October 2, 2010

We had our first parent/teacher meeting for Tyler and it was fantastic. As a reminder, this year the level one classrooms are joined and each room has unique stations, they are joined in the bathroom area. THe second classroom is set up for more dramatic play and helps the children get ready for a level 2 class. There are 3 levels of autism classrooms in the school, Level 1 is the most impaired and level 3 is the least impaired. Tyler is still in a level 1 room at this point.

His 'homeroom" teacher is Julie who used to be the speech person for the district. I spoke to hear at the open house about TYler's speech and where we shoudl focus energy, etc. and she pointed out that speech is a priority in the classroom so that made me very happy.

ANyway, back to the meeting. The teachers commented on how smart TYler is and how quickly he picks up on things and how different he looks compared to last year. THey said during circle time he's participating in all of the activities and making sure that people are watching him when last year he seemed uninterested and would only participate part of the time. They are also open to communication devices and are bringing more technology into the classroom. They currently are using an IPAD and an Itouch and also bring in a TOBY to circle time which is a communication device. We have another IEP meeting coming up in October where we will revisit his goals for the year and it was discussed that we will put a communication device into part of his goals. At this point, he still uses PECS at school and theys aid he's doing great with PECs. THey basically said whatever we choose, Tyler should have no problem picking it up since he's such a bright kid. Can you imagine, Tyler having an effective way to communicate! THey teachers did ask how we communciate with him at home and to be honest I struggled to answer. IT's a combination of things but for the most part I don' t have trouble. I know what he awnts most of hte time and also know when he's upset and why. I completely understand why other people have trouble but I pretty much understand Tyler unless he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night then I'm usually clueless. I'm so excited though that everyone is open to the idea of him getting something to help him communicate with the rest of the world. So great news on the school front, he's doing awesome.

IN terms of a pediatrician, I found an office that I think we are oing to like and will work with us on biomed scripts as well. I have an appt with the pediatrician next week to see if it's a good fit (no kids at this appt), that alone excited me. That the office as part of their standard practice has the time to meet with parents first to see if it will be a good fit prior to meeting the children, etc. I can discuss all of my questions at this time and hope that they'll prescribe music therapy, yipee!

Tyler starts back up on private speech lessons next week. We struggled to find a way to have him fit into her schedule that matched a time in our schedule when we could get away from work. Tyler is very lucky to have fantastic grandparents.... grandpa is going to be taking Tyler to speech for us starting next week. THANKS GRANDPA! I'm hoping once we get approved for music therapy and get something on the schedule that we can reduce private speech to 2 x per month and music therapy 2 x per month. Insurance won' t cover any of it but flex spending will and I can't afford to flex spend both so I'm hoping to share the $$. Thinking since speech is more a focus at school this year that he may be able to do less private speech and then do something he really enjoys, music!. This paticular music therapist, I've been in talks with for years, it's just we've never found a way to pay for it before. He starts with the piano which is TY's fav of course.

Ben is flourishing at his new school and we are so so so so so so happy we made the change. He's such fun to be around, what a great age.

A while back I commented that we are making changes to simplify our lives and without getting into detail, we've started this plan. Hopefully within the next 6 months things will get easier for our family and the lessen the stress load and also open up some funding so that we can do more with both boys.