We had Dominic's triennial IEP meeting today and it went great. All of the supports that he's had are staying in place.
Throughout the meeting, the staff there made very clear how much improvement they've seen in Dominic's independence, desire to communicate (and resulting frustration when he struggles), and ability to read facial expressions. They, too, have noticed his sense of humor developing nicely and one of the things that our SPED teacher told us is that in her experience, its rare for kids with an ASD diagnosis to develop a sense of humor.
His speech therapist shared these two examples with us:
He had done something he wasn't supposed to and then asked for the program he likes on her kindle, with monkeys. She told him "No, you can't have that until you apologize:". And then he said "I sorry", and it blew her away. She didn't realize he had the link between apologize = saying sorry.
One day she went ot his classroom to get him and there was a jam of people at the door so she made eye contact, pointed at him and said "YOU", and he got wide eyed startled, scurried to his desk, and picked up a pen to make it look like he was on track. His para just about died laughing.
They are spending more time with him at the keyboard and that seems to be his preferred method for writing. We are *almost* to the point where we will discontinue trying to teach handwriting beyond his signature, but not quite. The OT is going to be adding wrist weights next year to help him increase pressure with his pen. They said that the is sounding out CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words successfully when asked to spell them, but they are working on words with a soft a sound (like cat, cap, rat, etc) right now
He has a goal for reading, a goal for speech, and a goal for math.
I am taking a page out of the book of Jess over at Diary of a Mom, and i've asked them to look into a daily exercise of typing out an email to Mom and Dad telling us how his day was. They think its a great idea and will start working towards it next year.
Throughout the meeting, the staff there made very clear how much improvement they've seen in Dominic's independence, desire to communicate (and resulting frustration when he struggles), and ability to read facial expressions. They, too, have noticed his sense of humor developing nicely and one of the things that our SPED teacher told us is that in her experience, its rare for kids with an ASD diagnosis to develop a sense of humor.
His speech therapist shared these two examples with us:
He had done something he wasn't supposed to and then asked for the program he likes on her kindle, with monkeys. She told him "No, you can't have that until you apologize:". And then he said "I sorry", and it blew her away. She didn't realize he had the link between apologize = saying sorry.
One day she went ot his classroom to get him and there was a jam of people at the door so she made eye contact, pointed at him and said "YOU", and he got wide eyed startled, scurried to his desk, and picked up a pen to make it look like he was on track. His para just about died laughing.
They are spending more time with him at the keyboard and that seems to be his preferred method for writing. We are *almost* to the point where we will discontinue trying to teach handwriting beyond his signature, but not quite. The OT is going to be adding wrist weights next year to help him increase pressure with his pen. They said that the is sounding out CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words successfully when asked to spell them, but they are working on words with a soft a sound (like cat, cap, rat, etc) right now
He has a goal for reading, a goal for speech, and a goal for math.
I am taking a page out of the book of Jess over at Diary of a Mom, and i've asked them to look into a daily exercise of typing out an email to Mom and Dad telling us how his day was. They think its a great idea and will start working towards it next year.
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