Recent successes and changes
Parrot:
- He is now reading sentences in the RM series. Sometimes he cheats and makes up the words based on the pictures, but don't we all? I love the way he says swings. It's very high pitched. I started out pairing every verb with a motion. I've faded those without even thinking about it but sometimes he still jumps when the word jumps comes up.
- Greeting us! I don't notice his autism most of the time. The only thing I really see is echolalia. But a few times he's said "Hi D" and "Hi Tricia".
- He can now answer questions! He doesn't always, but it's increasing every day. I can ask him to label things, name people, and sometimes I'll ask him questions about himself. Those are the hardest. Sometimes he'll repeat and sometimes he won't answer at all, but every so often I'll get a yes or no.
- We started the calculator yesterday. He knows his numbers and has a great memory. His processing doesn't even seem that slowed for someone with a moderate cognitive disability. I doubt the moderate, to be honest. But that's another story. I wrote an equation out and showed him only one symbol or numeral at a time. He punched it in and I had him write the answer on the white board. We did this twice. Next he wanted to write his own numbers. I interjected with the symbols, but he still punched it in and came up with the number. Since that came so easily, I'm wondering if I can approach addition like a typical kid would understand it. We'll see.
- He is working on book 3 in RM. Our pace is good.
- I've gotten rather attached to him. I didn't realize this until the week he stayed home. Because of his behavior issues, he has caused many headaches and I get so stressed at school worrying about how he'll react. And he can smell my fear. But I do care for him very much, and apparently he has gotten attached too. I stayed home sick last Tuesday. When I got back to school on Wednesday he wouldn't even look at me. I tried to sit with him at breakfast like usual and he shoved me and said "NO Miss D!" He refused to give me any feedback for almost 2 hours. I guess he thought I abandoned him. Poor kid. I felt awful.
- She received a GoTalk from the CAT Team. I'm not sure how to go about teaching her to use it, so I'll just make it up as I go along.
- I'm frustrated at how slowly things move. Apparently her chewies (available from The Therapy Shoppe) were ordered but that was over a month ago. She needs them like crazy. It's so cute, Pimpjuice (formerly known as X) offers it to her every morning at circle time because he knows she often gets agitated there. She insists on trying to get on the computer. So I'm going to try and find some alternatives. I'm afraid to order them myself because I don't want to set a precedent. I don't want to be taken advantage of later, and I don't even know if I can. Maybe.
- Olive called him this because he thinks he's God's gift to ladies. He is a huge flirt. And because he's pretty high functioning we have to be careful, but we do giggle on a daily basis.
- He's spending more time in Olive's room, which is an autism resource room. He has Fragile X but his needs are very similar to her other students. He's an in between kid. LifeSkills is not entirely appropriate, he's a little too high for it and can grasp different things, but even intensive cross-cat is not enough. At the moment, Olive has the resources to work with him 1:1 in the mornings, and a specific reading program in the afternoon with all the kids. I'm glad. This is working well for him.
- Her seizures continue and it makes me sad. She is regressing, really. It is becoming harder for her to keep her head up, and everything is hand over hand. I don't see a lot of purposeful movement except for putting her hands in her mouth. And I'm trying, I really am. I'm trying to find something motivating so that maybe she'll move with purpose, but I haven't found anything yet. It makes me sad.
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