070808 Update

Tyler said "no" yesterday at daycare at the appropriate time, yeah! He has shaken his head before to indicate no, but he also does that as a self stimmulating behavior so we were never quite sure when he used it appropriately, but yesterday he said no, when he was being offerred more food, great job buddy!

I have to say I was nervous about today's session and videotaping but everything went well. In fact this morning, before the sessino, Tyler signed "lion" on his own after pointing to a lion in his book and he also pointed to at least 5 animals when I asked him to by saying "tyler, touch fox... tyler, touch dog..." he did all 5 without mistake. His receptive language is really coming along. I know speech is also working with him on pictures.

He did well at coloring today too. I had taped blank pieces of paper to the table prior to Tyler sitting down which seemed to help since everything was already set up. he tolerated holding the crayons for long periods of time and we used the labelling of the color of the crayon as a reward for him coloring. We had initially had blocks with the crayons as a support but we didn't need them today.

So I read an interesting article today about an Iraqi mother of 3, one of whom had autism and she knew she had to get out of the war torn country in order to get her son the help he needed. She now lives in Syria. What endeared me to the story was the way she feels about her situation. "She worries that she is not a good mother -- that she has not done enough for her children. She is wracked with guilt for her two other children, worried that she does not pay enough attention to them." It seems that no matter what country, nationality, religion, background, circumstances, if you are the parent of a child with autism, especially if you have another "typical" child, the worry is the same.

Carrie reminded me today that we only have 5 visits left with her, (we'll miss you so much Carrie!!) so we are going to use Thursday's "community" visit as a peer play time with Ben and work on playing outdoors, in the front yard, where there are no boundaries.

Grandma is coming this weekend so we are trying to plan something fun for the boys, pending weather of course, and we also have lost of preparing to do before vacation. Lots to be done.