I need Help

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My brother has autism I'm talking about low- medium functioning. I have been really trying to understand him and find a way to help him out of "the maze" you could say. He has a lot of trouble talking and can only do a few broken phrases and stutters a lot when he does.

My parents have tried their best throughout the years with the amount of time and budget that we have and its hard and well..... that's another story. Because of this, while they have been focused on his education and how much they are able to do for him. And we can't do therapy's they are too expensive. So that leaves me to try to help him with communication.

But I don't know what to do! I can do only so much reading, observing, researching, and talking to teachers. I try talking with him and play with him and his interest, but he is interested in only a few selected things and I wish to help him see there is so much in the world. I don't want him to be limited.

I need help from people who live it. I want to be able to talk with my brother and I want to help him cause I can tell he is frustrated and he has a hard time expressing himself, I see that in his face and in his eyes.

I just don't know what to do? Can anyone help me to at least try to understand.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that the first thing you could do is tell your brother what you jusst told us. I mean, tell him that you want to help him communicate. Tell him to take his time with you, because you'll wait for his meaning, no problem. Ask him if there's anything he'd like help with. Maybe invent a little sign language for one or two things - he could cover his ears if things are too loud. The thing that I am most anxious to be able to communicate is "Overload! Get me out of here!" - maybe he could put his hand on your shoulder for this, because you might be talking to somebody else.

I'm not trained so I can only draw on my own experience. Also I'm high-functioning. But I think the others here will be able to help you.

Maybe check Temple Grandin's books, it may help you understand from your brother's point of view, and she talks about the things that helped her and you could probably use some of this information for your brother. "The way I see it" and "Emergence: labeled autistic" seem pretty good so far, I am not done reading them tho, but you can read some of it at Amazon (and maybe other places I don't know).

Here is her website, she is an amazing woman http://www.templegrandin.com/templehome.html

WrongPlanet interview with her http://www.wrongplanet.net/article295.html

Shadi

If you mean that limited interests means he won't be happy, that's false. http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=204

How is he with writing & other communication? Many find that easier.

I understand how you feel. My brother Is very low functioning. I know he takes in some things, but I have no idea how much. His lack of communicative abilities is severe so there's no way to know for sure. If you ask him a question he will either parrot you or just answer, "yes".

I've tried to reach out to him, but it's hard when he doesn't really talk or like to be around people much. I take him on trips to his favorite places/stores. He really likes to play games like hide and go seek...

As far as introducing new things...that is definitely a challenge. The best example I can think of right now is when I got him a nintendo ds last year. He wouldn't touch it and got frustrated when I tried to get him to play it. Finally, I started remembering some old video games we played as kids, like super mario. I went and got a new version of mario and played it on the ds in front of him. Soon enough he wanted to play. Now my mom has to fight to get it away from him every night, lol. So maybe try introducing something new with a little bit of familiarity, too. Little by little.

Learn sign language and teach him basic signs to help him communicate, even very low functioning autistics can communicate with sign language because it is a visual language not a auditory one...different learning chennels. The hard part, if he is very low functiong is getting him to realize that the sign language means something...kinda like Hellen Keller.

But once he learns what it means, it will help him alot.

A lot of autistic people are not visual and may have visual processing issues so just because a language is visual doesn't mean it will work out. Often you have to find the sense(s) that work the best and use those.