strategies
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Calling grandma for backup
June 8, I got my first, real, spontaneous “word picture” from J. It’s a skill we’ve been really working on over the past month (so much so that my mum has been living with us in Fargo for all of June to help us with it). J and I went out for a run and I asked him where he wanted to go. His first answer? “Back yesterday.” That’s the typical sort of answer I get from J when I ask him a question. 5 word sentence maximum, always vague. Then I rephrased the question. “J, I just can’t see that. You’re going to have to use your words to…
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Let’s talk behaviours
J got sent home for behaviours on Thursday. For those of you keeping track, yes, J has been sent home twice in two weeks for behaviour at school. So let’s talk behaviours–since this is part and parcel with autism. I think the term “behaviours” is such a funny term to use with kids on the spectrum. I remember one time in elementary school J announcing at the dinner table that he had a behaviour at school and he seemed almost confused by it. “Behaviours” in autism speak means any (or a combination) of the following: scratching, kicking, biting, hitting, pushing, shoving, destruction to someone’s property, destruction to oneself, etc–a euphemism for bad…
- autism, Education, home strategies, learning strategies, middle school, modifications, special education, strategies, study skills
Golden moments
Living with the autism experience is a day to day, moment to moment event. There are moments of really hard, heart crushing experiences. Days where you feel like no one understands your child or your circumstances. And then there are the days where there’s a leap of understanding—your child finally understands something you’ve been working months on, or someone reaches out to your child—those golden moments. When I’m having those crappy days, I try to remember that this experience changes so drastically from day to day, that really, anything is possible. One thing that’s been hard for me to figure out in this whole middle school experience is how to…
- autism, creativity, cross-country, exercise, home strategies, learning strategies, reading comprehension, strategies
Rehabilitation–or just “habilitation”
Sometimes I feel like J has been in rehab almost every day of his life, except that instead of relearning skills he once had, J has never had the skills. Like all the skills. Sometimes I feel like it’s just one big, impossible task. NOTHING is intuitive with J. There are some days where I feel like I am literally programming a human like I would be programming a computer. Every little skill, every little nuance has to be first modeled before he can learn it. Which makes it feel like the biggest task on the planet. It’s also why I feel really, really grateful for the people who send me little…
- autism, Education, helps, home strategies, learning strategies, reading comprehension, sensory processing, strategies
Back to Basics
Because of my recent observations while working with J, I’ve been seeing examples of J’s processing issues in real time. One of this week’s highlights of auditory processing flubs was when we were discussing the new Disney movie Moana. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but we were making up scenarios and one of them involved W and Moana. All of a sudden J said frantically, “W shouldn’t use marijuana!” J really paid attention in health last year, and was really concerned with what he “heard.” This is a perfect example of some of the many processing issues J is dealing happening at once. He failed to…
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Transfer Skills
Once, as a little girl, I remember standing in line with my mom at a Zellers checkout and my mom asking the cashier for change in quarters, nickels, and dimes. In school teacher fashion, that summer, she taught me and my sister how to make change—with real money. Not paper cut outs of coins or plastic coins, but real coins. Even back when I was 6 or 7 years old, I hated math, but I remember my mom telling me, “This is important. You’re going to have to know how to do this. This is a type of math I guarantee you’ll need to know.” And I believed her. Because I…
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Prepping for an IEP
J’s IEP is coming up this week. It’s something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. I have binders full of Assessments, Evaluations, Re-Evaluations, Progress Reports, IFSPs (an IEP for kids under 3), IEPS (an Individual Education Program once a child turns 3),and behavioral assessments. I even have copies of “my rights” as a parent of a child with disabilities from three different states. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a parent without all of these binders. To just send your kids off to school and collect report cards a couple of times a year. Over the years, I’ve learned some things…
