I am still accepting guest posts from experts, parents, individuals with Autism and anyone who wants to share their unique perspective or voice... if you're interested, please email me at heather at actingbalanced dot com
To start with I thought I'd share a little bit about where we are today...
As a mom who has been living with Autism in her family for six years (4 with a diagnosis) I am still in awe of how fluid and erratic Autism can be. Sometimes it's a matter of one step forward and two steps back, sometimes it's watching my little guy grow by leaps and bounds overnight, after what seems like forever - when something just clicks, sometimes I get complacent and think that we've reached a milestone and we're always moving forward and then I am shaken from that complacency by those darn setbacks...
At this time last year we were still following a gluten-free diet for Liam, but over the summer last year I charted his behavior after he accidentally ate something rich in gluten and saw no change, so we gradually reintroduced gluten to his diet and haven't seen a significant change in his behaviors since... which has helped a lot with school - he can now participate more fully in classroom activities, parties and community learning opportunities now that he's not on the restrictive diet...
At this time last year, we were struggling a little with Liam's schooling... he was in a class with 12 students - 8 typically developing and 4 with special needs and we were all struggling with that placement - Liam would get overwhelmed sometimes and forgotten at others... it was tough to teach him the skills he needed in that setting because he needed more one on one help than the teacher could provide... in some ways those difficulties were a blessing - by the very end of the school year, Liam was granted an extra 90 minutes a day of targeted 1 on 1 instruction to reinforce concepts... and that has carried over to his current placement!
I have to say that I am totally in love with his current classroom and the team of teachers, specialists and educational assistants who work with them - he is in a self-contained Autism class with nine other kids and four full time adults - his teacher, two EA's and the ABA Therapist. They also have several other great adults who spend quality (and quantity) time in the classroom - and because all of the kids have minutes towards things like speech therapy, OT, Autism specialist etc, those specialists can spend MORE time in the classroom and they get to know all of the kids that much better! Liam has also been spending time in a regular kindergarten class and has progressed there with few incidents ... although we did have one 'big' issue a few weeks ago - a huge TMI moment, but the good news is that it was handled well and the only addition is that Liam is now going to Kindergarten with an aide again instead of alone...
Last year at this time, Liam was still getting after school therapy, but this year we made a conscious decision not to bring in additional therapies outside of school right now - he comes home from school so tired and I think that having time to be a kid is outweighing the need to add more therapy...
Last year at this time, Liam was recognizing letters and starting to spell simple words, he could write the alphabet and count to nearly 100... now he is reading simple stories using a variety of tools and focusing on comprehension! He's counting beyond 100 and adding and subtracting single digits! He's still struggling with the social side of school, but comes home and tells me about his friends - focusing more on spelling their names out, but it's a start right!
As we continue our Autism Month posts I am sure that I will share more about where Liam and our family are on this journey and I hope that you will share this little trip with us! If you have space and an interest, please consider grabbing the Autism Awareness Month button off my right sidebar and sharing it with your readers!
