Hi I'm Dr Mary Barbera, Autism Mom, Board Certified Behavior Analyst and registered
nurse. I know as both a parent of a child with autism, as well as a medical professional
and a behavior analyst how confusing problem behaviors are in children with autism. There
are a lot of things going on especially when your child is newly diagnosed or having unusual
problem behaviors that involve potential medical complications. And I have found over the years
that keeping a calendar separate for Lucas is the best way to keep track of problem behaviors,
medical issues, doctors appointments, allergy shots and any kind of treatment we're going
to try, medical treatment. I have calendars dating back for years. I have graphs of problem
behaviors for many many years. And a lot of times this has really helped us make strides
to figure out if problem behaviors were related to a medical condition. So Lucas, as I've
told you in some of the other blogs, in addition to having autism, intellectual disability,
speech and language disorder, he also has a few medical diagnoses including paediatric
auto-immune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with strep which I did a recent blog about.
And he also has an autonomic nervous system dysfunction and he's on medication for that.
So that autonomic nervous system dysfunction was causing Lucas to have problem behaviors
related to being startled, having headaches and pain of any sort. So one of the ways I've
figured all this out which took me years and years, so I wanna save you the time so that
you're not struggling as much as I did, is I would recommend you get a calendar if you're
a parent of any child with any medical problem. Or if you yourself have medical issues, get
a calendar don't just jot down notes in a journal, it'll be too hard to figure out.
And so in the calendar, now we use this calendar for his staff that comes in too, so we use
a pencil to keep track of who's watching him and then we use a red pen to keep track of
any medical issues, problem behaviors, medicine, so I can look back here and I can see that
on July 24 he had agitation, he was given Motrin. I can see that he had a doctor appointment
on July 18. He had an allergy shot on July 20 because we have noticed because of my data
that headaches and problem behaviors tend to come up when he's due for an allregy shot
for instance. So we can go back and I can bring my calendar to the doctor's appointment
so that we can adjust medication if needed, I can keep track of if I'm trying any new
supplements or any new treatments. I can keep track right in my calendar. I've also had
clients with kids with problem behaviors related to sleep, track their sleep, track when they
put them to bed, how long it took to fall asleep, if they woke up in the middle of the
night, if they tried any medication for sleeping. So a whole lot you can do with a calendar
but mostly as a registered nurse I would say if you or your child are having any medical
problems get a calendar, a dedicated calendar for that child or for yourself and keep careful
record. Because only you are going to be the detective needed to solve some of these issues.
So my parting advice - get a calendar and keep track and that will help you and your
team help the child reach his fullest potential. Thanks and I'll see you next week!