:censored: on earth! OMGosh! Did Iain ever revert back fast! :hairpull: :hairpull: :hairpull:

The brushes I use are pretty darn scratchy right now as they do not last for long. My problem is that I work all day and with hubby away for two weeks, I have not had a chance to get to the place which sells them. I tried yesterday to "barger" the child, but he resisted rather voiciferously once I began, and judging by how scratchy the brushes are, I do not blame him. :oops: He missed two full treatments yesterday and one this morning. He was completely OFF, and I do mean OFF when I dropped him off at daycare. His demeaner had changed completely and by all reports, it was a very, very rough day today for him. He just could not regroup, follow anything, settle down and would cry for no apparent reason. He went to "heavy work" quite a bit and began climbing all over the place (another coping mechanism he has). He overstuffed, spit out food, was generally speaking 'inconsolable'. It showed when I picked him up. No amount of firm hugs nor massage would do it for him today. He was scattered, unfocused and pretty much lost.:sad5:

The sad thing is, all that was normal for him prior to us starting Wilbarger and this would have been considered a 'moderate' day and not a disaster. Funny how things can change. Today really drove home just how much he has changed with this protocol. Seriously. He was a wreck at daycare and it continued on the way home. He shrieked in the car, ran away instead of heading for the house, got inside the house and flopped on the ground shrieking because his shoes were on (prior to wilbarger he could not wait more than a nanosecond to get his shoes off once indoors), then shrieked because I *was* taking his shoes off, sobbed because he ran into the doorway, banged his head accidentally on the cupboard, ran to the basement and began to throw some toys, shrieked when I brought him upstairs, screamed for milk, screamed when I gave him milk, refused to drink the milk, shrieked and became the Tasmanian devil child when I changed his diaper as he had reached maximum capacity, shrieked when I put his shorts back on, shrieked when Curran looked at him, ran off when I tried to get him to sit at the table for dinner, shrieked when I planted his butt at the table, brained himself getting away from the table, refused to eat (I decided I did NOT need to win the dinner/eating/sitting at the table battle tonight and let it go), began to move my heavy living room chair around, tripped over the cat scratch post, shrieked, and did I mention that he shrieked?! :hairpull: :hairpull: :hairpull: Again, this is pretty much how things went normally before and often would have been seen as a "tame" day or a moderate day by us. What a shock to go back to that. I just can not do it. I have seen life on the other side now with having a kid who is better and I want that back. He did not use many words at all today or tonight either, so whatever Wilbarger is doing for him, it is definately helping him to re-set enough to use words, sounds, and sing. I wondeed about it affecting his speech and definately and beyond a shadow of a doubt, it does affect it.

As daycare is being trained to give him Wilbarger, I knew they had a fresh brush provided by our OT, so I asked to borrow it for the night and will return it tomorrow morning. Thank goodness I did. Iain will not let the teacher give him the Wilbarger at daycare at all. He simply refuses. She is not able to do the compressions, so our OT showed her how to give him a deep hug and to set him down on his feet or something, I really do not know what the variation is. I do know he is a wreck for me if he does not get the compressions. With any luck, the two dozen brushes I ordered will arrive tomorrow so I can keep a good supply going and do not have this problem again.

After all we went through before and immediately after dinner, I said "brushing" to him and he shrieked. (it is normal for us to brush him after dinner in preparation for bedtime), I showed him the brush and he ran over to me and flopped on the ground and presented his feet to me while screaming. He was flailing and flopping around, but as I began the brushing he relaxed a bit and by the time I did his back he was still. You could see all the tension leave him as I did the compressions and he laughed as he usually does when I did the final "crunch". I followed up with a deep hug and massage and he was wobbling off, but visibly much, MUCH more relaxed. Within 30 minutes, he was singing and happy as a clam. When I put him in bed, he fussed, but a massage and pillow scrunching got him to relax again and darned if he did not pass out. WOW.

Tomorrow, his OT is going to the daycare to address the naptime problems they are having. He will not nap and I do not blame him. He does not necessarily need/want a nap and as much as I wish he would nap, he is at the age where children give them up, plain and simple. He prefers to run amok and scream. Again, the problem seems to be that he is agitated when he misses a Wilbarger treatment. He pretty much needs it every 2 to 3 hours in the day, depending on the day. When he misses it at daycare, he changes. I hope she will see what she can do about this protocol and get the teacher more confident on giving him the treatment. He seeks it out so I can not figure out why he will not accept it from her as he takes it from Bill happily (and Bill is not normally sought out for therapies like this as Iain "categorizes" people). Perhaps it is because she does not do the joint compressions, I do not know.

We have some great news... ABA (Applied behaviour analysis) will also start tomorrow! For those of you in the know, you will understand how important this is. :yahoo: Our services co-ordinator arranged for us to have a worker go in to the daycare to address some of his "Iain-isms" and to get an idea of his quirks and such. This is not full fledged ABA, but will apply to helping to give the daycare and us some coping mechanisms. Originally, we were told it would be a 18 month wait until we even saw someone from ABA. I am thrilled that this is happening sooner as ABA is the key for kids like Iain. The sooner it begins, the better the prognosis. I have to find out what all she will be doing and how far the services will go with her, but all I can say is "welcome to the team!" to her! Even though I have absolutely NO clue what she can/will do for us at this point. :haha: I just know this is huge.

My service co-ordinator thought it might be too much for Iain to have two people working with him tomorrow and I told her to bring it on. After all, ABA should see him in situations he is not comfortable with, too in order to be effective (he does not accept change nor strangers very well in his safe environment).

We should be having a co-ordinated services meeting again to discuss the game plan for Iain. Top of the list is his overstuffing with food as he is a supreme choking hazzard now and doing it all the time. His fingers are back in his mouth and he is even pushing his cheeks when he stuffs. It is downright frightening even for me to see just what all he is shoving in in terms of quantity and I have seen him stuff before. Never as much as he has been lately. He seems to have to stuff beyond capacity at the begining of a meal, spit it out, and then he will eat, continuing to overstuff throughout. Weird. It is like he needs to feel again and again the dimensions of his mouth.

Wish us luck as tomorrow might be a key day for Iain when ABA goes to visit. :yahoo:

It's amazing to see just how much those Wilbarger brushing sessions do for Iain. I, too, don't understand why the daycare person can't/won't do them. Doing the brushing/massage is not hard to learn--perhaps she is resistant because she does not think he needs it/is afraid/just plain doesn't want to do it? :-(

As for ABA--WOO HOO!!! I was so upset when you first posted awhile back that it would be a year-and-a-half (at least) before he could be considered for the program. I've seen ABA work wonders for other kids and I so hope it does the same for Mr. Iain.

When is Bill going to stop playing dress-up with the other ladies and come home? :evil4:

It's amazing to see just how much those Wilbarger brushing sessions do for Iain. I, too, don't understand why the daycare person can't/won't do them. Doing the brushing/massage is not hard to learn--perhaps she is resistant because she does not think he needs it/is afraid/just plain doesn't want to do it? :-(

As for ABA--WOO HOO!!! I was so upset when you first posted awhile back that it would be a year-and-a-half (at least) before he could be considered for the program. I've seen ABA work wonders for other kids and I so hope it does the same for Mr. Iain.

When is Bill going to stop playing dress-up with the other ladies and come home? :evil4:

She wants to do the brushing, but is afraid to do the compressions. Iain just will NOT let her barger him. I suspect it is because of his "categorizing" people. I was recently told by our OT that he does this and I think she is right. As his teacher has not provided this before, he does not want it from her now, although I can not for the life of me understand why. He does not seek massage from Bill at all and yet since begining Wilbarger, Iain will beg for bargering AND massage now from Bill. I do not understand. I think Bill has been filed under "useful" now. :ANYWORD:

I remember your saying how important it is to get ABA and when I initially priced out going the private route I was in shock for days as our social worker (autism spectrum kiddos are assigned a social woker automatically here to help us navigate the nightmare of paperwork) told me how much it would cost. Just to begin a small ABA program would be $10,000 for a year. :hairpull: Again, I have no idea how much we will gain from her going in tomorrow, but I am thrilled our services co-ordinator has requested her. Methinks she weilds a lot more power than I thought initially and I am going to have to give her a hug next time I see her. She sees loads of potential in Mr. Iain and even though he does not seem to think much of her yet, she seems fond of him.

Now, I just shot off a pm to you asking about neurology and Mr. Iain. As he is so desperately reliant upon Wilbarger and we literally see night and day with him, the fact he still goes one foot at a time on the stairs (and sometimes bum down the stairs), the fact he still brains himself 1000 times a day and because of his weird sensory issues, I am wondering if these are signs of an underlying neurological issue or am I just making a mountain out of a molehill? Is it possible that this is just him and he just has high sensory needs and that his braining himself is due to that whole prioproceptive problem he has? Anyone any ideas on this?

Oh, and Bill is having so much fun at Camp Little-Tent-On-The-Prairie that he is unlikely to return before August 25th. lol I know he will be dragging his tookus big time as the whole Exercise Maple Defender is all about Afghanistan training. It will be intense and follow the training of regular force. He will be exhausted and possibly tested to the limit. Still, he will likely get more sleep there than here with Mr. Iain's nightwakings of late. ;)

Leigh, what is ABA? Can you tell me a little about it? I'm just curious because you mentioned it with sensory issues and with Sir Jason, well, let's say I could use some help!

Only to you do I lovingly say, "Welcome to my world"

**knows darn well Leigh had her real estate carved out first**

What a difference bargering makes for the boy! Here's to a better day tomorrow for both of you.

Well the good thing about this story is how great is the result with the brushing, this is a technique I don't think we have here, and sounds very interesting. So :yahoo: :yahoo:

Good luck with the appointment tomorrow :hug:

Leigh, what a MAJOR difference it's made! Quick, somebody barger that boy! :evil4: I wish he'd open up and let daycare do it for him, but I can understand his hesitation. Ava has a hard time even letting our OT brush her. She suggested we wait awhile before trying to implement at home again...the first time was a major bust! Ava really LOVES the compressions though! I have to be fairly sneaky, like when she's wrestling me, but she loves it.

Congrats on the ABA!!! I hope today brings good things for Iain!!!

And poor Bill...would that be like our reserve training? Did you find a color you like???

I responded to your PM, Leigh. In short, Iain won't need 'Bargering forever; however, for the foreseeable future, keep it up. He NEEDS that sensory input from the brushing/massage. This routine is very comforting for him and helps him to remain calm during the many transitions in his day. As with any kiddo on the spectrum, routine and sensory input are so key in helping them maintain a sense of order.

The ABA will further help him begin to communicate his needs/make further sense of his surroundings.

In any case, it is a s-l-o-w process and I can't emphasize "baby steps" enough. *sigh* It's going to take lots of time, patience, energy and Wilbargering. :hug: *Passes Leigh an industiral-size vat of espresso*