Iago is 6mo

Iago is 6 months old! Actually, she's almost 7mo at this point. She was about 6.5mo when these pix were made. But hey, I'm kinda busy, and at least I'm updating now, right?

Iago continues to thrive and do well. In the last 3 months she's gained 5.5 pounds and grown 3". The doc was impressed with those numbers, but didn't seem particularly impressed when I attributed it to going gluten free in addition to milk/casein free. Ah, what does she know? She's just another in-the-box doctor. At least she didn't openly disagree with me, and she doesn't even mention shots to me anymore! So I guess I shouldn't complain. Still, what about all the other moms out their who aren't going to be able to figure things out on their own? Sad. But anyway, Iago is doing fantastic!

For folks with autistic kids out there, who say "My kid is functioning on the level of a 3-4yo" I'd like to give you some examples of the social interactions of a typical 6mo, all things Iago is doing, without having to prompt it out of her.

Iago pays attention to who comes into a room and who leaves it. She thinks her brother SB3 is hysterical and laughs at his antics. She averts her eyes if you are too "in her face" or if she needs a break. She glances at mom when something unusual happens, studies mom's face, and then smiles back if mom is smiling at her. She has a couple favorite familiar toys, but wants to explore new things and make sense of them. She'll go to strangers, but keeps a very close eye on mom, shifting her attention between the person holding her and mom, until she decides she'd really rather be with mom, at which point she glues her eyes on mom and leans her body towards mom and away from the person holding her--great nonverbal communication and demonstration of people preferences. She gives mom the evil eye with a "why are you doing this to me???" look and arches her back to try to escape when she doesn't want to get strapped into a car seat--more great nonverbal and social communication. :) She likes to people watch and kitty watch. She turns to look at you when you make a noise or call her name or say something clearly directed to her, and then responds to your face appropriately (smiles back if you're smiling, looks perplexed if you're growlIng at her and then looks away to avoid the unfriendly face).

I could come up with more things, but you get the idea. There's nothing unusual in there for a typically developing 6mo. She's going exactly what she's supposed to be doing. What I guess I want to highlight is that folks who say their autistic kid is functioning at the level of a 3-4yo, or a 5-6yo, or something like that, they are usually seriously overestimating where their kid is really functioning socially. Unfortunately, the reality is that many if not most autistic kids, even the "high functioning" ones, are often WAY behind the those loosely spoken estimates. Granted, those kids have a great diversity of strengths and talents mixed in with their challenges, so "on average" a claim of "functioning at the level of a 4yo" might be close, but in reality the kid may be functioning at the level of a middle schooler with certain academic skills, at the level of a 4-5yo at the level of self-help or hygiene skills, and at the level of a 6mo on real social and problem solving skills. They may be able to build amazing lego creations or shoot and edit cool home videos or recite back to you every baseball statistic you never wanted to know, but that doesn't mean they are doing a great job of monitoring their environment, tracking people's movements and intentions, communicating with people both to express what they are thinking and to figure out what the other person is thinking and then trying to incorporate that into their new understanding of the world. It seems the vast majority of folks on the spectrum are stuck somewhere in the 4-8mo range when it comes to real functioning social skills development, but with a bunch of splinter skills (such as language) layered on top of that. We spend a lot of time helping them memorize and hopefully apply rules to compensate for their lack of social development beyond the infantile level. And that's okay, to a point. But real improvement comes when we help these kids actually strengthen and Develop beyond those beginning levels. Oh, and if you're wondering how to do that. look into RDI.

Back to the really important stuff: Iago is totally cute and awesome! :)