Regressions without NCD

For no good reason, I procrastinated putting in my order of NCD and we ran out. Even once I did complete the order, something got messed up with the shipping, so we didn't get it like normal. Anyway, Demi has been without NCD for over two weeks now.

Over that two weeks, I have noticed a steady decline in her awareness. We've had to repeat things 3 or 4 times, sometimes even getting right in her face, before she "hears" us. I thought perhaps part of the problem was that she was missing her hearing aid during this same period (so that she literally could not hear us, even though her hearing loss is mild), but we found the hearing aid and the attention didn't improve. She has been increasingly within her own world, only interested in conversing within her own universe, usually about friends and happenings at school.

When we ran out of fish oil back in April, she got kind of spacey. This lack of awareness is different. I've continued to give her fish oil even without the NCD, but perhaps she can't absorb it as well without the NCD?

Yesterday, I found a bottle of zeolite hidden in my purse that I had forgotten about, so I started Demi on it again today. I gave her 3 drops this morning, then 3 drops in her milk for lunch at school. There seems to be a difference already! After school, she was playing with a manger scene on the mantle and her father called her name sharply. Just yesterday, he would have said it at least 2 or 3 times before she noticed. Today, she immediately responded. Wow!

I plan to take advantage of this break by regularly increasing her dose. The parents over at AutismNCD are really noticing great gains from very high doses. If they run into a bout of stims, they back off slightly for a time and then continue ramping up. That's my plan. She's tolerated it well so far, so I plan to ramp up 1 drop/day until we hit some stimming. Then back off one drop for a few days and then back up again.

She has made some progress, even during this lack of awareness period. She has learned almost all of her capital letters and many lower case. Her speech has deteriorated without NCD; I hope to see sharp improvement with that after being on NCD again. Her fine motor skills have deteriorated somewhat, but I suspect they'll come back after NCD, too.

Update on the Therapeutic Listening: We're on a break for now so we can try to determine what it's doing for Demi. She was on it about 12 wks straight. We noticed some eye contact improvement, some improved attention. Her therapists reported significant eye contact improvements and significant posture improvement. I didn't see quite that level of improvement. One behavior that has disappeared while on listening was a certain stimming behavior she did while working at a table. She would rub her fingertips quickly across the table in front of her, like waving her hands on the table. It would seem she was not paying attention, but she was usually ready with a correct answer, so perhaps it was some kind of sensory adaptation for her. We'll wait to see if any bad behaviors return or if the good behaviors regress.

I'll post how she does each day with increasing doses of NCD.
Today is 3/3/3.