Early intervention is the key to help autistic children develop communication skills, says Emer Lynch whose son Connor has moderate autism. This is the Lynch family story as told to Fiona Tyrrell
CONNOR IS turning six this month, but I have to watch him like you’d watch a toddler. He loves water and nearly flooded the bathroom twice this week alone. He opens dishwashers when they are running and he would climb out the window of an upstairs bedroom in a flash.
Although Connor is non-verbal he has begun to develop a good relationship with his older brother Sean who is eight. I have to be Connor’s voice, but they get on well.
We are lucky. Unlike some people on the autism spectrum, Connor enjoys being touched and loves cuddles. He and Sean play at tickling and wrestling. He is also very gentle with his little sister, four-month-old Sarah.
We really hope that his speech will kick in. The doctors can’t tell if it is going to happen, but it is a good sign that he is making sounds.
At the beginning Connor reached all his normal goals – he sat up, crawled and walked at the right age. Then at 15 months he became very introverted. He turned his back to people and walked away from anyone who tried to play with him. All the words he had learned vanished, he stopped making eye contact and lost clapping on request and imitation skills.
It took well over a year before Connor was fully diagnosed with moderate autism and a moderate learning disability. The diagnosis process is slow and quite frustrating.
Still when the diagnosis was eventually delivered it was devastating. When you give birth to a lovely healthy normal baby boy you have lots of dreams of the full life he will lead.
Even though we knew it was likely that Connor had autism, it was not until the official diagnosis that it really came home to us. It was a kick in the stomach.
With autism early intervention is very important, but the number of places for children with autism and similar conditions are small. Connor began attending an early intervention preschool three years ago run by an organisation called ELI. At first we travelled from our home in Castleknock to the school in Stillorgan, but thankfully one opened in Blanchardstown the next school year.
Through the applied behaviour analysis (ABA) method Connor made great progress. When he started at school he was banging his head against the wall and hitting out at other children. We couldn’t leave the house because he would have a meltdown.
In one-to-one sessions his teacher praised his good behaviour and ignored the bad and Connor learned lots of new skills. Rewards such as jelly sweets or a few minutes watching a DVD were used.
He now has a communication folder filled with images, which he wears strapped across his chest. He uses these images to communicate his needs like “I want pizza” or “I want a hug”.
We can use it to tell him what is going on and this really helps minimise his sense of frustration. Much of his aggressive behaviour was frustration when he did not know what was going on. With this picture exchange card system, a lot of Connor’s frustration has been eliminated.
Progress is slow. Toilet training took 15 months. Teeth washing was a problem because he doesn’t like things in his mouth. Getting him out of the buggy, where he felt very secure, was another big challenge.
A nurse specialist in autism travelled to school with me to help get Connor out of the buggy. She also helped out with training him to sit at the table during meals. We used music as the bribe, turning his favourite music off when he left his chair.
Last July we got a big shock on the final day at school before the summer holidays. ELI announced that it was going into liquidation and all five of its schools were closing. It was a very stressful time. I was due to have a baby that August.
The parents got together and decided to run it ourselves. It is now called Pals Preschool. Like ELI we run the school using home tuition grants from the Government topped up by extra money from the parents.
We kept on the same teachers and we managed to secure the same premises, opening for school last September. It was such a relief, because routine is so important for children with autism.
We have managed to keep the school going, but it is a case of going from pay cheque to pay cheque. The school runs a daily playschool and one-on-one AVA classes. There are 16 pupils enrolled in the school at the moment.
Connor got a place at St Vincent’s National School in November, when another child moved on. The transition was relatively easy. Connor bears no resemblance to the boy he was before he started preschool.
We are still involved in Pals Preschool. The project is in its infancy and we all need to support each other. We have to keep the numbers up to keep it viable.
Now Connor travels to school in St Vincent’s on a bus on his own. That was a big step. Pat took photos of the school, the bus and his school bag and we put them on the wall at home so we could communicate his schedule to him in the morning.
Because his concentration and eye contact is much better, we are able to communicate with him more effectively.
We were able to go visit Santa in Pals Preschool at Christmas. That was a first. Still, going to somewhere like a shopping centre is a big issue, but with his MP3 music player he is able to block out his surroundings. Of course, he will still wants to get into the water feature.
I can’t say a bad word about the services we now have access to. Connor goes swimming twice a week with his school. Later this month he is going on a full play day with the school.
The services are there but there are not enough of them and they are underfunded. I don’t think the Government looks at the big picture. If they invest some money now in young children with autism at a time when they can be taught and improved, they are saving money on institutional care in the long run.
In an ideal world I would love to see an outreach autism classroom in every school so autistic children could get the special education they need but also have the chance to integrate with other children.
- For information about Pals Preschool contact 01-8610900 or see www.palspreschool.ie
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