Re: Introduction-Helen

[Guest guest]

Marie,

My son is very hyperactive. He is always on the move including in

his sleep. He has not slept through the night except for a handful

of times in his life. He won't maintain eye contact but for a few

seconds and when you try to get him to look you in the eye when he

has gotten into trouble, his eyes quite often are dialated. He also

has no sense of danger but yet is scared of things that are harmless.

Ben learned how to walk at 9 months but he just learned how to pedal

a bike within the last year. I give credit to my son's Head Start

for helping finally learn how to do this. The fun thing is that now

he loves to ride his bike with training wheels and we have a hard

time getting him to get off.

Ben also was very intelligent whenever it comes to anything

electronic. When he was about 2 years old he discovered that if he

would empty one of his puzzle boards while balancing on a chair, he

could use the puzzle board to push the power and play buttons to turn

on the DVD player. How ever he has a hard time sitting down to watch

a movie but let me tell you he knows exactly when you turn it off!

His socialization skills are also lacking. He started to talk for

the most part at an average age, but he has trouble conversing(if

that makes sense) He will be talking with you and then an idea might

pop in his head and so he will make statements that have absolutely

no relevance with what you are talking about. Also when he has a

meltdown, he is unable to communicate in words what the problem is.

A great example was picture day at preschool. I had to take him in

early to take his picture but because this was a change in his

routine and the fact that there were " too many " people there, he

started into a meltdown. He was screaming, kicking, bucking, etc.

Also when he was young and even to this day, he has an obsession with

buttons, levers, etc. I have had a lot of people tell me that this

is normal for any child, but he is excessive in this field. If there

is a light switch or anything, he has to push it to see what it

does. The electronic toy aisle at any store is a nightmare because

he wants to stop at everyone of them to push the on buttons.

My son also is very interested in counting, whether it be counting

out loud, doing dot to dots, or color by numbers. He has a color by

number color book that has the same 8 colors on every page, the only

trouble is when you give him another color by number it is hard to

explain to him why that color by number has different colors for the

different numbers.

Well here I have rambled on and on once again. I am sorry that this

is once again so long but it is good to have people to talk to.

Thanks,

Helen