little things adding up.....

As I mentioned a week or so ago, we like to use school breaks to tweak Dominic’s regime.  We made some changes again this year and are starting to see neat little glimpses of improvement as he acclimates, and to be honest,  we are thrilled.

These are some of the things we have noticed.

-          Increased awareness of conceptual stuff.  Like Time.  Out of the blue one afternoon he looked up from his lunch at the clock and said “One Two Four Nine”.  And it was 12:49.  This is the first awareness I’ve ever seen in him about the clock.

-          This is hard to describe because he’s not been tremendously non compliant for years, but we’re seeing an increase in what I believe is his receptive auditory processing – only having to ask him to do something once or twice before it registers instead of having to ask over and over.  So it seems like an increase in compliance but may actually instead be an increase in auditory processing speed

-          Poop scooping has become a regular, couple of times a week, chore.  As has picking up all the dog toys in the yard. 

-          He came into the laundry room yesterday and was extremely attentive so for kicks and grins I taught him how to fold his pants and shirts.  And then he proceeded to fold a couple on his own.  The biggie was that he actually paid attention. 

-          Better sleep.  We have removed Melatonin from his regime and he’s not needed it in 10 days.  That alone is HUGE.

-          Major detox response in the IonCleanse by AMD footbath and the most perfect poop I’ve ever seen (and I’m reminded that its been a LONG time since I blogged about poop. Hilarious).   

-          So much speech.  Lots of echoic scripting, but also definitely conversation. Lots of awareness and frustration that he wasn’t able to get out the words he was working on.  

-          He suddenly has hit a phase of being obsessed with the bubbles from shampoo.  And we’re suddenly going through Shampoo by the gallon.  BUT – he’s doing it himself!

We sent him to school today wearing his new GPS tracker in his back pocket.  Its an Angel Sense so has been texting us his location all day.  Its kind of cool.  The fact that he allowed it to go in his pocket is pretty  huge as I haven’t been able to get him to tolerate it (its probably the size of a deck of cards).

So, now we see how he does with school.  At home his receptive identification of sight words is growing daily.  He plays sight word bingo with his Speech therapist and has been doing great with it.