11/25/08

Godbless my guardian angel, Amy!! She sent me the most wonderful message yesterday just before Tyler's IEP appt. It went as follows:

"Set the vision that his IEP two years from now will be transitioning to join Ben in Kindergarten- I know a mom of twins in Manchester who told me the kids 'can't tell her boys apart' in class as they are identical twins...Avery started out as full affected ,nonverbal autistic and now he's fully included and indistinguishable...AMAZING and it CAN HAPPEN!! :0)"

Read that message again....and again....until you all believe in your heart of hearts this can happen for Tyler and our family. Believe when you are with Tyler with all your might that this is his destiny and then let your actions and interactions with Tyler reflect your thoughts. Believing is not enough, Tyler needs actions! If you are visitig with Tyler and you see him pushign a button on a toy repeatedly seeming to be getting lost in his own world, find a way to engage him. Find a way to force him into our world and keep him there as long as you can. I have many many suggestions and will do my best to share this knowledge with everyone who wants to interact with Tyler. Touch Tyler as often as you can, he loves to be tickled on his belly and arms and hands and legs. He also loves to rough house and play chase. It takes an incredible amount of energy to keep him in our world so we'd appreciate all the help we can get!

So anyway, that's how I went into the IEP meeting, with the mindset that Tyler can and very will may be in a regular kindergareden class right along side Ben! How amazing would it be to see those two really playing, laughing and talking together!!! I can't wait for that day, just can't wait. So we set some pretty high goals for Tyler, in some cases, increasing the goals to higher levels as we believe Tyler could meet some of the goals fairly soon so we wanted ot make sure we set goals that were appropriate for an annual basis. It generally takes 1 - 2 months for skills to generalize into new areas/surrondings. Tyler's only been in school for a month and for a week out of that month he was absent due to illness so they weren't fully aware of all of his skills yet. I'll get into more details as to his goals when we get our first feedback. They provide a report on amonthly basis as to where Tyler is on his goals. They also monitor his regression after each break, such a christmas and spring break, etc. and then track how long it takes to get him back at the level he was at.

The teacher commented yesterday how they do a monster game in class and she tries to get the students to imitate her by raising their hand which indicates they want a monster. Tyler had never raised his hand before, but yesterday, he was the first to raise his hand to get a monster. He's really beginning to follow the routines and we discussed ways to help keep him engaged and be more independent. He's also just beginnning to sign "bear" independently and seems pretty proud of himself for doing.

Last night I began fading back the video reinforcer during meals. I was alone for dinner with the boys so I was trying to find a way to make sure Ben was super happy and busy so taht if Tyler got upset that Ben wouldn't also act out for attention. So Ben watched Gadagascar while I worked on meal time with Tyler. He did great. He ate for about 5 - 6 mins without any support other than me talking to him and signing with him, etc. Then he started to get restless so we added in some books for supports and towards the end of the meal we did need to add his alphabet/music toy, however, he was very patient with me when I'd take the toy away and make him stab his own food and feed himself with the fork before he got the toy back. He didn't' get upset at all at this demand. So we are gonna keep this plan for a while.. put in a video that Tyler doesn't care about so that it's not a reinforcer but one that Ben really really likes so we can make sure Ben is happy and then slowly but surely fade out the other prompts we've used to keep Tyler sitting.....Who knew that it would have taken him nearly 3 years to feed himself but that's my goal. By age 3 Tyler will be sitting on the big table with the rest of the family, without any type of restraint, and he will be able to eat his meal entirely on his own with the only support begin family interaction, i.e. singing and signing.... :)