As most of you know Beth is nearly 17. For many years we tried different therapies; speech therapy, occupational therapy, allergy elimination, metal detoxification. If it didn’t hurt we tried it. We did gluten free with her when she was in kindergarten but it made no difference. Yes she does seem to get gut problems but none of the dietary things seemed to make any difference. When she started high school we decided that it was enough to just let her settle in to a new environment and, as it was a special school anyway, just let her be with her new way of learning. That, and the fact that we’d pretty much exhausted any new treatments or therapies and the money that goes with them!
Last week I was looking on facebook and came across a movement therapy. Now our Beth is not big on movement. Since I joined the gym however I’ve been seeing the benefits in movement and the brain, how it lifts mood, how it puts me in a good frame of mind for the rest of the day, a calm frame of mind. How it gives me more energy to get stuff done, whether it be physical stuff or studying. Beth loves to take the dogs for a walk and I’ve been thinking of different ways we can incorporate exercise into her life and what sort of exercises. It grounds her and I want her to do more. In fact I even considered taking her to the gym with me. Anyway, I saw this movement therapy thing and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I called Tony who runs the program and asked him if he’s worked with kids on the spectrum. He was honest and said not really though he’d worked with a child with mild aspergers with success. I wondered aloud if, the more severe the case is, the results would be more obvious and he thought that perhaps they would. We took Beth to see him today. He showed us the way he works, he showed us the exercises that he does and how Beth isn’t terribly good at any of them. Which always gives me hope, makes me think that if she can master them then there would have to be improvement. I wont pretend that I really understood what he talked about but I sort of got it, it was all to do with motor skills and left and right sides of the brain communicating. I can’t explain it but I did get it because it made sense. So, now, finally, I have something new to write about! Jo and I are going to interview Tony for our show JAS CHAT and film some of Beth’s progress. I say progress because that’s what I believe she’ll have. Beth liked Tony and so did I. He’s local which is handy too. I think it will be a good venture all around. He can see if his program works with kids on the spectrum as well as the kids that he says he works with, such as ones with ADHD and Auditory Processing Disorder. On one of his posts on a local page a woman jumped on her high horse when I dared to ask if he’d worked with kids on the spectrum. She quickly told me that autism can’t be cured, or words to that effect. I said that I believe autism is a combination of issues and if we can help each issue then there has to be some improvement. I’ll let you know how we go. Here’s a link to Tony’s website. Hopefully it will be a whole new type of therapy for our kids. We start on Tuesday. I can tell Beth that it’s what we do after we turn 17 as it’s her birthday!
