Autism Therapy: Montessori

My dear sister just emailed me the link to this website. She knows I've been going crazy lately trying to cope with our son's fluctuating behavior and with the doctor's visits, speech therapy, and my own depression and angst about the changes happening in our little family.

So this might be just what I needed: an outlet for my thoughts and experiences that may elicit some comments from folks in similar circumstances.

Our son, M, is 4 years old and has always been a bit different or odd (intense focus, observer more than participant, a tad or more late at the major developmental milestones, and so on). But my partner and I are also a bit odd, and he was our first child, so I don't think he seemed that out of the ordinary until preschool. Even his first year in a small Montessori program went seemingly well. But this past fall was different: His little world just started to fall apart.

In the past two months, we have removed him from the preschool, obtained an evaluation with a developmental pediatrician and speech therapist, began speech therapy to address interactive speech, and pressed the physician for a diagnosis in order to access preschool services in our local school district. We received a diagnosis of high functioning autism/Asperger's syndrome. In a matter of days we have a screening at the school district. And we have begun to drastically lower the gluten in his diet, as we have read about the diet connection many people have discovered.

That's all for now...