I’m new - Hi! Thanks, but I am the lucky one. I get to raise my son. I dont know about that-  I just deal with things one step at a time.  I dont get stuck on labels and deal with the issues instead.  I am take a practical approach to what we need to work on first and then go from there.  I listen to doctors but do not take there word as gospel, I do my own research and make my own decisions. My kids are lucky that we have a relative who does family law including special education so I bring her in when needed to get what they need from school- that is a huge help.  I have learned alot of sped law as a result and informaly help others to advocate for themselves. I am also lucky that my husband works his rear off, so I can be here for the kids full time.  I could not handle everything and work outside the home. It sounds to me like your son is pretty lucky too!  Welcome! Thank you all for making me feel so welcome.Thanks for introducing yourself.  I have found everyone here to be helpful, and it sounds like you have a lot to offer in both experince and expertise.  This board is a great resource for me and my wife.Welcome to a great place, Pegi! I took a quick look at your website and would love it if you could share your son's recovery story with us- you can pm me if you would rather not post here. We are using the DAN approach with our 5 and 14 yr old boys.  Our 5 yr old is dx pdd-nos and our 14 is dx adhd, mood disorder with asd features.  We are making slow progress with our DAN.  Thanks Welcome to to club. Nice to see that you are doing something so positive with the Family Court and it's effects on our kids. My son was diagnosed with autism at age 3. He was functionally nonverbal until he was 8. I had stopped practicing law just before his diagnosis. I went through the parent training at ther Judevine Center for Autism in St. Louis (now the Blackwell-Roscoe center), and did 30 hours a week of therapy with him, had him in therapy at Judevine, at school, and with art, music, equestrian and every other therapy that made sense. My approach was that if it: 1) wouldn't hurt him and 2) might help him and 3) had some logical basis, I tried it. After over 5 years of intensive therapy, he emerged from autism, and his diagnosis was lifted by his pediatric neurologist. I returned to practicing law about a year after he emerged - I wanted to make sure it wasn't temporary. He started flying airplanes when he was 10. He is a freshman in high school now, does improv, drama, and is active in after school clubs. We speak at parent conferences to give hope to families. I had been advised by one doctor to institutionalize him when he was 3, and to forget about him and have other children. Don't EVER quit! Our kids are awesome!Did you do any biomedical treatment, supplements or diet?  Do you think one therapy was most helpful for your son?I tried wheat free, gluten free and dairy free (realize, this was 11 years ago, and we did not know then what we know now). I didn't see any change with the dietary restrictions. I gradually reintroduced the wheat and gluten, but kept the dairy products limited because we already knew he had some lactose intolerance. There was no change when wheat and gluten were reintroduced. Although the WF-GF did not help my son, it has helped some other kids. You have to do what works for your child. He was on goat milk with liquid vitamin drops I would add to it - and I added strawberry Quik - because goat milk tasted bad, and because he knew if it was not strawberry flavored, it was probably regular milk and he shouldn't drink it. Eventually I was able to switch him to soy milk which is what he still drinks and loves it - Silk Vanilla soy milk, in dairy case next to milk. I have used primarily organic food most of my life. Most of what my son has had from birth has been organic - baby food, fruit, etc. I am grateful that he thus had minimal chemical exposure from food, as chemical exposure could not have been a good thing for his neurological system. One of the best things I did, beside getting training to do autism therapy with him myself, and doing that 30 + hours per week, (but making it fun so he usually didn't know it was therapy), was learning everything I could about Sensory Integration Dysfunction. I highly recommend the book, The Out of Sync Child. I took 60 pages of notes the first time I read it. My son's improvement greatly accelerated after I immersed myself in his sensory issues and worked on them. Sorry so long - I love to share what we did, in hopes it will help. Feel free to ask more questions. Pegi Thanks for sharing your story.  I love hearing recovery stories, they give me hope.  We have done the GF diet with our 5 yr old, we saw gains at first, but they leveled out and we did not see any regression when we added gluten back.  We do limit dairy, but have not taken the plunge to go CF. I have read the out of sync child, but it was many yrs ago.  It is a great book. My 14 yr old was dx pdd-nos at age 6, but probably should have been labeled apsergers- never had any speech delay.  Subsequent dr's have said he is not asd- just adhd and mood disorder.  He has a new therapist who thinks he has aspergers and I think so too.  He is very high functioning but has alot of social quirks/difficulties.  He is in 9th grade at our public hs 1/2 day and a tech (vocational) hs 1/2 day.  His newest passion is robotics.  We have done some DAN protocol with him, very little asd therapies though- there wasnt much availble when he was younger and now that he is older it is very hard to find a match for him. My 5 yr old was dx pdd-nos at 18months.  He is doing great, has had loads of therapy since dx- aba, floortime, speech, ot, pt, therapeutic riding, specialized swimming, DAN protocol,social skills classes.  I would not say he is recovered, but he is on the road to recovery.  I hope that we can someday say he is there, but we will see where we end up.  He is an a mainstream K class, w/o an individual aid,but does have alot of support throughout the day.   You sound like an awesome mom! You kids are so lucky.Hi! I am new to the Message Board. My son was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old. He is now 14. I divorced when he was 6. I am a divorce lawyer and was able to get a good result, but people call and email me every day with their horror stories of what happens when our families go through divorce. I just spent the summer traveling all over the US speaking at law conferences to teach lawyers and judges what it is like to have a child with autism, and what the legal system needs to do for our families when we are divorcing. I am on a mission to help our families. Getting to raise my awesome son makes me the luckiest person on earth, so I am now giving back to help our community.     I was the chapter leader of our local ASA (Autism Society of America) chapter, and am very active in the St. Louis special needs community. Thanks! I bet the holidays are fun at your house! I have a website that answers questions for our families when going through family court. I didn't think the information should be only in the hands of the lawyers, so I made it available to the public. Since you have gone through the family court system, I would really love it if you would look at the site and tell me what you think - how I can make it better for our families and what other topics I should include. I just launched it a couple days ago, so it is a work in progress. www.PegiPrice.com       & nbsp;   Thanks so much for your help!Welcome.  You sound like a wonderful advocate for families dealing with asd and divorce.Thank you. I meet many wonderful people in our community. Wow! 4 boys! How do you do it?Welcome, between my husband and I we've had our fair share of family court.  Hope you enjoy the site! Pegi,     Would you mind if I put your autism recovery story on my Website?
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