Menstruation Resources for Girls on Autism Spectrum

Abby (age 11) and I participated in a study regarding Menstrual Hygiene for Girls on the Autism Spectrum. They shared some amazing resources. I keep trying to share them with people and thought I'd organize it into a blog.

Puberty Books for Tweens and Teens to Read

These are books that are appropriate for your tween or teen to read about menstruation and puberty. The only one we've bought is the first one, The Autism Friendly Guide to Periods. It was great. Links should take you to amazon. 

The Autism-Friendly Guide to Periods

Welcome to Your Period!

Celebrate Your Body (and Its Changes, Too!): The Ultimate Puberty Book for Girls

What's Happening to Ellie? A Book About Puberty for Girls and Young Women with Autism and Related Conditions

For my older daughter, I also bought these books. Both of my girls read them and I thought they were excellent. 

The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls (American Girl Library)

The Care and Keeping of You 2: The Body Book for Older Girls

Resources for Caregivers

When we started the study the first thing they scheduled was an hour long meeting to teach ME about puberty, etc. I was surprised by how much I learned. You can find a pdf of the presentation here. 

They also shared so many amazing resources. I haven't looked at them all, but the ones I have used have been really amazing. You can see their full resource sheet here. Here are a couple I thought were really excellent:

List of Free Social Stories about Puberty

Amaze: Animated videos that provide age appropriate videos for tweens and their parents

Menstrual Hygiene

The study focused on menstrual hygiene, particularly the process of using and changing a pad. The researchers actually created a video of the process - customized with a mom that looks like me and a daughter that looks like Abby. I don't have access to the video anymore, but here is the process they had us go through many times. I appreciated the thoroughness of the training - Abby had it down in a time or two, though, and so the amount of practice in the study was really hard for us.

● Make sure you have these items on hand before practicing:

    a. Pair of underwear

    b. Clean pad

    c. Extra pads available in the bathroom (near where the child will change)

● Preparing your child’s underwear:

    a. Grab a clean pair of your child’s underwear.

    b. Lie the underwear flat on a tabletop.

    c. Open a new pad by removing the wrapping and piece of paper on the back of the pad.

    d. Throw all the wrapping in the garbage can.

    e. Place the sticky side of the pad across the inside underwear lining and press down to secure it in the lining.

● Prompt your child to practice removing and replacing a pad by saying, “_____ (Child’s name), it is time for you to practice changing a pad.”

● Hand your child the underwear you’ve prepared with a pad and say, “______ (Child’s name), put on this pair of underwear, and then change your pad.”

● Wait for your child to return with the underwear and pad on.

● While your child is wearing the pair of underwear, have them practice removing and replacing the pad while you observe. Removing and replacing a pad should look like the following:

    1. Walks into the bathroom

    2. Shuts the Door

    3. Stands near the toilet

    4. Pulls pants, underwear, and used pad down below knees

    5. Sits bottom on the toilet

    6. Removes used pad from underwear

    7. Folds pad and wraps it in toilet paper (at least once)

    8. Drops the pad in the trash can

    9. Wipes vagina with toilet paper

    10. Drop toilet paper in the toilet

    11. Opens a new pad

    12. Removes wrapping from pad

    13. Throws wrapping in trash can

    14. Lays sticky side of pad lengthwise along underwear and presses it into place

    15. Gets off toilet

    16. Pulls pants, underwear, and new pad up to hips

    17. Flushes toilet

    18. Washes hands

● At steps 8 and 13, if your child is likely to cause damage to your plumbing (i.e., throwing pad or wrapping in toilet), it will be necessary for you to provide guidance. 

    a. First, offer verbal instructions.

        ■ “_________ (youth’s name), place the pad/wrapping in the garbage can.”

    b. If verbal instructions do not lead to the correct action (i.e., throwing pad/wrapping away), you may need to physically demonstrate the correct process while explaining verbally.

● After your child has finished (as demonstrated by saying they’ve finished or seemingly given up, or are not sure about the next steps for completing the activity), praise and thank your child by saying, “______ (Child’s name), thank you for working. I really appreciate you practicing changing a pad.”

Menstrual Tracking

They also provided a period tracker as a resource. You can find it here.

I found this article a few years ago about the importance of period tracking - it's amazing, they did a study of girls in juvenile detention and found a link between menstrual cycle and the time they offended... then taught them to be mindful of that cycle. There are also links to more resources in the article.

Abby's Plans - A to Z - for the Future

I found this in my church bag yesterday. It was too light to get a good scan but I wanted to save it for Abby to look back at some day. I did not correct spelling.

Job Ideas
marine biologist
athor
illistrater
artist
computer programmer
engineer
musician
chef
actor
teacher

High School Jobs
watriss

Backupjobs
mcdonalds
chickfilla
burger king
artic circle

It is February!

No winter here in Utah this year, the temperatures have been in the 50s and 60s and it has been beautiful! Here's a quick dump from my phone a short update on what we've been up to so far this month.

It snowed just long enough for Liam's preschool class to run out and paint the melting snow:

Sandy & Abby have been taking a snowshoe class. Not the best winter for snowshoeing, but they've managed to find snow by driving up into the mountains.

Liam found these space shuttle suspenders with matching bowtie and fell in love with them.

Entertainment during sacrament meeting.

Abby recreated the 16 smooth white stones the brother of Jared asked the Lord to touch with His finger so they would provide light.

I taught Abby's class about handwashing last month and one of the UV flashlights was still in my purse. Abby found it along with some glow-in-the-dark putty.

We found a great mindfulness yoga class for the kids. Here is Liam with his teacher.

U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen attended the girls' elementary school. The other day they had all the kids with a sign cheering him on in front of the school.

Liam and his best friend building things out of magnatiles.

Valentine surprises for the girls - they got them the day before Valentine's day when they came home from school: books and a new shirt.

My Poor Neglected Blog

The boilers were being replaced in our ward and they were mid-project the Sunday before conference. We had unseasonably FREEZING weather and it was cold in our chapel. Here are the kids trying to stay warm before sacrament meeting. As I was taking the picture, Liam asked if I had brought anything for him to eat after the "snack"-rament.

Yesterday I went to school to stick reminders on the elementary kids during lunch for our Sonic Restaurant Night. Liam came with me, he bought school lunch and sat there for an hour eating it. He loved the green beans the best and didn't like the mashed potatoes at all. The choice was chicken sandwich or turkey but I told them he is a vegetarian (which he is mostly) and so they gave him the vegetarian muffin basket: a yogurt, string cheese, and corn muffin. After we dumped his tray, I was trying to get the last few kids and the principal thought he was a kindergartner and started shooing him to class. He is as tall as some of the kindergartners.

Liam is still struggling with some of his sounds. We've been on the waiting list for speech therapy for a long time. This week I went to a class taught by a speech pathologist and was the only one that showed up. So she spent the time just talking through Liam's sounds with me and we made a plan. We're working on his "L" sound right now because if people could just understand him when they ask his name, it would feel like amazing progress. He substitutes "W" for "L" at the beginning of words, but says it just fine in the middle or end of words. So we've been practicing making the "L" sound with the tip of our tongues between our teeth. He is definitely getting better. She also suggested working on "k" and "g" sounds by using a tongue depressor to hold down his tongue.

Abby is doing great this year in school! It is such a dramatic difference from last year - and I had a parent catch me yesterday when I was at school to comment on Abby's new maturity. We spent the whole summer working on the problems we had in school last year. The most helpful thing we found was an occupational therapist who diagnosed Abby with a sensory processing disorder and has been working with us on a sensory diet for Abby (by diet they don't mean food, but regular inputs to her body - sleeping under a weighted blanket, lots of bike riding and exercises, sucking things like pudding/applesauce through a straw). We also took her to get glasses and discovered her prescription had tripled since last summer (-.50 to -1.50) which I'm sure explained some of her behavior in the classroom if she couldn't see. In the end, I don't know what all the factors were in her maturity/behavior change - I'm sure the things we did helped, but I suspect her own growth spurt (physical and emotional) and getting a new teacher helped as much as anything we did.

Sandy has grown so much we went through two bikes this summer. She's now on an adult size bike and she looks so grown up. She has the same teacher she had last year - it's a 3rd/4th grade split class and really loves her teacher. One of the boys in our ward got baptized last month and they asked if a primary child would give the talk on baptism. Sandy wrote her own talk - I didn't clean up her atrocious spelling. She did a great job!

AND NOW IT CAME TO PASS THAT ALMA TOOK HELAM HE BEING ONE OF THE FIRST, AND WENT AND STOOD FORTH IN THE WATER, AND CRIED, OUT SAYING: O LORD, POUR OUT THY SPIRIT UPON THY SERVANT, THAT HE MAY DO THIS WORK WITH HOLINESS OF HEART WHEN HE HAD SAID THESE WORDS, THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD WAS OPON HIM, AND HE SAID: HELAM, I BABTIZE THEE, HAVING AUTHORITY FROME THE ALMIGHTY GOD, AS A TESTTIMONY THAT YE HAVE ENTERED INTO COVANENT TO SERVE HIM UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD AS TO THE MORTLE BODY; AND MAY THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD BE POURED OUT UPON YOU; AND MAY HE GRANT UNTO YOU ETERNALE LIFE THROUGH THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST, WHOM HE HAS PERPAIRED FROME THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD AND AFTER ALMA HAD SAID THESE WORDS, BOTH ALMA AND HELAM  WERE BURIED IN THE WATER THEY AROSE AND CAME FORTH OUT OF THE WATER AND REJOICING BEING FILED WHITH THE SPIRIT.  WHEN HELAM WAS BABTIZED IT WAS PROBLY ONE OFTHE BEST DAYS OF HIS LIFE.  ON MY SPECIAL DAY WAS LOVLY.  WE PUT UP RAINBOW DECERATCHIONS AND THE WHATER IN THE FONT WAS JUST RIGHT.  MY MOM HELPD ME CHANGE AND DO MY HAIR.  AND MY DAD BABTIZED ME IT WAS ONE OF MY BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE AND I HOPE YOURS I TO. 

AND I SAY THESE THINGS IN THE NAME OF JESUS CRISTE AMEN

 

Finally, an Update!

This little blog has been sadly neglected. But here’s a quick rundown of the past week.

Today, Liam played his first T-ball game! We signed him up fora Learn to Play series – each week they have a practice on Thursday, a game on Saturday. 3 weeks, 3 sports. He’s loving it.


Bill also buzzed his hair this morning. I love it this short!

Then while he napped at home with Bill, I took the girls and a friend to Gardner Village to see the Woodland Fairies. It was fabulous! The weather was beautiful – while we were there, as soon as we got on the freeway headed home, it started pouring. It wasn’t too crowded.




The Woodland Fairies will be out all month. They are all over the village, you can see one in the tree above the girls in this picture. There’s a wishing bridge where you get to tie a ribbon on the bridge and make a wish.



 
There was a parade.




The girls got to ride a unicorn and get their picture taken with a dancing bear.

 
The girls’ favorite thing was making fairy bracelets.  My favorite thing was the Fairy House Tour. They had an I Spy list with things to find in each house. The girls really got into it. They were each determined to find everything. We were there for 40 minutes.

I found my keys after they were missing for four days! (Both sets – my keys and the spare keys. We’re still looking for the spare keys.

Liam stuck them in the drawer with the plastic wrap and aluminum foil. I didn’t realize he could reach that drawer. I’d pulled apart every drawer and cupboard I thought was at his level, even pulled out the oven and fridge to look under/behind.

The day before I lost my keys, the van got rifled through. It was left unlocked and it seems there are people checking door handles in our neighborhood every night. There wasn’t anything in there worth stealing, but they made a huge mess pulling everything apart. Then they decided to steal the change drawer:

There were some pennies in there. Who takes the whole drawer?!

Sandy lost another tooth this week. Apparently, it was her favorite tooth.

Her note to the tooth fairy says, “Take care of my favorite tooth.” Of course, the tooth fairy forgot to come that night and had to come while she was at school instead.

Happy Birthday, Sandy!

 

This little girl is 7!  She’s not so little anymore…  She is so much help at home, she loves her baby brother. She loves to read, she’s been devouring the books she gets at the library and is excited to read some new books she got for her birthday.

 

Blowing out birthday pancakes the morning of her birthday:

 

Blowing out a giant chocolate chip cookie cake that night:

 

 

Blowing out a pumpkin chocolate chip mini muffin at her birthday party with her friends today:

 

We do friend birthday parties every other year and usually keep them pretty low key. But I just finished a business program (more about that below) and one of the ladies in my class owns a blow dry bar called Pro Do. They style hair – no cuts or color, just hair styling. She has a storefront but she’s also gutted a 40-foot tour bus and put a beautiful salon inside. She drives her bus to weddings, events, AND birthday parties. 

 

  

 

These girls each had their hair styled, nails painted, and lips glossed (and they got to keep their lip gloss).

 

Last night was the graduation ceremony for the business program I finished. It’s the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and here is my class:

It was a fabulous experience although rather intense. It was 16 weeks of classes, one full day a week and sometimes more. The classes were very useful – all taught by people who were successful business owners. The best part of the class, though, was my classmates. 27 successful entrepreneurs, all with experience, wisdom, and ideas to share. We became really close over those 16 weeks and it was fun to see them again last night at the graduation ceremony.

The end product of the class was that we each wrote a 5-year business growth plan for our own business. They will survey us after 6 months, 18 months, and 30 months to see how much we’ve grown (revenue) and how many jobs we’ve added to the economy. It’s an amazing program and I encourage any one with a business to check it out. It’s completely free.

Goldman Sachs has invested millions of dollars into this program with the belief that teaching business owners how to be more successful is the best way to create more jobs. The program was developed by Babson College. They’ve partnered with colleges around the country to offer this program, and they even have an online national version for those that don’t live in one of the cities served by the program.

 

The class involved a lot of soul searching and discussions about work-life balance and goals…. One of the surprising things that came out of it is Bill and I decided to drop our daycare this summer and have me stay home with the kids. The hope was to hire an administrative assistant and that hasn’t worked out (anyone know someone looking for a job in SLC?) but so far we’ve made it work.

We’ve had a  fun summer. We have a schedule. I’ve been getting up and going to the gym then swinging by the office to enter any checks and create a deposit. I get home by 7 a.m., just as the kids are waking up and we have breakfast. The girls are good at getting their morning chores done: they have to do 20 minutes of online school, make their bed, and do 10 minutes of cleaning.

Then we try to leave the house by 9:30 every morning. We have done some really fun things. Here’s a picture of Abby walking on stilts at This is the Place Park:

 

We’ve also been catching the summer kids movie on Wednesdays at the gateway, going to the library, parks, hiking, and more.

We try to get home for lunch and to put Liam down for a nap. The girls have to stay downstairs with me while Liam naps and if they read for 20 minutes and clean their room and the family room they get to watch some TV. If they watch TV, I can reconcile business accounts and get some work done.

It’s worked pretty well for us. I think the girls are really getting sick of each other. I could use some ideas for separating them. They have a love-hate relationship so I put them in separate rooms and they don’t stay very well. They want to play together – and sometimes they play beautifully together. But they fight a lot.

 

 

It’s been 7 months since I’ve updated this blog. I’ll try to go put a short post with some pictures for each month. But in December my dad was diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer that has metastasized to his liver. The kids all have shirts that say “I wear Periwinkle for my grandpa.” I guess I don’t have a picture of Abby in her shirt, but here are the other two.

Happy Birthday, Abby!

 

Abigail is 5 years old! I can’t believe how much she’s grown over the last year! Apparently this is the only birthday picture I have. I’m sure we took more, maybe they’ll turn up later. We made rainbow cupcakes for her preschool class and she had a party at the nearby indoor pool.

 

Here’s Liam eating pancakes on Abby’s birthday:

 

Some other things that happened in May….

 

Sandy lost her first tooth!!  She’s been anxiously awaiting this event for the past 2 years.

 

One day Sandy asked if she could paint her nails. I was in the middle of making dinner and told her it was fine but to go outside.

She came in with nail polish ALL over her hands and said it was harder than she’d thought it would be to paint her own nails.

 

Abby made a no phones sign for her “dance recital.”

Then stopped dancing to ask why I wasn’t recording her dance. I told her I’d put my phone away. So she gave me permission to get it back out so I could record her dance.

 

We found a friendly kitty outside the doctor’s office when we went for Abby’s well child visit. We gave the kitty a drink of water and the kids played with her for almost an hour.

 

Here is Liam pulling Abby in the wagon one day when we went to pick Sandy up from school. He didn’t make it very far, but he did pull her. He is a very determined kid!

 

 

Abby on a mama date to celebrate getting a gold medal from her online preschool. Utah offers a free online preschool and it’s been fantastic. Abby has learned so much and (most of the time) really enjoys doing it. She earns a gold medal for doing it at least 15 minutes a day 5 days a week for an entire month. I think that’s worth an ice cream cone!

 

 

Abby’s preschool graduation. She also went to a preschool 3 afternoons a week.

 

 

Here she is with her preschool teacher.

Abby got accepted to ELP – it’s the accelerated elementary school program – for kindergarten next year and it’s all day. We’re excited. All day school is going to be a good thing for this busy little girl. Luckily for me, the program she is in is at the same school Sandy goes to. Two kids in school all day next year at the same school!! I’m looking forward to it!

 

We went to a craft day at the library. Abby made this puppet. Yes, that would be my child wearing snow boots with shorts.

 

Sandy made this pretty purse with fringe.