Not Your Average Autism Mom

Being Not Your Average Autism Mom means we embrace our lives as they are right now. Whatever that looks like for each of us, we accept that this is our life. What about you? Do you embrace your life as it is? Even in the chaotic and uncertain times or do you find yourself still wishing and hoping and dreaming it was different? So the question is when you should accept what is? If you are putting a...

Delayed gratification is the ability to give up immediate pleasure to get a greater reward in the future.  The good news is that delayed gratification is a skill that anyone can learn although, for our children, like so many other things, their learning curve is sure to be greater, and mastering the skill will likely take considerably longer to accomplish. The first thing I want to do is reco...

Is this how you imagined parenthood to be?  Of course not, it isn’t how any of us imagined parenthood to be.  None of us planned for this journey, yet here we are.  When you constantly remind yourself that this wasn’t how you imagined parenthood to be you are creating your own suffering. And here’s the thing… the reason for your suffering is that you think you know how life is suppo...

Misinformation across social media platforms is becoming increasingly prevalent.  I see countless posts with comments from numerous people who aren't experts in the specific area of the question.  When you look to social media as a source of information it can be harmful because it creates misunderstandings and confusion on important topics that can impact your child's future.   In...

In this episode, I am talking about how many of our children have sensory challenges with their tactile system.   Our tactile system is the nerves under our skin surface that send information on touch and how we perceive our environment to our brains.  Tactile defensiveness is a condition in which a person is extremely sensitive to even light touch.   Their brains may find some type...

Hyperlexia is a term that refers to children who begin to read and decode language and numbers at a very young age or when a child can read at levels far beyond what is expected at their age.  Typically, a child with hyperlexia will have communication or speaking skills that are below their age level. There are actually three levels of hyperlexia, hyperlexia l, hyperlexia ll, and hyperlexia l...

We know that every person, you and I included, we all have strengths and weaknesses, yet, along this autism parenting journey, somehow the conversations about our children always seem to find their way to focus on their deficits. I want us to change that narrative and that change begins with you and me. As our knowledge and understanding of autism as a whole continue to grow, so does our insight i...

When our children are asking the same question over and over, it can be frustrating and it is important to try to figure out the reason for their questions. As with any behavior, it can be very helpful if you play detective and try to determine what has prompted the repetitive question. Because many of our children engage in repetitive behavior or echolalia, this repetition of questions may have t...

Whether we like it or not, stigma has a role in predicting how challenging our life raising an autistic child or children will be.  There are so many people who are still naive to autism and what it means and how it is different for all of us. When your child is having a meltdown in the produce section of the grocery store or is scripting very loudly at a family event, those are the moments w...

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is any type of communication that does not include speech.  The use of AAC for children with autism does not prevent a child from speaking and in fact, the research shows that it may actually increase their speech.  AAC programs and AT devices are not exclusively for non-verbal individuals, they can also be used for individuals with emergi...

It's a BIG DAY here at Not Your Average Autism Mom!   It's our 100th podcast episode and we are so proud of this huge milestone and so grateful for the work that we do and that we have the opportunity to improve the lives of families raising a child or children diagnosed with autism.  We wouldn't be where we are today without our amazing followers and faithful listeners who come back wee...

This time of year isn't easy for many of us as our children transition from summer to back-to-school.  Just that word transition makes us a little uneasy so just imagine how our kids feel.   The school environment can present so many challenges for our students with autism and that in itself can create challenges with their learning not to mention that if their classroom environment isn’...

Why it is important that we embrace the chaos along this journey? There are going to be times that are unpredictable and full of uncertainty, there just are.  When we accept that this is our life and we are navigating it the best we know how with what we know at the moment, it becomes way easier to live in it.  There are things that we must let go of in order for this to happen.   Y...

For most of us, we take executive functioning skills for granted.  It is something that just came naturally, but for our children, it is not that way. They need to be taught these skills through repetition and practice and you must be patient and understanding of their struggles.   Not all autistic individuals have deficits in executive functioning skills and some may have deficits in on...

I believe that for our children to grow and develop we cannot raise them the same as we would raise our neurotypical children because there are differences.  The vast majority of autistic children, even children who are non-verbal are able to understand and comply with basic rules of conduct they just might need more time to adjust and become comfortable with what is and what isn’t allowed. T...

For some of our kids who might have limited language cooperating is extra challenging because they might not understand the directions of what exactly you want them to do and if you are giving them multi-step directions, this creates more overwhelm for them when you are asking them to do too many things at once. Many of our children have deficits with executive functioning skills and multi-step di...

In this episode, I am talking about the perceptions and misconceptions that people have about autism when their lives have not yet been impacted by autism. With the increased number of families whose lives are being impacted by autism, surely more and more people's lives will be impacted.  Currently, 1 in 44 children here in the US are diagnosed and that number is not far behind International...

Being a sibling can be a difficult dynamic and when you add in autism, it takes it to an entirely different level. It is normal for siblings to have a range of ever-changing emotions being part of a family whose lives have been impacted by autism. As you continue to explain autism to your child or children who aren’t diagnosed with autism, we hope that they will become more understanding and more...

Processing speed is the amount of time that we take to take in the information being presented to us, make sense of it, and respond to it. This can be visually when we are reading something, auditory when we are listening to something or someone is telling us something, or motor planning which basically means that even when a child has done a task before, every time it is like they are doing it fo...

Tourette Syndrome is a condition of the nervous system. It is a neurological disorder that involves often sudden and repetitive movements, twitches, or unwanted sounds (tics) that cannot be easily controlled. Statistics show that around one in five children with Tourette Syndrome also meets the criteria for Autism. All the research that I have done, says that it is unlikely that so many children h...

In this episode, I am talking about those moments when you have had it and you are simply at what feels like the end of your rope and why staying calm in those moments will pay off in the end.   I know that every one of us knows intellectually that in the moments of chaos, staying calm is the answer, but it’s not always easy to execute and at that moment we find it hard to do the right thing....

If your child is consistently having meltdown behaviors that include an intense amount of emotion or appears to be unable to control their temper, it is not typical behavior but unfortunately, our autistic children often feel things more intensely and they are often unable to return to a place of calm as quickly as we would like.   It is important for our children when they are exhibiting the...

Most of our children diagnosed with autism, share this commonality of having social awkwardness, right?  Think about this, we use social skills to some extent every single day of our lives which means that our children will need help in learning and developing these skills if our goal is for them to become independent adults. They need help understanding how to act and engage in different soc...

Today, I am talking about the dreaded decision of whether or not to pursue promoting your child to the next grade level or holding them back a year.  For our kids, this is often such a difficult decision because while they may be advanced in some areas they are likely delayed in other areas both academically and socially. We have had two years of unprecedented disruptions in learning with COV...

There are many similarities between autism and dyspraxia and for that reason, there are sometimes challenges in diagnosing one over the other or both. Both disorders present very similarly and in some instances, they can occur side by side. Some of the signs of both disorders are seen in early development, those things would include delays in sitting up, crawling, and walking as well as potty trai...