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Brushing Your Child's Teeth

Stand behind your child with their head on your chest. Put a pea size amount of toothpaste on the center of the brush. Guide the brush as if you were brushing your own teeth. There are six steps to brushing:
1.Brush the outside, inside and tops of the bottom back teeth on one side of the mouth five times.
2.Move up and brush the the inside, outside and chewing surfaces of the top teeth five times.
3.Brush the bottom front teeth outside and inside five times.
4.Move to the opposite side and brush the bottom teeth outside and inside five times.
5.Brush the top front teeth inside, outside and chewing surfaces five times.
6.Brush the opposite top back teeth inside, outside, and chewing surfaces five times.

Although most people brush their teeth in the bathroom, in order to accomadate your child and get them used to brushing their teeth, you may want to do this on the couch or in another part of your home where they may feel more comfortable.

Flossing Your Child's Teeth
The same technique is used in putting your child's head on your chest and flossing as you would your own teeth. Floss one tooth at a time.

As always, the goal is for your child to achieve independence in this task. Celebrate small successes!!
(Tips provided by Autism Speaks)

Heartstrings will be a feature each month for readers to share personal stories. If you would like to submit a story for the newsletter, please send it to me at
AutismHearts@stny.rr.com Please know that this newsletter is on the internet, so anything you say can be viewed by anyone. If you wish to submit a photo, attach it to the story. Also, I must be able to reserve the right to edit for space and content if necessary.Sandy

Reader's Reviews
Have you read a good book on Autism lately?
If you have and would like to share a title and make a comment about it, please email it to me at
AutismHearts@stny.rr.com
I will then place it here for all to share! Sandy

Playing, Laughing and Learning with Children on the Autism Spectrum-A Practical Resource of Play Ideas for Parents and Carers by Julia Moor

As indicated by the title, this books offers every day practical ideas for playing with and teaching the autistic child. Great ideas!-recommended by Sandy

New Autism genes found by the Autism Genome Project. Click here for story.

Infants Capable of Learning While Asleep. View the story here.

Note: The contents of this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AutismHearts organization.

Tip of the Month

What's New with AH?

Our story begins the day Kelly Patrick was born. We didn’t know that he had Down Syndrome before he was born. When I saw him for the first time I knew in my heart and so did my husband. We didn’t say it out loud though because then it would become our reality. As long as it wasn’t voiced, it wasn’t real. The next day, however, the doctor did say it. “We think your son has Down Syndrome and we are going to run some tests on him.” It was as if I had been punched right in the heart. I will not sugar coat it, we were devastated, mostly for the unknown. I cried for a few days after that and I cried when we received the results a few weeks later. But crying wasn’t getting us anywhere. So we got right to work making phone calls and setting up the services that Kelly would need. He began OT and PT at about 3 month old and speech came at about one year old. We didn’t even see him as a child with Down Syndrome. We saw him as our beautiful, happy, loveable baby and brother. He met his milestones just as any other baby, maybe not at the same speed, but he met them.

and a major breakdown by me at his Dr. appointment, I couldn’t deny his behaviors any longer. We headed to Geisinger for testing and subsequent diagnosis of Autism. Again, I will not lie, I cried. I could handle Down Syndrome, but Autism, was a whole different story. I had only heard the negative side of Autism and honestly is scared me. But this was now a part of our life and we were going to deal with this like everything else, head on. We enrolled him into a preschool class that was specifically for autistic children and continued with all the therapies that he was getting.

Over the past few years we have seen progress in Kelly’s behaviors. Although he still doesn’t use language, we are confident that someday he will. This past May Kelly was enrolled at the Institute of Child Development at Binghamton University. We are very excited for this new chapter in Kelly’s life. We have been very blessed by ALL who have worked with Kelly in some way or another. We truly believe that Kelly is our Angel. He has taught our whole family to take pride and ownership of even the smallest of accomplishments. He has taught his brothers what true compassion and empathy is and he is loved by all who meet him.
Colleen

The 2010 Annual Walk for Autism was a HUGE success! The weatherman promised a beautiful day and we were not disappointed. Over 200 people turned out to support autism awareness. The event raised nearly $10,000!!! Yes, $10,000! I am blown away by the community spirit and support here. Once the final tally is ready, I will post it on the website. Please be sure to check out the gallery for pictures of this year's walk and our links page to see what businesses are supporting our efforts! Thanks again to all who participated. I can't do it without you! Stay tuned for grant application information that will be coming very soon!!
Sandy

By 2 ½ years old he had a vocabulary of approximately 20 words and was doing some sign language. When he turned 3 years old he transitioned out of early intervention. Over the next few months we watched our baby boy stop using language and signs. He would sit and twirl his socks for hours. He just “wasn’t there” and would basically look right through us. After a meeting with his preschool teacher