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Our Initiatives: Programs
Act Early
What We Saw with our Son (Learn the Signs)
Our son’s grandmother recognized there was something wrong when our son was 20 months old (Figure 1). She noted he was not interested in playing with her and saw hyperactivity. I saw he was different from the other kids at school, wandering off to play alone instead of staying with the with the group. We all saw severe tantrums, sometimes with self-injurious behavior. Only in hind site we now know he had several classic symptoms of autism (also see Figures 1, 2):
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Limited interest in play with others
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Not usually responding to his name
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Decreased eye contact (only when he was interested)
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Little pointing (he pulled us around instead)
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Delayed speech (no word for daddy at two years)
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Repetitive behaviors (flipping light switches, watching the same video repeatedly)
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Interest in spinning objects (wheels, ceiling fans)
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Restricted interests (trucks)
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We did not recognize these at the time. If your child as any one of these or others, please take action!
What We Did - Act Early
1) Professional evaluation. We listened to our son’s grandmother and took him to a leading private hospitals for evaluation when he was 22 months. One referred us overseas and the other provided a diagnosis of “speech delay and impaired interaction.” The one who provided a diagnosis recommend simple instructions for home and school but did not provide methods for how to do it.
At the same time, I communicated with pediatricians in the USA who strongly recommended evaluation by a US-trained developmental pediatrician. We had to travel to Japan. There he received a diagnosis of level 2 (moderate) autism with only a 10% chance of full recovery. Specifically, the doctor recommended:
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Special education as covered by US law (in the US)
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P.L.A.Y. Project (Play and Language for Autistic Youngsters™) for parents (Figure 3)
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Autism Speaks 100-day kit
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Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
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Individual speech therapy (ST)
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Individual occupational therapy (OT)
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A hearing test
2) Early Intervention. We struggled to find the recommended resources in both Hanoi and in the USA.
Families - please learn from us to you can get started quicker!!
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Figure 1. Grandma got on the floor to play with him and our son was only interested in flipping the light switch repeatedly.
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Figure 2. Travel to Japan for a diagnosis was painful because of temper tantrums. This is a common problem with changing routines in children with autism.
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Figure 3. We did our best to follow our doctors recommendations. PLAY Project family training was one of the first things we did.
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