so. He had a small bladder and was a heavy sleeper and I just didn't see any point in changing sheets when there was an easy solution. Our approach was that when they were dry every night for over a week, we gave it a try without them. Then after two wet nights we went back for a while. Once he went a couple of months and then started being wet again; it was another year or more before he was done for good. (Oh, and you may find this unsanitary, but if they were dry we re-used them--he would wear the same one for a couple of nights. Helped me deal with the expense.)
Don't hate me, but all I can say is follow your gut. Cause down deep, you've got the answers.
As for the pull ups? Ask the kids. They may just surprise you.
Never heard of it; highly praise dry nights, but who has the energy to deal with more potty training?; Melatonin is not addictive (unless you count your addiction to his falling asleep eventually); love, love, love.
well.........
I do think it is possible (not sure I'd go to probable) that kids on the spectrum have visual issues. After all, they have trouble processing all sorts of other sensory input, why should their visual input be any different? My vision therapist works with some kids, and has had good luck with prism lenses on them (completely different from this Irlen stuff). He pointed me to a book that I read, and had some trouble with, since this gentleman believes that ALL issues with autism have to do with visual processing difficulties (and I don't buy that there is a single answer to much of anything, let alone something so complicated as ASD. It was an interesting read though - Seeing Through New Eyes - http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Through-New-Eyes-Developmental/dp/1843108003/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261625361&sr=8-6
I must mention that the first thing I found when I googled Irlen was this:
It is important to note that Irlen syndrome and visual treatments are unproven and not recognized by the major academic Pediatric Organizations in the US(AAP, AOA, and AAO.).
Post a Comment