April is Autism Awareness Month

April is Autism Awareness month.  My commitment to myself, my child, and others on this Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) journey is to start posting more regularly.  But more than that, while the scientists and the dietitians work on causes and cures, I continue to work on supporting academic success and cognitive development.

Going forward I won't only talk about the challenges and triumphs of the journey.  I've learned alot about language and language development.  Oh, there's a whole lot more to know and I leave that to the speech language pathologists and academics who will do research on how the brain works etc.  While they do that, I still have to support my child as she navigates the academic demands of school  Inclusion works for us but there's stuff that I have to do to ensure success and minimal frustration (parent, child, and teacher).  To that end, I'll start sharing some of the tips and techniques we used to learn some of the obvious stuff that just wasn't obvious to us.

With an undergraduate degree in linguistics, I know the basic elements of language, how English came to its present form.  I even know something about the history of the Spanish language.  Then there's all those years I spend in graduate school learning how to design, develop, and create instructional programs.  Who knew that there would come a point in my life when the two would come together for a purpose outside of my job?  Well, that time has come.
 
In order to support her learning, I had to (1) understand what she needed to learn everything.  They come knowing nothing and our job is to introduce them to the world  and (2) I had to figure out what the gaps were and how to guide her in filling them.  Item (1) was a challenge all by itself.  Item (2) involved the detective work that allowed me to use my program design skills and my graduate study research to create resources and activities that helped us when the off-the-shelf products didn't.  The other thing I learned was that most books aren't designed with us in mind.  I determined that if the books don't have what I need, I'll have to create them.  And that's exactly what I've done and am doing.

So, April is Autism Awareness month.  I'm committed to posting and sharing.  What's your commitment - to a parent, to a child, the teachers, the researchers, or yourself?  Everybody loves to say it takes a village to raise a child...if you're in the village, you'll need to know a little something about the people who make up your village.  With current statistics at 1 in 150 diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, here's your chance to learn something about us and our journey. 

Awareness is the first step.  The next is action.  However small the action you take, I say thanks in advance for your commitment to the cause of parents like me.