Showing posts with label musical therapy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musical therapy. Show all posts

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Summer School

Danes teacher thought it would be a good idea to have him enrolled in summer school. Even if the teacher didn't suggest this I was going to enroll him. This is to keep in into a routine and meet new teachers and students to help with his social skills and prepare him for kindergarten. This will also give him a chance to do things that he is more interested in.

Children on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) don't take routine breaking easily. Life changes and new obstacles lay ahead. It is best to keep him in a active school environment, or extended before the following school year.

Next year, Dane will have a new teacher and possibly new students added to his classroom. He will have to adjust like any other student but it will take longer with his autism. We show him his class picture to get to know the faces of his classmates.

We are slowly working Dane into a 5 day full time school week. We started with 1 three hour day on Fridays when he was 4 years old. At 5 years old we bumped him up to 2 full days a week. On Friday, he has his special education with more one on one time with his Speech Therapist, Behavioral Therapist, Musical Therapist, Occupational Therapist and Psychologist. Friday is the most important day for him and it upsets me when school is called off or there is no school. That is the day that focuses entirely on his needs.

Since Dane has been enrolled in school, he has gained much more in his social skills. He is talking more and not echoing back as much as he once did. Some of his vowels sound like other letters and is hard to understand what he wants. He gets frustrated until we figure out what he wants. After he gets across to us what he wanted he is very relieved as are we.

Being around children his age has had such an advantage to helping him learn to be more independent. He now can get himself dressed with less help. Sometimes it takes a few commands to get him started. Hearing him start to ask questions is very exciting also. Learning is an entirely different story with those of a certain disability. It takes more patience and time. Early intervention was the best option.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

"EARLY INTERVENTION"

A parent knows when something is wrong with their child. You see things that the child should be doing but their not. Or, they were doing it but now it stopped. Whats going on here?

We took our son in to see his family doctor for a well-being check up. We told her about the weird things he was doing and that he stopped talking. She referred us to the Birth to Three program through our county. This was the start of my sons early intervention.

If we had not taken my son to the doctor, or, if the doctor didn't refer us to the early intervention, Birth to Three program, my family would be lost today. 2 days a week for 45 minutes a speech therapist and occupational therapist came to our house to study our son and give us advice.

Birth to Three early intervention ended when Dane turned 3 years old. After that, we had our son involved in school 1 day a week for 3 hours. This was to help get him into the routine of going to school and being around other children. Early intervention was the key to help with my sons social skills. This was before he was diagnosed with autism.

The school gave my wife an I a quiz to narrow down why my son is not meeting his peers activities. The school psychologist would narrow it down to where it was a possibility of autism. Eventually, we took him in to be screened for autism and he was diagnosed.

Without a diagnosis, our son would probably be not getting the treatment he needs. This gave us the opportunity to have him involved with specialists who are trained to help children with disabilities.

Currently my son sees an Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist, Musical Therapist, Behavioral Therapist and a school Psychologist. All these people play a very important role in helping my son develop his social skills, behavioral issues and how to do things more independently.

Without early intervention I would be lost with my son. Recognize there is a problem and do something about it before it is too late. The sooner the intervention, the better.