Harpers Beginning Part 2

Right after Harper's 2nd birthday I noticed she had started pulling her hair within about 2 months she had pulled herself completely bald. This would be 1 of 3 times that she pulled all of her hair out. I look back now and think wow autism still never crossed my mind. After the first round of hair pulling I did my research and talked to the pediatrician and there is a diagnosis for people who pull their hair out so we took that as our answer and tried different things to keep her from pulling her hair like hats and then giving her fluffy toys she could pull on. It seemed to always happened in the car when I couldn’t get to her quickly she would just grab a handful and pull it out. I would pull over and give her things to redirect but the second I started driving again she would pull more.

Looking back it’s crazy to me how no one ever mentioned the word Autism or SPD. Knowing what I know now I’m really not sure how that was never brought up. The person that did bring it up to me was Harper’s speech therapist. She asked me, “have you ever considered the fact that Harper could have autism?” I’ll be honest, my answer was no. We spent the rest of that session talking about the things that she had noticed with Harper and why we should consider getting her evaluated. She offered at the next session to complete a STATA test on Harper. This is a test that will give you a result of not likely, likely, or highly likely for autism. The next week came and she gave the test and Harper scored highly likely. Honestly I expected it. I had spent that whole week prior researching and reading and most of the traits and characteristics fit. We got referrals sent in and were put on a very lengthy wait list at 2 different facilities to have the full developmental eval.

We weren’t even given a date. They gave us a range which was 8-14 months they would call and schedule closer to. That seemed crazy to me. During this waiting period Harper turned 3 and did special education preschool through public school and continued speech and occupational therapy. She had good days and bad days. Elopement was a huge issue that we had to deal with daily. Even with a lot of supervision she could get away. Behaviors were escalating at home and it got to the point where I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her with anyone or taking her out into public by myself. It seemed like the risk of her running off and getting lost was just too high.

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Speech Device.

Speech Device. A huge misconception about speech devices is that they discourage children from using their verbal language. This could not be further from the truth. Keeping a communication tool away from a non speaking child is not a way to get them to speak. Harper and Dallas both started with PECS. A picture exchange system to express their wants and needs! As a mom of 2 non speaking children getting them to use PECS as a means of communication was a life changer for us. Now Harper has her speech device. Dallas’s is in process and will hopefully be here soon. Since getting Harpers device that has verbal output when she presses a button to make a request. She is able to answer so many question and let us know what her wants and needs are. She is also repeating the words after she hears her device say them. Harper can answer me with her device when is ask, What’s your name? How old are you? When’s your birthday? What do ...

Harpers Beginning Part 1

When we received Harpers diagnosis of Autism my way to deal with my grief was to dive into the world of autism. I wanted to read and learn everything I possibly could. When I would find a new blog, podcast, instagram or facebook page I would scroll all the way to the beginning. I wanted to see if someone had a child like mine. Trying to find any community I could. So my blog is going to start at the beginning. This is Harper’s story. With my oldest I had preeclampsia and high blood pressure and I delivered Savannah at 35 weeks. With Harper I had a plan and was more informed on what to do and not to do to try to prevent having those same issues again. But at 13 weeks pregnant with Harper on September 24th 2017 I was admitted to the hospital and immediately rushed into surgery because my appendix has ruptured. I remember everything from that time. I knew pregnant women shouldn’t have surgery, anesthesia, medications, all of the things that I was about to have done to me. My O...

Communication Looked Different

I remember before diagnosis. There was a stretch of time where I was just a tool for Harper and Dallas. They only needed me to get them food, change them, open items and that’s it. There was no verbal communication and not much non verbal communication. Communication consisted of crying. Dallas when he would want something he would just cry. There was nothing that led to the crying. He was either fine or crying. If he wanted a drink to let me know he would cry. Harper would just drag me around. She would grab my arm and pull me to the fridge and it was a guessing game of what she would want. If I grabbed the wrong thing she would cry. If I grabbed the right thing she was silent. For both of them there was no pointing or reaching. This time of our life was hard! But this time of my life taught me so much! I learned so much about my kids. I compare it to a newborn. When you have a newborn you are in tune with them. I remember I learned diff...

Autism On The Farm

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