Friday, April 22, 2011

Autism awareness month



April is Autism awareness month. As many of you know Ezra was diagnosed with autism and because of that it is a huge part of our family. Day in and out we have therapist in our home. Between his preschool and therapist he does a total of 30 hours a week of therapy. We have an amazing team of people working with him, and I fee so blessed. He is a hard worker! I haven't talked much about this on my blog, it honestly wasn't something I wanted to do because it was so personal, but really I want people to know now. I want people to understand what autism is and what its not. To learn more about autism I suggest going to this website, Autism Speaks is a great website and tool for everyone that is interested in learning more about autism. Ezra amazes me constantly with his progress. A year ago he could barley say 20 words total, but now is speaking sentences. For example he is banging on the door right now saying "open door mommy, watch baby Einsteins" This is huge, for him to combine so many words together is huge progress. A year ago they said he was talking a one year old level and his receptive language was even more behind, this made him almost 2 years behind his age, now he is 3 1/2 and is talking at a 3 year old level and his receptive language is at 2 years and 9 months! he is catching up so quickly and I love it! He LOVES his ABC's and can read and write many things, for his age he amazes his therapist on this level. He also is a smart little boy with numbers. I honestly thought he could only recognize numbers 1-13 but just the other day he went all the way up to 30, not just saying the numbers but actually recognizing the written number and now he is even writing numbers 1-10!

April is autism awareness month and to kick it off on April 2 they had a huge walk in Tucson. We went and had the support of my brother and his wife along with my grandma and grandpa. The walk was 3 miles, and I'm pretty sure Ezra walked at least 2 1/2 on his own. The kid enjoyed the bounce houses, train rides, and animals. One lady that does horse therapy brought horses for the kids to paint on and walk. Rylie was seriously in heaven! Her and I must have stayed with the horses for at least an hour. I think she is a cowgirl at heart. I also make matching shirts for our little group to wear. On the back we did "Team Ezra" with the kids hand prints. On the front we had the autism puzzle and our names that Ezra calls us by. For Ezra's front he wrote his name and it said "team captain"

If you have any questions you would like to ask me, feel free to ask. Like I said, I like to help educate people and I don't mind sharing our story.

yes ezra is dancing around with no shoes, he refused to put them on, and i figured it was his day so why not let him keep them off for the moment!

5 comments:

Belva Jean said...

Thanks for sharing! Logan was diagnosed with Aspergers when he was 7 and we wore "light it up blue" shirts on April 1 (at school) and April 2 the actual day :) I made them with a little puzzle piece and each shirt is slightly different. It is amazing what these valiant little spirits can do and how the right team can help them share their world/thoughts with us!

Janice Richardson said...

I'm glad that Ezra is doing so well! Thanks for letting us know about this month!

Tami said...

I am just learning a little about some essential oils from DoTerra that are doing amazing things to help kids with autism. Let me know if that is something you would like to learn more about. Glad that Ezra has such an amazing mom to help him! Love ya!

Carly said...

Wow, it sounds like he is doing so great! You are such a good mom. He is so blessed to have you.

Newman Family said...

You are an amazing mom, Tanya!