AutismWeb Forum

Liz - that is ironic!!!! I love it. I can't wait for my son to tell me I am beautiful. Of course if I took off the baseball cap, took my hair out of a ponytail and made myself look presentable maybe he would. LOL!!!!!

I had just woken up, I had my glasses on, was wearing DH's old stained high school hockey tee shirt, and my hair was standing up on end. He was just being sweet.

My daughter's summer preschool class went to a therapeutic horseback riding farm today. It was an amazing place. The place is run by a family and about 200 volunteers. The volunteers have a lot of training on how to interact with special needs people.

The farms has pigs, pigeons, goats, cows, dogs, minature horses and regular horses. All animals there were very approachable and very people oriented. My daughter had a lot of fun. The two typical boys in her class were scared of the horses and it took a lot of coaxing to get them to ride, but she was just the opposite. It's interesting how the kids you expect to react a certain way don't and the ones you think will be fine aren't.

As soon as we got there, she walked up to a corral that had probably the friendliest horse I've ever encountered. From that moment on it was nothing but "I want to ride the horse" "I want to climb on the horse" and "Open the gate for me."
When it was her turn, she got to ride the horse for 15 solid minutes. They got her to do all sorts of things on the horse to encourage physical movement. She got to ride the horse while facing backwards. She did all sorts of arm exercises while on the horse. It's a lot of midline crossing work. It's great OT work and you're having fun.

Overall it was a really cool experience. We're going to be signing up for the therapeutic horseback riding classes next month.

We've had some interesting developments here. Her memory is so much better. She recalls things better. She's more aware of her environment. She notices things that in the past she wouldn't have.
She also does things she wouldn't have in the past. She came to me with my swimsuit (I don't know how she found it!), gave it to me, and said she wanted to go to the beach to swim. She understood I had to get dressed in my own swimwear if she wanted to go to the beach. She told me to open the door, go to the car and drive to the beach. That kind of talk where she tells me things to do is becoming more commonplace now. She also remembers places a lot better, even places we go to once in a while. I never thought she'd remember these unremarkable looking buildings that we visit once in a blue moon, but she does. She's more interested in her clothing. She asks to wear specific clothing. She doesn't ask in a way that indicates sensory issues. It seems more like a preference much like a typical child would exhibit. For example, recently I put her in her pink striped pajamas, but she told me she wanted the yellow butterfly pajamas instead. The yellow pjs weren't in front of her at the time she asked for them. I had them downstairs in the dryer.

She still has her verbal stims though. Her current favorite is "Barney and friends has been made possible by contributions to this station by viewers like you."