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We Don’t Get That – Friendships and FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder)
“You know how everyone else has a best friend when they are small and they kind of grow up with them? Well, it’s like we don’t get that.” – my daughter, 15, who has FASD. Recently we found a peer support group for my younger daughter. This has been a long time coming. In fact, I’ve basically been looking since she was old enough to have been diagnosed with FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) at 4 or 5. For years, we had nothing. No support. No local FASD parenting group. I mean, I had a loose group of online advocates and we connected on Facebook and Facebook Messenger occasionally when…
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What Does FASD Look Like?
What does FASD look like? This is one of the most searched phrases that lands people here on my site. So, I figured it was time to share a few facts. Some of you know that we adopted both of our daughters when they were small. Both of my kids have unique needs. My youngest girl has sensory processing disorder and Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. My oldest has anxiety disorder. I have a lot of experience as a parent of a child on the spectrum. Over the years I have also attended numerous conferences to gather information about how to parent a child with alcohol related neurological damage. Once upon a…
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Ten Ways to Help a Child with FASD
For the first five years of my daughter Ainsley’s life we spent countless resources trying to figure out ways to help manage her disability. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is incredibly tricky to diagnose, and then to manage on an average day. FASD is fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, an invisible brain injury brought on my prenatal alcohol exposure. In Ontario we are likely 15 years behind the autism movement and advocacy effort. I have been told this by many experts in the education and health care fields. So, in the province where I live we have very limited resources right now. It’s likely my child will likely never receive the exact…
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The Protective Factor of Diagnosis and Three Ways to Help a Person with FASD Now
When it comes to children and any form of disability early diagnosis and intervention is often key to success. Why is that? Because having a way to frame a child’s behaviour can make all the difference in the world to how you approach that child as a parent, as a therapist, a doctor, or a school. If you try to teach a fish to walk you end up frustrated, but worse than that you end up making the fish feel stupid. Proper diagnosis of FASD is critical to success. So why do we have such difficulty diagnosing and treating children and youth with FASD? And what is it? FASD, or fetal…
