Hello, my name is Bonnie Sayers. I am the single parent to two boys on the autism spectrum. They are 15 months apart and at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Matthew turns 9 next week - he is nonverbal, takes medication, attends feeding therapy, has an aide at school.

Nicholas is 10, just finished third grade, gets inclusion support, loves to draw. His current interests are cats, volcanos, tornados and always animals.

I try to read as many books on the subject as I can. I also write reviews on epinions and amazon. Feel free to post about any subject of interest and I will get back to you quickly.

I look forward to getting to know everyone who stops by.

Hi Bonnie,

I've said this in a couple of other places, but I'll make it official here.... I have a 13 going on 14 year old son Michael, who deals with Asperger's Syndrome- or High Functioning Autism (I'm having to school myself not to say "suffers from") He is EXTREMELY intelligent, but has problems with his social and emotional skills and his impulse-control. We first started noticing problems at about 3, but tried to shrug them off as tantrums, when his Dad and I started having marriage problems things got a lot worse (he had a little sister by then, too). We took him to a counselor who diagnosed him with ADHD.

After the divorce, I moved with my kids, from Mississippi to Georgia where my family is. I found a counseolr and psychiatrist for Michael, she diagnosed him as ADHD/ODD/OCD/Depression and started him on a variety of medications including prozac. It was a nightmare!. Eventually we changed counselors, and through a series of seemingly random events (I personally like to thank God for His ever steering finger on our shoulders) we wound up with a counselor who was doing a research paper on Asperger's, and recognized it in Michael

She eventually went back into the education system, but by that time I had met my current husband, and one of his mother's best friend's son was a psychiatrist who specialized in pediatrics and autistic spectrum diseases. Michael started seeing Dr. Black when he was 9.

This past year he won the math award for the 7th grade. He took 2 silver medals on the kayak/canoe team, he was on the wrestling team, and although he didn't win a medal, he never lost his temper, got overly frustrated, or through a raging fit that would have hurt someone. That made me prouder than any medal. He now takes Adderall XR and Risperdal, and his psychiatrist thinks that once puberty finishes having its fun with him, he may be able to come off some of the medicines! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Oh, a really neat book I read was The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, it is fiction, and normally she writes science fiction, but she has an autistic child, and she wrote a book from the perspective of an autistic adult. It was very interesting!

Hi everyone,

I'm gaby, I'm mum to Ben, 7, who has autism, adhd and recently diagnosed with epilepsy.

I'm also founder of an organisation set up to provide services and support to families of ASD children.

We've just moved into premises where i hope to develop and run an autism resource centre.

I live in Lincolnshire, England. Are there any brits on the forum?

I would love to hear from anyone anywhere,

Best wishes


Gaby

Hi Gaby:

Thanks for joining the forum. I believe there are some Brits that are hosts of other areas on the site and visitors from all over the world come to the forum.

Nice to have you here.

Thanks for your support, Bonnie,

Best wishes

Gaby

Hello,
I just happened to stumble upon this site while I was looking online for a bowling league for my autistic son.

His name is Mitch and he is 7 years old, he has a dual diagnosis of High Functioning Autism (not aspergers though) and ADHD. We just recently started him on the GF/CF diet, with dramatic improvement in both language skills and behavior.

Guess I should tell you a little about me too. My name is Linda and I'm a married SAHM with 5 children. My husband and I have 3 sons-25, 13 and 7 and 2 daughters-27 and 10. We live in Orange County, California.

Anyway, I just thought I should pop in and say hi.

Thanks for joining Bella and posting here Linda. Glad to have another parent here. Since you are not too far from us in Los Angeles I am curious to know if you found an autistic bowling league for Mitch.

It just so happens that Matthew's class at the summer autism camp is going Bowling tomorrow. Nicholas's class went last week.

I had a bowling party this past March for Nick's 10th birthday - although we invited the entire class - 17 kids, not one showed up. There seems to be a communication gap with many of the parents not speaking English at this school. My son is the only kid who is not Latino in his class, actually all his years at this school he is the only one - about 3 kids in the whole school are Caucasian.

No one really understood what RSVP meant in the invitation and then many do not have cars. The teacher said had I provided transportation they all would have showed up.

Luckily we went two days later to Sea World so it was not too disappointing, and my son bowled two games and I was out $250.

HELP ME!!! I need to know how to keep my Autistic son from smearing [censored] all over his walls at bedtime. Has anyone had to deal with this?

Hello Bonnie and everyone else to!!! My name is Dee and as you can see I am new. I stumbled on this site after reading headlines about the 5 yr. old who died while going through chelation. I was looking around before to familiarize myself with the forum and I happened to read one of Bonnie's posts about your son going to live with his dad and your feelings on it. I have a Beautiful, intelligent and all around amazing 12 year old daughter on the spectrum,(sry, love to brag on her lol) She has already been asking when she can go live with her dad in NY (i'm in NC) He and my daughter have a close bond as she is his only child, but he has never been much of a help or support when it came to her diagnosis and learning process. He also seems to still somewhat subscribe to the same theory of "theres nothing wrong with my child", I know that someday I may have to let her go for longer than summer visits and that scares the [email]sh@#[/email] out of me. I have truely been her biggest advocate and support system and I cannot imagine life without her as well as imagining someone else being able to protect and care for her as I have. I do hope that you will make it through this horrible time, and if there is ever anything I can help with please feel free to ask <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hi and welcome! I'm usually a litlle more chipper than this, but if you've read my new post on the chelation - yahoo thing, then you'll know why I'm not so "jokey".

I think you were talking to me and not Jessie, my son's 14 & just moved out to MS to live w/ his dad. I live in NE GA, so I'm not too far from you. As a matter of fact we go up to Bryson city for girl's camp every summer, and have a ladies retreat in Gatlinburg (both w/ our church). Anyway, thanks for the shoulder and the support. It sounds like we've got a good bit in common. Stick around for a while! <img src="/images/graemlins/rolling.gif" alt="" />