Emily Olson

Author's details

Date registered: May 31, 2010

Latest posts

  1. Sophia Turns 9 – Oh The Milestones We Have To Celebrate! — December 11, 2012
  2. Emergencies – Is Your Child Predictably Unpredictable? — February 19, 2012
  3. Memoir Entry #1: Early Signs of “Not Normal” — February 19, 2012
  4. Memoir Entry #2 – Reconstructing Memories of My Other Children — February 19, 2012
  5. Memoir Entry #3 – Obsessed with Observing — February 19, 2012

Most commented posts

  1. Day 1 – Service Dog Training — 11 comments
  2. Truman Finds Sophia in a Real Track! — 5 comments
  3. Memoir Entry #1: Early Signs of “Not Normal” — 4 comments
  4. Day 4 – Service Dog Training — 3 comments
  5. Sophia and Truman – A Whole New Social Life! — 3 comments

Author's posts listings

Dec
11

Sophia Turns 9 – Oh The Milestones We Have To Celebrate!

Today Sophia celebrated her ninth birthday. We are in Xenia, Ohio this week getting her new service dog. She has made so much progress over the years but the journey has been nothing short of amazing. At 2 years old, we noticed that something was wrong (see memoir entry 1). She was barely eating solid food …

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Feb
19

Emergencies – Is Your Child Predictably Unpredictable?

Every day non-threatening environments such as a grocery store or mall, can be highly stressful and disruptive to a child with sensory issues. But for most of these places, we know the environment, we know the coping mechanisms we will use to help our child navigate and if a melt down occurs, we know how to …

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Feb
19

Memoir Entry #1: Early Signs of “Not Normal”

Sophia was my third child. I was an experienced mother. I knew what normal was and I knew a red flag when I saw it. Total meltdowns in public places, always wanting her clothes off, hiding under my end tables, crying because the wind hurt her face, screaming in terror at moving things like grocery …

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Feb
19

Memoir Entry #2 – Reconstructing Memories of My Other Children

obsessive peeling

My son, in third grade at the time, was attending a small private school that rented space at a church. He had a music concert and I had no sitter for Sophia. There were only 25 students in the entire elementary. This presented an interesting challenge because the small crowd would be an advantage to …

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Feb
19

Memoir Entry #3 – Obsessed with Observing

Living with Sophia’s neurotic obsessions each day eventually rubbed off on me. After a few poor attempts at filling out questionnaires for doctors and therapists, I realized I didn’t have solid answers to even half of their questions.  How many meltdowns does she have in a day? What are her eating habits exactly? How many …

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Dec
17

Sensory Fashion. Big Headphones are Cool!

When I was in high school I can remember seeing “special” kids in our assemblies with big brown headphones on that looked as if they came from the reading room. I didn’t understand what they were for until I had my own little sensory cutie. Headphones can be a huge help in reducing noise and …

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Nov
27

Gifts for Children with Autism

I was asked by a reader to give some ideas to those wanting to buy a gift for a child with Autism or Sensory Integration Disorder. This topic is very dear to me because as a parent of an Autistic child, I could pack a closet with gifts given to her that she really couldn’t enjoy. …

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Mar
04

Imaginative play can offer sweet rewards!

For years, while raising my Autistic daughter Sophia, the occupational therapists would harp on me to interrupt her any time she resorted to lining things up or got too obsessive about stacking and sorting. There is one part of me that agrees I need to stretch her to move outside of her instincts and learn …

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Feb
06

Activity: Clothesline

This is another example of how I found things around my own home to practice the skills my Autistic daughter needed and incorporated them into her daily routine. This was my way of a home-based early intervention for Autism. One of the many tasks at hand was to work on strengthening the muscles in her …

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Feb
06

Activity: Reinventing UNO the game

When my daughter was young, I did not have the worries of running from therapist to therapist and paying big bills to do so. I didn’t have that option. With guidance from an OT, I would be given a skill to work with her on and then I would invent my own way to conduct …

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