The Boy (almost) Next Door

One of my prayer requests for William (probably not unlike most moms) is for friends. He had a good friend in Maryland and one here in his class when he was three (who we still see on occassion). But, while kids at school and church are kind to him, he hasn't had anyone his age show a specific interest in friendship for a few years.

Recently, that has changed. Bob is a 6 year old boy who lives five houses down from us. Last fall he was still a bit afraid of William, often running away when he saw him. But this spring he is very different. He has a baby sister now, and I think his mom is busy and he's looking for friendship. He often comes out when we're walking the dog. When he was on spring break, his face seemed to live in our window.

And the best part is, he wants to play with William. He'll play with Lily too, but he pursues William. And he's shown an amazing capacity to understand William's limitations and how he needs to adapt to relate to him. For example, the other day, he climbed our fence.

The second time, I told him, "Bob, you cannot do that here."

"But I know how to climb fences," he said.

"Yes," I replied, "but if William sees you, he will copy you, and that's very dangerous for him."

He looked at me for a while in silence. Then he said, "So if Lily sees me, she won't copy me, but William will?"

"That's right," I said. And he made surer William didn't see him do it again.

As I plan for the summer and next year and search for social opportunities, this very natural, very appropriate relationship seems like a gift from heaven. No fees, no travel, no challenge of what to do with Lily and Abby, no program end where you say goodbye and probably not see those children again. I'm rejoicing.

Precious

William has begun addressing many of his comments to an unidentified person called, "Precious." "Good job, Precious." "That's right, Precious." I'm trying not to freak out...

All Season Santa

The 80 degree weather today didn't stop William from dressing up in his santa suit and pulling a sled around the yard with the Christmas train in it practicing his "Ho, ho, ho!"

Y'all can pray I find my camera!

Breakfast Gear

This boy loves his goggles!

A Couple Chuckles

I've lost my camera (again!), but here are a couple funnies from today:

"Look, Mom, it's Thomas!" William had drawn a full picture of Thomas the Tank on the side of our dirty van. Time for a run through the carwash!

"Oh, the indignity!" William quoted Gordon (the proud and proper train), deep voice and all. He was building a wall out of canned foods on the stove, and one of the containers kept falling over.

It's so fun that our boy can speak!

After Three Days of Phonics:

We got Leapfrog's Letter Factory video from the library this week. I found some free flashcards online that have the visual cues from the movie (L is licking a lollipop, R has wheels like a racecar, etc) The kids are so into it! Lily didn't want to perform alone, but here's William's rendition:

As you can see, the vowels are hard for him. Some of the other letters are also difficult since he has trouble pronouncing them in general (like 'r' and 'v'). Still, for only working on it for three days, I think he does pretty well. And the best part is, both children are so excited to learn and show off what they know!

PS. A big thanks to my dear husband for finding a way to get videos back on this blog!

New Autism Diagnosis

The APA is revising the DSM, and the autism world is up in arms. That's predictable, of course, since the label "autism" often opens the door to thousands of dollars of funding for therapies and services. The new definition removes PDD-NOS (William's educational diagnosis) and Asperger's, leaving a more narrow, classic definition of autism.

Personally, I'm not too upset about what the change means for us specifically. That's easy for me since I never thought William had autism. Autism treatments have never worked for him, and even when you explain that to therapists, it's hard for them to break out of the stereotype and work with William differently.

It also helps that the proposed DSM 5 is adding 5 communication disorders, including a general Language Impairment that is a much closer fit for him. They are also adding the more familiar (but still pretty unheard of) Specific Language Impairment and a Social Communication Disorder. Of course, none of these new disorders have any money attached to their names... yet.

The new manual is not expected out till May 2013. So that gives us time to benefit from the funding we currently have. William is making so much progress and God has proven Himself so faithful, I am sure he will continue to excel whatever funding is available.

Still, I'm not sure it's good to get rid of those other labels. Shouldn't it be the people and organizations handing out the funds who decide how broad or narrow they want to go? I know how frustrating it can be as a parent when your child doesn't fit any label, and so people assume there's nothing wrong. And should we really be having psychiatrists and psychologists diagnosing language disorders?? I wonder what ASHA thinks of that...

Homeschool Update

We are halfway through the year, and I'm amazed at how far we've come since September. The IEP goals were things like recognizing the letters of William's name and counting objects 1-5. At this point, William can recognize and name all colors, recognize, name, and draw 5 common shapes, recognize and write all uppercase letters and recognize and write most lower case letters. He is learning to write his numbers and can count objects 1-10 with minimal assistance.

This is a recent picture he drew of Christopher Robin, Piglet, and Pooh. He wrote his name at the top without any suggestion or help from me. (He often adds random letters at the end like that q.)

We learned about the major stories in Genesis and various science and social studies topics connected to those. We have two pages left in his preschool Handwriting Without Tears workbook. I bought the kindergarten level one and plan to jump in partway through. The tutor has begun introducing sight words (which is the next step for most special needs student readers.)

I had a wild thought today- I wonder if William could get phonics. It totally goes against educational theory since understanding phonics and sounding out words is a higher mental function than learning to recognize words by sight, and he hasn't had any success with the sight words yet. But so often William doesn't follow typical special needs development. And he does so much better when he understands the meaning/purpose of things.

I've been using Hooked on Phonics to teach the letters, mentioning but not dwelling on the sounds. So today I played the HOP DVD that says each letter name, sound, and a word that starts with that sound. There's a pause before each, so I listened to see if William would say any of the sounds as well as the letters. He spontaneously said quite a few.

Later while Lily was napping, I started reading AlphaTales with him. It's a book that has a story for each letter made of words that emphasize that sound. He was excited to recognize the letters, say the sounds, and help tell the stories by looking at the pictures. He stayed engaged for four stories (A-D) without much redirection. I was in shock! Praise God for His answers to our prayers.

Experiences like today have definitely increased my confidence for homeschooling next year. Between the tutor (who said she may stay on another year!), the preschool prep DVDs, Lily's enthusiasm, Hooked on Phonics, educational apps for the tablet, Leapfrog products, montessori materials and theory, Handwriting Without Tears, and now AlphaTales, along with the supervision of the Christian school, I feel like I have a good set of resources to draw from.

I am still looking for a good math program (suggestion, anyone??) and I know social interaction will be an ongoing issue. But I'm amazed at God's provision and excited to see what He has fur us in the future. Thanks again for your prayers. I know this is all a gift from God.

Mr. Tumnus

A scene that makes my mama's heart smile

Nutritional Supplement

For some reason William didn't want to eat his pizza at dinner tonight. So later I walked into the kitchen to find this.

"Sistah"

William learned a new word this week. You can hear the affection in his voice when he points to Lily or Abigail and exclaims, "Sistah!"

Also, in follow up to the post about the colors dvd, the tutor said today that William said all ten colors on the color chart correctly. It's been a little over two weeks since we started watching that video. What's more important, he's started naming colors of things throughout the day. Praise God!

Preschool Prep Colors DVD

With all the curriculum and treatment conversations that go on in the special needs world, it's hard for me to understand how I didn't know about the Preschool Prep dvds until recently. I guess I had seen them around, but didn't understand how they differed from other educational videos.

We have a good bit of experience with preschool educational videos in this house. Not that I think any particular video is a magic pill. But, hey,we're going to be watching movies anyway, so it doesn't hurt to make some of them educational. We've tried Baby Babble, Winnie the Pooh, Leap Frog, Hooked on Phonics, Sesame Street, Boz, and others. William has learned things from them, some more than others.

What makes preschool prep different, is it's aimed at a young audience (1-2 year olds), the audio is extremely simple (music and whatever words the child is suppose to be learning- nothing more), and they did a study documenting the extreme success of the alphabet video.

That alphabet video is a bit much for William. But he loves the colors one. Each color has a personality, theme music, and setting. They act out silly or fun little scenes while repeating their names over and over. It progresses from each color acting out their own scene, to each color taking turns finding things that match them, to them working together to color pictures. It ends with them all dancing.

We started watching the Colors dvd last week. At that time William could not name any of the colors consistently. Today both his tutor and speech therapist reported he knew red, blue, and green. When he gets all 8 colors, I'm going to move on to shapes, then numbers. Hopefully after that he'll be ready for the alphabet one (which has upper and lower case). There are also 3 sight word dvds we will hopefully be able to benefit from in the future. God has provided again!

Retest

Lisa, William's amazing speech therapist, came as usual today. When she walked in, she explained that she was going to retest William today. That was a surprise to me; she had just tested him in the spring. But she explained that he's made so much progress over the summer, she wanted to retest him to get a better sense of where his language skills were at. Praise God!

"Look! I am Thomas!"

Tight Rope Walker

I've commented a number of times how William would make a great tight rope walker. The other day, I came outside to find he had put a long board (smaller than a 2x4) across the basement stairwell and was enjoying bouncing his way across. Even this easy-going mama freaked out. I honestly wasn't afraid he'd mis-step; I was afraid his bouncing would break the board. So now William's board is across the (water-filled) sandbox, and I can enjoy his balancing techniques. And to think he's never even been to a circus...

Big Feet

Last year William's school shoes were size 12xw. I just bought him a pair of tennies yesterday and they're size 2xw. That's a 3 size jump. In comparison, Lily's shoes this year are a size and a half bigger than last year. Wow, he's grown!

Happy Birthday, William!

William turns 6 today. It's hard to believe my boy is growing up. I know I post a lot on this blog about his (and our) challenges, but the fact is he is a joy to us and everyone he knows. We thank God for him!

We had a family party for him on Sunday. I didn't get any pics, but here are some of Grandma B's. We'll be having a friends party at the park tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Click

Yesterday at swimming lessons, something clicked for William. All the sudden, he realized we weren't giving him instructions to keep him from having fun in the water- we were instructing him how to have even more fun by actually swimming in the water, specifically, how to go under water safely. By the end of the lesson, he was excitedly swimming back and forth between the instructor and me over and over again. The instructor had him stop for a second and he emphatically said, "I want swimming!"

That's how it normally is with William. We work and work and fight and fight, and nothing happens. And then one day it clicks. I thought about that last night when William took a Little Einsteins book to bed with him. A year ago he couldn't match photos to their object. But now he recognizes color cartoons and even some simple or familiar line drawings.

So, would you please join me in praying for another area that needs to "click"? It's potty training. We've been working on it for three years now. So often I've felt like we were about to conquer it, only to experience another set back. And now I'm fairly certain that having an older brother that's not potty trained is what is holding Lily back.

I know God cares about these very personal details of our lives, and I know He hears our prayers. He always answers. Thank you for joining me!

Two Front Teeth

My boy is growing up! Last week William lost one of his two front teeth. This week he lost the other. I think it makes his smile even more adorable.