12/4/09

So Steve and I often tease each other that we really didn't need the there one to make our children.. Ben is just like me and Tyler is just like Steve. It's kinda been a joke since they were born. Anyway, Ben did the funniest thing the other night that would be something I would do and we could not stop laughing. It was Wed, family moving night, we were watching Ant Bully. Ty was in bed (non-napper) and Steve and Ben were on the pullout sofa sleeper (we pull it out for movie night so we can all snuggle) and I was in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner. I heard Ben say something to Steve... and anyone know that knows Steve knows he has trouble doing two things at the same time and since he was watching the movie he didn't quite respond to Ben quick enough and all the sudden Ben goes "WAKE UP".. if only I could give you audio of how he said it.. it was so funny.. and the lag time of Steve's response was really only like 3 seconds but that was too long for Ben to wait. I was laughing so hard.. I often tell Steve to hurry up and ask what takes him so long to respond when I ask him a question so it was hilarious that Ben called him out for the same thing. I said.. he's definitely my kid!

Ok on to Ty.... I mentioned a few posts ago I'd give some specifics about the goals that were set for him at his IEP. Here are some.

First we were asked to list in strengths and his weaknesses. In terms of weaknesses we obviously were most concerned with the fact that he is non-verbal at this point. Also we want to get his signs cleaned up as he tends to scroll, his fine motor skills are still delayed and he doesn't seem to have much interest in his beers. We also want him to work on 2 step instructions, i.e. go get your hat and your coat and work on daily living and self care, like putting shoes off and on and zipping coat, going potty, etc.

No on to specific goals... for daily living it was only have 0- 1 accidents though out the day and maintaining a dry diaper, washing hands independently and completing arrival routine with 1 or less prompts. Arrival routing is taking off coat, putting it in cubby, putting lunch in box, etc.

In terms of fine motor skills, Tyler demonstrates abilities of a 22 month old with one skill being a bit older. So there are goals to imitate vertical and horizontal lines, hold scissors and cut forward, etc.

In terms of speech one of the goals was to respond to his name being called without a physical prompt and to gain attention by physically tapping or verbalizing to the person. These two goals we had a bit of a disagreement about. I believe Tyler has both of these mastered he just may not always be motivated enough to follow through with the request. For example, I can be in the kitchen and Tyler can be 2 rooms away and I can say, it's time to eat and Tyler will come running to the table. I can be at the table and he can be playing and it's time to clean up dinner and i say Tyler come take care of your plate and he does. Tyler its time to go wash hands and he'll alk to the bathroom. There are many commands I place on Tyler where he does respond even if he's doing a preferred activity such as his piano or something. sometiems he voices his unhappiness with my request but he does respond. Same story with gaining attention. I think Tyler does an incredible job at getting our attention when he wants it, with both hand pulls, body position and vocalizations... I could give numerous examples but if he's not doing it in school and they gave an example of this then we agree it needs work so we kept this on as a goal. Other specific speech goals were in regards to Tyler producing 5 different vowel sounds (imitate them not just spontaneous) as well as one consonant sound "b"....we've been working hard at home on the "Mmmm" and the "BBBBB" "lllll"" sounds at home.

There was also some goals for his sign language to use signs to label items and also to demand items. There were goals about peer interactions and gross motor imitations.

In general we were very happy with the IEP proces and look forward to his accomplishments this school year. Maybe he'll even make it to a level 2 classroom next year. We'll keep plugging away.

We are hoping to get Ben enrolled in preschool next fall. We were considering whether ot do it this year since he seems advanced in some areas but also seems to need a bit more structure/rules in others but due to scheduling, finances, etc. we were able to make it happen. Funny thing.. he was at Ty's class one day, I can't remember why we ewere there but we sat in on the first part of class one day so ther eewas Ben and then about 6 other preschoolers who had Autism. It was circle time and Ben was the only one that was having a hard time staying seated in his chair! He's just not used to not being able to play with or go where he wants when he wants so we are going to try to work on some of that at home until we can get him into school.

Really looking forward to spend more time with family this holiday season. Love to all!!!