Help Kickstart "A Thousand Words"

From the Kickstarter page:

Autism for many people is typically associated with silence and non-verbal expression. For us as parents and siblings, the silence is deafening and never fits what we know is going on inside. We set out to make a film that shows how much they have to say. We received funding from friends and family; we took what we had and got started. "A Thousand Words" is a film that demonstrates that people with autism can express themselves and communicate through art. Production took 4-5 weeks throughout 2011. Principal photography took place in a farmstead community for adults with autism; Bittersweet Farms in Ohio. We have finished the edit and achieved picture lock.

Show your support here.

Considering Cognition

Psych Eval

Today was a good day.

I took C to an evaluation with a psychologist, the objective of which was to test his cognitive abilities. The good doctor was very surprised — and a bit disappointed — that up to this point, no one had tested C's intelligence or cognitive skills with traditional tools like the Stanford-Binet IQ test. He was concerned we were only getting a "partial picture" of our son.

We've always known that C has good to very good cognitivie abilities. He's a fast learner; he has a great memory; and despite being just three, he's started sight-reading, counting to 100, and spontaneously sounding out words, to name just a few examples. While we won't know the results for a few weeks, it seemed like C was acing almost every question; we had to really work to get him to focus, but when he did, even the doctor was impressed.*

Yes, the psychologist noted the very troublesome areas — focus, social reciprocity, repetitive / stimmy behavior, etc.

However, he believes that because of C's cognitive abilities, he might very well be able to learn to compensate for these deficits to some degree, or at least learn behaviors that help offset the deficits. In other words, he was extremely positive about our son's future.

I'll say it again: today was a good day.

* It is only fair to note that C has made huge strides in his abilities to focus and perform exercises over the past year due, in no small part, to the incredible efforts of the therapists who work with him daily.

App Update

I can't reveal too many details, other than to say that after a few setbacks, we're making great progress on our autism app, and generating interest in some very exciting quarters. Thank you to everyone who has helped along the way. More soon...