3 boys, 3 meetings

In the last 3 days, I have met with all of the boys' teachers.  It's been a little crazy.

I wanted to meet with Nate's teacher because we were double booked for Open House and I hadn't met her.  I was also concerned when his math work consisted of Nate counting to 100.  Nate has been able to count to 100 for about 8 years.  He can also count to 100 by 2's, 3's, 5's, etc.  I wanted to make sure that his teacher and I were on the same page academically.  I want him to start working on alphabetizing.  I think this will be a good work skill for him to have.  I was happy to hear that she has already probed this skill and we will also work on it at home.  Nate's biggest issue at home is the shower.  He just stands under the water for as long as he is allowed.  He will even stand in a cold shower.  We are having a hard time finding something to motivate him to shower quickly.  For a while, he was working for a donut.  If he did not shower in time, he had to give the donut to Noah.  Even that didn't work....

Noah's meeting went much better than I could have imagined.  When we talked about last year's concerns, they are no longer this year's concerns.  He does not eat non food items.  The potty training is almost under control.  He has not bit, pinched, or hit anyone at school in a long time.  Our concerns now revolve around his personal safety.  Since we have so many people in and out of the house, we worry that he wouldn't know that someone could be a stranger.  He is so used to listening to adults that we worry that he would just go with any adult that knows his name.  We also talked about his lack of focus.  We are trying 5 mg of Ritalin in the morning.  If this helps, we will add a 2pm dose.  Today was his first day, we are crossing our fingers.  We also talked about his programming at home.  Noah has a waiting goal, and will wait at the table for tokens for up to 2 minutes.  His teacher could not believe it.  We may have to video it and sent it to her.  I also want to give a shout out to Maija, our home ABA analyst.  She listened to his new academic goals and had new programs written for him in 2 hours.

We had Nick's Parent/Teacher conference last night.  It was a "student led" conference, so Nick did all the talking.  He was very nervous and stuttered quite a bit.  He is also having difficulty focusing in class, so we are also trying the Ritalin with him again.  He was on it a few years ago, but it increased his anxiety so much that it was detrimental.  We will keep a very close eye on this to see what our plan should be.

The trampoline has been a wonderful addition to the backyard.  The swing frame is being delivered today.  Our backyard is becoming an  OT's dream.  Not only did I buy a swing, but also a glider to put in the swing frame.  The glider requires them to stand and swing side to side while keeping their balance.  Hopefully, this will help Nate's core strength and posture.

So, we will keep plugging away here in Autismland...........Halloween is not easy for Nate and Noah, so keep your fingers crossed!

I used 5 of the strategies that night

The speaker at last Monday's staff meeting was an Autism Specialist from Special School District.  The Autism Walk is tomorrow, so I thought the timing of the Autism Specialist was perfect.

She had a lot of information.  I really appreciated her telling us that autism is not curable.....no matter what Jenny McCarthy says.  She also stressed that autism is a communication disorder, not a behavior disorder.  Unfortunately, she only had an hour, so she was forced to just run through her information.  She had told us we would do have some interaction parts, but it ended up just being "sit and get."

At the end she gave up 10 strategies to use with kids with autism.  I can tell you that we use all 10 in this house.  Also, many of my friends in the meeting were able to recall the strategies being used with the boys so they had good examples in their minds.

I am grateful that our administration recognizes the need for this inservice.  These kiddos are coming......