Valiant_Skylark

I don't want to get into heated debates about whether a certain post was offensive or not. It seems to me that we all "come to" things when the time is right for us as individuals, and that is the best any of us can do. We all have totally different factors affecting our lives at any one point. Sometimes, there are just too many "possibles" to implement at any one time? So long as one reads, listens, digests and ponders that, in my mind, is ok. Often people have not taken my "advice", but it is always, nevertheless, interesting to see how their lives pan out. Sometimes they come back and teach me a thing or two that I wasn't aware of at the time. Everything is simply too "big" with too many variables for any one thing to be THE right answer for everybody. And nobody has enough time or money or knowhow to do it all "right now" anyway? I don't think anybody on this forum is remotely lazy or negligent or they wouldn't have taken their (precious) time to join in the first place. We need to be kind to and patient with ourselves and each other if we are going to survive with sanity intact! Back to the main thread... I've just got back from Brussels where everything I ordered "sans fromage" ended up coming "avec fromage" (is my French really that bad?!) I used to love cheese pre-CF, but , like a good girl, I scrapped most (well, ok, 90% of it) off. Within 20 minutes I had red ears with tiny fluid-filled blisters. By day 2 I had a sore face (had to raid the bar for a cold tin of beer to roll on my face to take the pain away) and the beginnings of sore fingers. Definately casein causing my red ears then! Back to normal now on a strictly CF diet. Had a great time in Brussels though. VS xx

Hi Daisy, May I also say how interesting (and inspiring) reading your posts has been. Perhaps, if you have the time, you could share more of your experiences with coping with Higher Education with us? In the meantime, good luck with the studies! VS xx

Thanks for posting that, Sue. We have been limiting our intake of soy for some time now, but I know many people are still totally unaware of the issues surrounding the use of soy. All info gratefully read and considered! VS xx

Fantastic! Sounds like you've got a good yard there. Best of luck on Sunday. My AS/dyspraxic 11 year old does a half hour RDA per week during term time whilst his brother (8) has just changed from a "walk/trot group" to a mainstream 1hr class lesson every other week at the same riding school. We've met loads of lovely people and it's been a great way to network with other parents with ASD, ADHD and dyspraxic kids. Funnily enough, my eldest son showed an empathy with ponies that he didn't show for a long time with people; he always seemed to pick up on equine moods far more easily than human moods. Gave me hope in those early years! Have fun, VS xx

Despite problems with tummies and diet before going GF/CF, mine have always been "Mr Average", smack bang on the 50th centile for weight. AS son looks "slim" and has no spare fat on him, but I'm assured his weight is ideal. I'm a little cautious though, as I was just the same shape as my sons until about 18 years old, when my weight shot up and I kinda changed shape totally. Years of owning horses kept me fairly toned but now, horseless and hypothyroid, I'm a knackered Mrs Blobby VS xx

Will be thinking of you and your family. Sending you <'> <'> <'> VS

Took both sons to visit a railway centre today, which involved a lot of climbing steep staircases and ladders. Noticed how one son seemed just so much more confident than the other. Put my own gloves on... back to front (yup, by accident)... and rapidly discovered why! Reason? I always wear "Adults Magic Riding Gloves" which are stretchy acrylic riding gloves with lycra and, importantly, pimpled palms for grip. I'm so used to wearing them, not only for riding but for driving and general use, that I'd forgotten how hard it is to grip handrails with any confidence without them. With my gloves on the "no pimple" side I could hardly "feel" the handrail and my hand slipped terribly. My confidence plummeted. In contrast, with the pimple side on the palms of my hand I was a "new woman", whizzing up and down! Son with pimple gloves had no problems all day. Son with ordinary gloves was anxious all day. Will suggest both sons swap to pimply riding gloves for playgrounds (swings, slides etc) etc from now on. It did occur to me that these or similar sorts of makes of riding glove, available through tack shops, on-line or even via ebay, might help other children who have a weak hand grip, dyspraxia or depth problems where a firmer, less slippy hand grip would give more confidence to allow time for "checking the next step"? I've bought these gloves for around ?3 a pair and I've just realised that to me they are priceless. Hoping this tip might help someone else. VS xx

Glad to hear it has gone so well. Hope you can sort the home bit soon. VS xx Well done Kai

Both my boys were "chewers". Our OTs suggested buying a length of fish pond tubing(!) which is, apparently, non-toxic and just the right resistance to provide proprioceptive input to regulate "engine levels" ie how alert the child feels. (From Paed OT's The Alert Programme) Chewing on the length of tube has the effect of calming the child whose engine is running too high, supposedly, whilst at the same time can have an alerting effect on a child whose system is running too low. A length of fish pond tubing is a lot cheaper than ?5.00. VS xx

Made it through till Day 3 of the new term before we had a mini crisis. Doesn't take long, does it? (Thanx, N, for your support.) VS

We used Mona McNee's "Step by Step" to learn the rules of spelling (and reading) and combined this with "Wordshark3" by White Space to programme in weekly spelling lists. We use a microphone (bought with our voice recognition software) to record words that are not already on Wordshark, so this way we can even learn spellings of foreign words too. Step by Step can be bought as a booklet, for a pittance, and just the rules and ideas taken from it if your child hates writing and doesn't want to write out the exercises. (Just go over the rules with him, verbally, every time you see a word that he wants to know. I also never expected my children to struggle to spell out a word, which is really demotivating. Rather, I would sound out the word and blend it again and again, gradually faster and faster, until the child could "hear" the word as it is perceived in speech.) Then Wordshark uses typing in spellings, rather than handwriting, using various games as motivation. One son loves the train game. Son No 2 loves catching sharks. Wordshark also taught my sons dictionary skills and a very good working knowledge of the order of the alphabet. Son No 1 was v v poor at anything to do with sequencing. It has taken longer to combine creative writing with competent spelling. Eldest son seems to need to drop one to concentrate on the other, and vice versa, but it is coming slowly, especially now that he uses computers more to present his work at senior level. Not having to think about how the letters are formed and where to place them frees him up to think about the content of his work and the spellings. Eldest son has below 2nd centile Auditory STM and dyspraxia/dyslexia, so despite the remaining difficulties he has, nevertheless, done quite well with this approach. If your son has good verbal skills then it may be worth looking at voice recognition. This helped us at home for a while, but we would warn that it can be less reliable when your son's voice starts to change as he gets older. I can see my son returning to VR software when his voice is more stable again! Another tip is to write out his spellings for him putting in the "splits" strictly according to how Mona McNee would break down the word. We went one step further and used different colours, each with some sort of "significance" to small son, to help encourage a deeper level of processing in terms of memory eg "ough" says "uff" (in some words at least) and was always written in red ink as it kind of sounds red, puffy and effortful! Yet another tip is to think up pictures to help your child to remember eg We drew a picture of "ti" followed by a red bed... ie Tired ...otherwise we tended to spell "tired" as "tierd"! Chanting "Ti-red bed" over and over helped too. We've made up songs to learn some spellings... eg To American army marching song... "He's the greatest in the land, He is such a mighty man, P-H-A-R-A-O-H P-H-A-R-A-O-H" etc etc Not every method will work with every child, of course, but you could have a play around and see what lights your little boy's firework? It is hard work when STM is so poor; I found we had to put in hours of work at home, but this needs to be balanced against a need for rest and, of course, time spent on social skills. It can seem there are not enough hours in the day! Keeping a sense of proportion and a sense of humour are crucial! I'm sure others on this forum will give you excellent advice so you'll find there are plenty of choices of paths to take. VS xx

I doubt situations like mine happen often these days either. Sorry I can't cast any more light on why things happened as they did. Rest assured it was many, many years ago! Those who were involved have probably passed away by now! My own son was born, prematurely, in August, being due in September. Despite his problems, he found himself in the school year of his birth date rather than his due date. He always struggled to keep up and I found myself trying to get him put in the year below to ease his stress. We had no joy and were told, "Someone has to come bottom". So I've seen the other side of the coin, as it were, too. Another person I know, who had a premmie son in a similar situation, simply decided to home ed rather than put an arguably disadvantaged child into a school year that he would not have been in had he been born full-term. This child eventually went to school at junior level, I believe, though I'm not definate on that. I have come across twins who were "kept back a year" at my son's old infant school because they were deemed to be "immature" (according to the mother). Similarly, my son worked alongside a 9 year old "Year 2" at infant school, so I know there must be some flexibility within the system somewhere. I don't know anything more about the background to these cases, so I don't know what law was applied. I'd just be guessing. Has any parent reading this had a child entered in a mainstream infant school at an age either below or above the "norm"? How easy was it to agree this? More importantly, did it help the individual child involved? In the long run, did it "matter"? VS xx

Hi Canopus, I was born, bred and schooled in the Shires, I'm afraid. The school I went to served a very poor "council" area though. At that time, I'm told, "address" (ie catchment area) determined the school to which a child went. Indeed, one girl's parents had to move house in order to get her into another primary when she was badly bullied at the school. That's all I know. As for being in the year "above", I was a September born and started infants proper (reception) as a 4 year old. This meant that I was 5 at the start of year 1 and 6 at the start of year 2. I had done Nursery somewhere else from age 2. I believe I was allowed on because I was "ready" and nobody really worried about it until someone somewhere noticed, at what would have been transfer time, that I was "too young" to go up, based on my birth date. That was it and was held back. Similarly, at 'O' Levels, several girls and I were "ready" to take our exams early... but were not "allowed" and the Head quoted problems with "policy". We were allowed to start studying for 'A' levels early, so, for example, I took 'O' level maths a year after I actually gave up the 'O' class and move in with the 'A' level class. We were allowed to take 'A'levels early and then rather than take further 'A' levels I went on to just do a "part-time" Upper Sixth, whilst gaining practical work experience for my degree course. The year after I left one girl did get to take her 'O's early, but we never found out how she swung it! My parents were wary of challenging any of these decisions, particularly my father, as they were both immigrants and there was a lot of anti-foreigner feeling about so soon after the war. It was a case of "keep your head down and don't draw attention to yourself". His view was that England was doing us a favour by having us at all - Who were we to criticise? VS xx

I chose "Valiant-Skylark" in one of my darker moments, just after son No. 1 had been dxd - you know, when your world falls apart for a while? I was thinking of a verse I had read somewhere... "Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly" "Valiant" and "Skylark" were actually two of my ponies, both long gone now, from whom I learned a lot about myself. I miss them both terribly. Putting the two ideas together, I had the, rather comforting, image of a skylark, valiantly battling it out, whatever the odds. Coincidentally, I also live in one of the last places in my part of the country to have skylarks attempting to live amongst the urbanization of the plough. VS xx

I was given this link by an exisiting member who I met at an NAS Help! programme. I was wary, initially, because of my experience of some forums, where "flaming" had proved difficult to control and left one feeling uncomfortable and slightly depressed, even just as an observer. Krism has proved to be populated by the kindest and most well-meaning people I have ever come across. The determination of "Krismites" to keep the tone of the site "supportive" is, I feel, it's greatest strength. I admit that I have passed on the link to both professionals and parents that I have met, as the wealth of knowledge, in terms of "living it", on this site is truly phenomenal. VS xx

I don't know. Perhaps we will never know? All I know is that I have a sense of being severely let down at primarly level by an education system that knowingly encouraged "dumbing down" for those of us who came from a "poor" background, but might have done better in a more stimulating environment. In the event, my break came with moving to the ex-Grammar school that my sister had attended as a fully-fledged Grammar school. Funnily enough, only one other child from my Primary made it to this school. The difference in ethos was... well, fantastic. I loved (and appreciated) every moment of my time there. I no longer had to distract myself from interminable boredom and neglect. Iwas definately "in the wrong room" with the educational/cultural policy of my primary years. I craved education and was starved. How sad I feel for those wasted years. Incidentally, I was also, to add insult to injury, made to repeat Year 2 and in doing so lost my earliest friends as they moved on to junior school. The reason? I had been in a class a year ahead of my "correct" school year and "policy" said that I must be in the "correct" chronologically-determined school year before transfer to junior school. Period. No appeal allowed. I died inside that year that seemed to be repeated word for word... and switched off, going through it on automatic. How I hated "Those Who Made The Decisions" then. Of course, I eventually made new friends but the loss of my old friends (including my first boyfriend [Ahhh]) is still there. VS xx

On whether it had stopped raining enough to ride his new electric scooter outside... Youngest son (NT 8): "It's no good mummy... It's still dribbling outside..." Mum and eldest son (rotfl): The word you wanted there was "spitting"?!

Canopus, That's interesting because my sister and I were children of the 60s and I have heard a similar tale from my mother. My mother taught my sister to read and write etc, as a matter of course, before she went to nursery. When my sister got to school she was way ahead of the other children (including being bi-lingual). My mother says the teachers "told mum off" for teaching big sis and advised her not to teach me as "otherwise we have nothing left to teach your daughters". I was then left more or less to my own devices, in comparison with big sis, but I picked most subjects up at school very quickly. Most of my time in infants and juniors proved to be a bit of a waste of time, IMHO, with abysmal teaching which today would border on neglect of the children. Indeed, the SATS results of my old school were, one memorable year, 17% pass rate. Ouch... not much changed then? I came into my own at senior level and above, but had to more or less teach myself to make up for my poor primary education. Both the academic and social "education" were "very poor", by the way. Hmmm. The sad thing is that my mother was the daughter of a Headmaster in her home town in Germany. My Grand-Father, Great-Grand-Father and Great-Great-Grand-Father were all Heads too. I realise now that they taught my mother using techniques which are touted as "new" by those who try to sell programmes for dyslexics/dyspraxics. My mother taught these without thinking anything of it. Needless to say, my mother is a bit disillusioned by the advice she was given all those years ago. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and, in retrospect, we should have gone our own way. My mother was a wonderful teacher. I'd say now, "Go with your intuition on this one". If a child is keen to learn and progressing, then sod those who try to put you off. If you are not enjoying learning and it is verging on "hot-housing" and is "unsustainable" in the long run... then change your methods and go try something else for a while. Don't forget that our kids are not the "bog standard issue" and it may be inadvisable to insist that they are treated as such simply to fit the child to an inflexible education system. VS xx

Just succeeded at the 11th hour! Many thanks for the tip! Happy New Year all and good luck to those who haven't got through yet. VS xx

Can I just say that this is the first full year that the boys and I have been GF/CF and/or CF and it is the first year that we have had astoundingly less colds/bugs/earache/chestiness/viruses. All our friends have proven much more susceptible to "things going around" than we have (a miracle - based on our pretty disasterous past record), and we have had merely sniffles when others have been really poorly. I don't know yet whether it is coincidence (I'll probably get flu next week because I've stuck my neck out here!), but I'm amazed at the improvement in our "resilience" so far. In fairness, we are eating more healthily than ever too - because the boys will eat a wider range of healthier foods now that they are not hooked into eating bread and milk products all the time. Also interesting is that having any form of milk now gives me pretty obvious symptoms: sore throat, earache, sinusitis, painful achy flu-like joints, "tired" limbs and a mood crash that has to be seen to be believed. I'm posting this because I remember dragging the boys and myself to the local hospital at 3am, maybe 3 times a week, ALL WINTER, EVERY YEAR, to deal with excrutiating earache, that at one time (dread) became suspected encephalitis. (Moral: a simple earinfection can turn nasty, so suggest you don't ignore the, hopefully small, possibility that it can go "onto the brain" and act quickly if it does.) Basically, I wish I'd had the opportunity to try out the GF/CF diet (with the evidence from Paul Shattock) then, instead of going through all those nightmare years. Perhaps, just perhaps, it might have made life easier? I can't tell you how dire those earlier years were, and if I said they nearly killed me, it wouldn't be far off! Hope all gets better for you and your little ones. VS xx

We saw Narnia last weekend and, overall, loved it. Youngest son (8 and not ASD) was gutted when Aslan "died" and ended up sobbing on my lap (I was told he had heard the story at school before!) We then had a bit of a job trying to explain how Aslan could "come back to life" when youngest son considers dead to be...well... dead... which I suppose it is really. Just imagine Mum trying to hastily explain that Aslan was "like Christ rising from the dead" qv stories at Easter, whilst son howls and 100+ heads turn curiously in our direction. You might decide to cover this bit, at home beforehand, if necc! Stll, smashing film. We saw Harry Potter the week before with no problems at all. Having worried about "content" for the 8 year old, youngest son left the cinema exclaming loudly, "Well that wasn't that scary at all!" I'd fretted for weeks about taking him. Eldest son (AS) loved both films and was v well behaved. We go Saturday afternoons, when the cinema is quiet. VS xx

Something to say that you may spend the next few years wondering if the dx is correct! A note to say that the "experts" can't agree on what Autism/ASD/AS is/are so try not to fret if you get lost and confused too. A note to say that "co-morbidity" really means "talk to everybody, listen to everybody, wriggle around in it, and, if the cap fits...wear it". Take from the muddle of information that which seems closest and seems to work. A note to say that if your DLA claim fails... try, try, and try again. A note to say that NTs can, arguably, be "disabled" in their inability to understand the world of Autistics. VS xx

One for you, DAS999? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...2125&query_hl=6 VS xx

I thought Elanor put that brilliantly too. My eldest went ape one year when his brother put the same item as him on his xmas list. Eventually it turned out that he couldn't imagine (in the heat of the moment) there being the possibility of owning two of the same thing. Perhaps your little one's outburst was fuelled by similar logic... in which case his "overreaction" is less "spoilt brat" and more "ASDish"? Your sister sounds "hard work"! You have my sympathies, VS xx

Is this of interest? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...7555&query_hl=1 VS xx