Greetings and Happy New Year -

I hope everyone is surviving the long holiday break and had a Merry Christmas, for those that do celebrate. We are lowkey here as it is just the three of us. Nick goes back to California Virtual Academy homeschooling on Jan 5 with Matthew not until the following week of Jan 12th.

Here's the latest article from the Autism Spectrum Disorders site at BellaOnline.com.

School Issues to Focus for Autism Family in 2009
Listing what issues this single autism family of two teen boys needs to focus on for 2009.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art60058.asp


I removed soymilk from Matt's diet a month ago so now it is only rice drink, not much of a difference I have noticed. I have read over the years it is like a withdrawal proces and you go through bad periods before the good. We will wait it out two more weeks to see if worth continuing. We are aware that Rice Dream is not gluten free. The main issue is seeing if soy was the cause of his issues. Since he is twelve most likely new puberty issues taking precedence.

Which reminds me that CNN did a three day special on American Morning, but that airs from 3-6 AM for us west coast families, so I missed out on seeing the actual demonstrations. I am hopeful someone will have it up soon on youtube. Here is the actual story that is on Autism Partnership and their Super Nanny ABA for one or two weeks:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/23/autism.911/index.html

I created autism twitter day which I mentioned here and did a podcast interview last nite on the idea and experience:

http://www.autismhangout.com/news-reports/feature-programs.asp?id2=90

We talk about doing something similar for April on Autism Hangout, please let me know what you think. You can join www.autismhangout.com and become a member. My ID is autismfamily if you would like to connect - see you there.

On my blog is a slideshow of the autism twitter day activity:

http://autismfamiily.blogspot.com

Here is a calendar to start off the year 2009:

http://www.asperger.net/bookstore_9016.htm

Good news for those of us who have kids on SSI - today brought us the 5.8% increase for 2009.

On the down side Time Warner Cable is taking away Nickelodeon and Noggin, we are now looking into Direct TV.

A new show on Animal Planet is called Cats 101 and one of the segments was on a boy with autism and his cat - http://animal.discovery.com/tv/cats-101/

I highly recommend checking out this site for the artwork and autism awareness items - http://www.cafepress.com/KimDeanArt

http://www.onedollargive.com/featured-charity/day-27-autism-society-of-america

Some of my fav sites and info from past few weeks that I saved:

http://www.theslanket.com/

http://www.theshrunks.com/product/ududolls_pillow_man.asp

http://www.seat.ilstu.org/excel/

http://www.animalagentz.com/home.aspx

http://www.idodi.org/

http://www.goosiecards.com/

http://www.funfelt.com/calendar.html

http://www.regardinghorses.com/2008/03/11/therapeutic-horseback-riding-as-autism-treatment/

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3053#Heart_Attack

http://www.pencilbugs.com/Products.html

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article948355.ece


Please visit http://AutismSpectrumDisorders.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Autism Spectrum Disorders.

To participate in free, fun online discussions, this site has a community forum all about Autism Spectrum Disorders located here -

http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=365

I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum or in response to this email message. I thrive on your feedback!

Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love free knowledge!

Bonnie Sayers, Autism Spectrum Disorders Editor
http://AutismSpectrumDisorders.bellaonline.com

One of hundreds of sites at BellaOnline.com