Cristy's email

[Guest guest]

I read Cristy's email with interest.

I am a recent subscriber to the site so it was so great to read the two

responses from the women (girls?-I'm not sure of your ages). I have never met

anyone who is Autistic who is not a child and can communicate what being

Autistic is like, so I'm very excited to " meet " you.

I have a 7 year old daughter named who has Autism. is very social

but does have a few communication barriers. Children do not know she is Autistic

(although we talk about it quite openly at home, is very sensitive and

wants to be like everyone else. She says that she does not want to be " special " ,

so we do not mention it to other children nor have we had an incident where we

have had to as is very high functioning). However, that being said, she

has had issues with conversation skills, so we have enrolled her in Social

Skills programs. When was younger, we did have lots of play dates that we

modelled appropriate behaviour with her peers (neighbourhood children,

classmates, etc.) and this helped her a lot. However, like I mentioned,

wanted more than parallel play, she wanted interaction.

The Social Skills program she goes to, here in Ajax, does have children that

are more in to parallel play and the instructors do help these children

interact. If your child is verbal, ask her if she wants to play with the

children. If she does, you might try social skills programs, play dates, etc. If

you do it yourself, you will have to watch over the play dates and help your

child learn to interact. There are lots of books and tapes on how to help your

child with social interaction.

Just my thoughts.

in Ajax