Almost there...

A couple of new things about Autism to share. This article in our local paper is about a 7 year old Autistic boy who uses a therapy dog to help him out. Pretty amazing stuff!

Also, be sure and check out this report. It's by the Interactive Autism Network. It was just launched in April of this year. The project, which aims to collect information from families with a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It was designed to accelerate autism research. To gain a better understanding of autism and how to treat it, scientists need what families have: detailed information on children's diagnosis, treatments, environment, and services received. IAN is gathering this information directly from families, giving them an opportunity to "be part of the solution" and to make their voices heard. So cool. What a facinating report!

I leave you with a sweet picture of our little guy. We've had 10 days with my husband gone (1 more to go!) and Lowell has done fantastic! We even had a big storm pass through and lost power. Granted he had some major issues with not understanding that we cannot turn on the ceiling fan or the tv or the lights and he would not accept that. So we had to sleep at my parents. But overall he's been extremely good and I am so pleased.

Poster child?

Lowell has quite unexpectedly become somewhat of a poster child for the Autism Day Treatment program he is in. Kinda funny! I was talking to a friend the other day and she said, "Isn't that Lowell on the St. David's home page?" I don't go there often, so I had no idea. I looked at their web site here and there he was, with an adorable smile going through this tunnel of light, as my mom likes to call it. Then the other day we got the most recent St. David's newsletter in the mail and this same picture was on the back cover page. Pretty neat!

So then I was poking around the web site since I knew that they were going to feature the Austism Day Treatment program in their annual report. I found the online version and there was our little guy again with the following article.

I know this is very hard to read. You can see it online here. Scroll down to page 5. Lowell has been doing fantastic. He has had some nice "explosions" in many key areas of development. He is now using the individual words that he knows for actual requests. He is so much more aware these days, follows directions very nicely and is using his words to help understand and interact with the world around him!!! We are beyond thrilled:)