Saturday, November 5, 2016

A place to start.

    When the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder was given to my son just shy of his 3 year birthday our family didn't know where to begin. We were given a pamphlet on ASD and sent on our way. We needed more. I stopped at our local book store and purchased The Conscious Parent's Guide to Autism. This book led me to the Autism Research Institute and then onto our biomedical journey towards healing our son. All that will be saved for a later post about how we got to where we are. For now I want to cover the basics and give family's like us an easy guide of information on getting started.

    I have come in contact with numerous families going through the same journey. What is one of the biggest, and unfortunate, commonalities between us? Not a diagnosis of ASD, but the fact that we lacked guidance on where to go beyond this diagnosis. There truly is little help. The fact that there are different beliefs in causes and treatments only adds to the confusion. In the future I will talk about what our beliefs are and why, but for now all I can say is this: Read all that you can read, research all that you can research, draw your own conclusions to what is the best course of treatment for your child and most importantly never give up. This road is long and tiring but can be full of rewards as you see just how special and truly one of a kind your child is.

Where to start:

The Basic Foundation:

Books:
The Conscious Parent's Guide to Autism

10 Things Every Child with Autism Wishes you knew

Websites:

Digging Deeper

Books:
Healing our Autistic Children - Dr. Juile Buckley (She is the biomedical specialist that Camden sees)


The perspective from an ASD child

Books:
The reason I jump
https://www.amazon.com/Reason-Jump-Inner-Thirteen-Year-Old-Autism/dp/081298515X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478375962&sr=1-1&keywords=The+reason+I+jump

Ido in Autism Land
https://www.amazon.com/Ido-Autismland-Climbing-Autisms-Silent/dp/0988324709/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478375995&sr=1-1&keywords=ido+in+autismland

It's like therapy

Books:
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising kids on the spectrum
https://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Soup-Soul-Inspirational-Aspergers/dp/1611599083/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478376063&sr=1-1&keywords=chicken+soup+for+the+soul+autism