{"id":362,"date":"2014-10-27T10:01:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T10:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/?p=362"},"modified":"2014-10-27T10:01:52","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T10:01:52","slug":"sensory-challenges-for-adults-with-autism-one-step-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/27\/sensory-challenges-for-adults-with-autism-one-step-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Sensory challenges for adults with autism- one step at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shoe<\/a>One step at a time, they say.\u00a0 My twins W. and J. heartily agree – and if there’s a lesson for other parents and providers in a simple worn-out tennis shoe, it’s that life is a progression of steps toward a goal.\u00a0 If we keep taking them, we get there – even with autism.<\/p>\n

W. kept his tennis shoes and socks on for over 2 hours yesterday on a combined walk and errand run.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m celebrating because in this two steps forward, one step back disorder of profound autism – or one step forward\/two steps back on certain days – we are making progress.<\/p>\n

At age 20 autism is mighty different than at age 6.\u00a0 Unfortunately service providers and educational systems skew so heavily toward early services that we tend to forget adults of all kind, including those with autism, have sensory needs.\u00a0\u00a0A visiting DDS social worker on Friday suggested I’m not getting W’s school to deliver on W’s\u00a0sensory aversions.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m still thinking about that.\u00a0 Really after years of school systems applying their cookie cutter service grid regardless of the I in Individualized Education Plan, maybe I have low expectations.<\/p>\n

Yet progress of any kind happens because of persistence, and some magical element of leveraging the individuals innate assets to cooperate.\u00a0\u00a0 What was the deciding factor yesterday in keeping the shoes on?\u00a0 Temperature, since it was in the 50’s and W’s feet were cold after wearing Crocs with no socks all day?\u00a0\u00a0 Tolerance, since our most wonderful skills trainer has successfully gotten W. to wear said shoes\/socks at least 5 times before on neighborhood walks? Mood, as in W. was compliant that day? Overriding sensory regulation, in whatever earlier activities W had undertaken?\u00a0 None of the above?<\/p>\n

So while work awaits, I’m newly energized at multiple goals for W and J. too -as well as myself.\u00a0 Any goal is possible when you work at it.\u00a0 Here’s to a day to you all, and me too, of many steps toward even seemingly implacable goals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One step at a time, they say.\u00a0 My twins W. and J. heartily agree – and if there’s a lesson for other parents and providers in a simple worn-out tennis shoe, it’s that life is a progression of steps toward a goal.\u00a0 If we keep taking them, we get there – even with autism. W. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}