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.

Oobi - language development

There is a show on TV called Oobi on the NickJr. channel. This show has been on for some time. I thought it was lame the first time I seen it a few years back. Watching it now I see why it is the way it is.

The characters are people's hands with a set of eyes on them. They speak in really reduced sentences for children to develop language skills. My autistic son actually sat and studied the characters. This show also has good moral teachings. That is a hard thing to find now days on cartoons and TV shows.

Cartoons today are either too educational and boring or violent. What ever happened to silly and funny cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Garfield? Even Sesame Street now is about eating veggies. Not that that is a bad thing, but where is the humor? Sesame Street used to have a bunch of segmented clips about numbers, letters, colors and other educational meanings. Now, it focuses on a topic, like bubbles, and has the whole show on that. Then comes Elmo's World. That doesn't teach much either.

Speech delay was a big factor in my son's autism. He didn't start speaking until the age of 4. When he started speaking, he was echolalic. He would copy things we would tell him to do. Now, he is starting to ask questions for himself instead of copying what we say. He still has a puzzled look on his face sometimes we tell him to do something.

I will say that Oobi is a really good tool of language providing and morals when you have a child who has a delayed speech. Speaking slow, short sentences is how to get the communication skills working.

"SOCIAL SKILLS"

I believe in having your child with autism to be around peers their own age to help with their social skills. Children learn from watching and imitating others around their social environments.

I have seen many improvements with my own son diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

He is in early childhood class, 4k. 2 days a week for 8 hours he is involved with normal childhood activities within his class and peers his own age. Monday and Wednesday are his classes. On Fridays he is involved in a more special education class with other students of learning disabilities.

On Fridays he has one on one therapy with a Speech Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Behavioral Therapist, Psychologist, his teacher and a Musical Therapist. He has developed to socialize with other students a lot better than he did over the past school year.

2 days a week we have our children in childcare for 5 hours. Tuesdays and Thursdays. The daycare consists of the mothers own 4 children. They are aged from 7 down to 3. There are also several more boys and girls throughout the day that my son has social interaction with.

Watching these kids eat, play and get dressed has helped my son with autism learn abilities he should be doing in his own age group. Instead of playing off in the corner by himself, he has learned to interact more with these children.

Taking my son to the playground has had positive effects on his social skills. Children want to play tag with him but he didn't understand what to do. He was off in his own world putting wood chips down the slide. Either way, getting him around other kids still made him happy.

We choose to have as much social interaction with my sons autism. This is a most definite plus in learning what children do to socialize with one another. Set up play dates with other families. Take your child to the zoo and playground. Get them away from their autistic traits. Get them into the world and be a part of life. "The worst thing a parent can do is do nothing." Quoted by Temple Grandon.

"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.