I talked before about how we are working on getting Derek to use "me" and "you" properly. And we have seen improvements. Hooray! (Did I tell you about the weird sentences that this would produce? The strangest of all was "I use your penis.")
Our next challenge is getting him to use gendered third person pronouns properly. Right now it's pretty random. He, she, it, is all mixed up and rather arbitrary.
At the crux of using the right gender to refer to people is realizing what gender they are. And I don't think Derek really gets it. He's seen Allen and I naked and has noticed that Allen has a penis and I don't. The old school way to explain gender is the "boys have a penis and girls have a vagina." However, though that is how people tend to get put in gender categories, it's not how we know that people we meet on the street are girls or boys. It's all those secondary sex characteristics that people display. In this day and age they are such subtle cues, too. I'm having trouble figuring out what "rules" for gender to present to Derek. Girls wear skirts, but not all the time. Men have beards, but not all of them. Long or short hair gives you no clue these days. Girls just kinda look like girls and boys just kinda look like boys.
Perhaps we should go be Amish. Oh wait, no Homestar Runner.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Word Wall
This is the time when I wish I had a digital camera that worked.
Derek's teacher has a "Word Wall": a place where she posts words that the whole class knows how to read - two are added every week. (He's starting to read. Have I mentioned that this blows my mind?) Derek made his own "Word Wall" at home this weekend. It has the words "I", "am" "the" and "little." I is quite clear. Am is almost legible. But the other two are pretty much jibberish. Eh. It's fun that he's taking things home.
He's also very excited about lunch. He's playing at packing a lunch and reinacting the school routine at home. He sets his lunch out and puts his lunch box in a laundry basket. He'll pack a lunch for me and make me sit down too. He tells me to "Eat your sandwich." (Notice correct pronoun!)
Other things from school showing up at home: telling the dog to say the months of the year, pretending to hand me pennies and dimes and telling me how much they're worth, "Sit on chairs, not under tables," a new clean up song. Perhaps they sing "Allouette" at school because he's often humming the tune. He doesn't tell me directly, rather he'll reinact things or say seemingly random echolalic phrases and that's how I know something about what's happening. I need to be a bit of a detective. I'm not sure how he feels about the things he is reinacting at home. Are these things he enjoys or things that cause him anxiety?
At home, he's decided that The Blow's "Bonus Album" is his favorite CD and insists on having it playing whenever we drive somewhere. He's also displaying some new play scenarios, like his figures going to the Harley store. He's added motorcycles to his list of things he can/will draw. We stand the drawings up and there's your Harley store. He also loves going on motorcycle rides with Allen. A couple weeks ago they went to the park together on the motorcycle while I was working and when I came home Derek was very talkative and engaged.
That's all for now, but I got a list at home of blog topics, including a reaction to the book "George and Sam" and some thoughts about Derek's diagnosis on the year and a half aniversary.
Derek's teacher has a "Word Wall": a place where she posts words that the whole class knows how to read - two are added every week. (He's starting to read. Have I mentioned that this blows my mind?) Derek made his own "Word Wall" at home this weekend. It has the words "I", "am" "the" and "little." I is quite clear. Am is almost legible. But the other two are pretty much jibberish. Eh. It's fun that he's taking things home.
He's also very excited about lunch. He's playing at packing a lunch and reinacting the school routine at home. He sets his lunch out and puts his lunch box in a laundry basket. He'll pack a lunch for me and make me sit down too. He tells me to "Eat your sandwich." (Notice correct pronoun!)
Other things from school showing up at home: telling the dog to say the months of the year, pretending to hand me pennies and dimes and telling me how much they're worth, "Sit on chairs, not under tables," a new clean up song. Perhaps they sing "Allouette" at school because he's often humming the tune. He doesn't tell me directly, rather he'll reinact things or say seemingly random echolalic phrases and that's how I know something about what's happening. I need to be a bit of a detective. I'm not sure how he feels about the things he is reinacting at home. Are these things he enjoys or things that cause him anxiety?
At home, he's decided that The Blow's "Bonus Album" is his favorite CD and insists on having it playing whenever we drive somewhere. He's also displaying some new play scenarios, like his figures going to the Harley store. He's added motorcycles to his list of things he can/will draw. We stand the drawings up and there's your Harley store. He also loves going on motorcycle rides with Allen. A couple weeks ago they went to the park together on the motorcycle while I was working and when I came home Derek was very talkative and engaged.
That's all for now, but I got a list at home of blog topics, including a reaction to the book "George and Sam" and some thoughts about Derek's diagnosis on the year and a half aniversary.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Kindergarten
Derek started Kindergarten this year in a special class. It’s the middle ground between the life skills classroom and general education. The class is made up of autistic children from Kindergarten to third grade and there is one adult for every two children, the material and class time is highly structured, and everybody knows how to deal with and reach children with communication disorders like this.
Reports have been good. The teacher’s mostly write “Nice dayJ” in the communication log. He doesn’t have much to say about school once he gets home, but he responds well when I tell him it’s time to get dressed for school and comes home tired every day. So I think he enjoys it.
Last night was back to school night. I started the night feeling a bit creeped out being in a school and with lots of upscale parents, continued to feel rather out of place as the school foundation talked about their fundraising projects, like flipping a house in the neighborhood and holding a $50/ticket auction, but the presentation from the teacher was good and she said that working in a school like this has been really great. The teachers in general are supported well. There’s a music teacher, a PE teacher, and a librarian all on staff, which is unusual in any public school these days, apparently, let alone the cash-strapped Portland Public Schools.
(And just that afternoon I was bitching to a friend about how my librarian duties have a lower priority than my janitorial duties on a daily basis and how that makes me cranky about my job. So I know the teachers there are happier in their jobs than I am in mine. But that’s another story.)
The special ed classrooms are integrated into the school and the children there are the school’s children, not just special ed’s kids. They get exactly the same curriculum as the general ed classrooms, not ten year old hand-me-downs. This is fantastic because the idea of these classrooms is that the children in them need behavior and communication accommodations, there is no need for them to be behind their peers academically or have ancient books. They can step right into the general ed classrooms, they’re in the same place in the same books. One of my biggest concerns placing Derek in this classroom was that he wouldn’t get much contact with typical children, like he did in his preschool, that he’d be shut away, separate from the rest of school. I’m still a little worried, but hopeful overall. I was also glad that the classroom has toys and colorful bulletin boards and art hanging from the ceiling. It’s not dreary and bleak.
I also learned that Derek has picked out a few kids in the class that he favors. He wants to sit by them in circle time and pokes them to get their attention. This is good news! Last year in preschool he didn’t seem to have much preference or desire for playmates. I’d ask about who to invite for a playdate or over for a birthday and his teacher would have a hard time coming up with anybody.
And it’s for free! (Well, except for the fundraising and selling and donating and auctioning and appealing and flipping the neighborhood house.)
Reports have been good. The teacher’s mostly write “Nice dayJ” in the communication log. He doesn’t have much to say about school once he gets home, but he responds well when I tell him it’s time to get dressed for school and comes home tired every day. So I think he enjoys it.
Last night was back to school night. I started the night feeling a bit creeped out being in a school and with lots of upscale parents, continued to feel rather out of place as the school foundation talked about their fundraising projects, like flipping a house in the neighborhood and holding a $50/ticket auction, but the presentation from the teacher was good and she said that working in a school like this has been really great. The teachers in general are supported well. There’s a music teacher, a PE teacher, and a librarian all on staff, which is unusual in any public school these days, apparently, let alone the cash-strapped Portland Public Schools.
(And just that afternoon I was bitching to a friend about how my librarian duties have a lower priority than my janitorial duties on a daily basis and how that makes me cranky about my job. So I know the teachers there are happier in their jobs than I am in mine. But that’s another story.)
The special ed classrooms are integrated into the school and the children there are the school’s children, not just special ed’s kids. They get exactly the same curriculum as the general ed classrooms, not ten year old hand-me-downs. This is fantastic because the idea of these classrooms is that the children in them need behavior and communication accommodations, there is no need for them to be behind their peers academically or have ancient books. They can step right into the general ed classrooms, they’re in the same place in the same books. One of my biggest concerns placing Derek in this classroom was that he wouldn’t get much contact with typical children, like he did in his preschool, that he’d be shut away, separate from the rest of school. I’m still a little worried, but hopeful overall. I was also glad that the classroom has toys and colorful bulletin boards and art hanging from the ceiling. It’s not dreary and bleak.
I also learned that Derek has picked out a few kids in the class that he favors. He wants to sit by them in circle time and pokes them to get their attention. This is good news! Last year in preschool he didn’t seem to have much preference or desire for playmates. I’d ask about who to invite for a playdate or over for a birthday and his teacher would have a hard time coming up with anybody.
And it’s for free! (Well, except for the fundraising and selling and donating and auctioning and appealing and flipping the neighborhood house.)
Baby's First Pun
Derek’s had a bit of an obsession with lights and light bulbs lately. He keeps moving the light bulbs to different sockets around the house, so we’ll find the refrigerator light bulb in the hanging lamp downstairs, or he’ll insist we put the burned out bulbs back in the sockets in the basement. He’ll turn the lamps sideways to get at the bulbs and carry them around the house. And since we are trying to save the world one three-dollar energy efficient tiny twisted florescent tube bulb at a time, Allen and I get a little cranky when we find broken ones stuffed in odd corners.
So Allen and I were nearly comatose Saturday while Derek’s jumping around being silly. He gets one sock from his sock pile – just one, he makes a note of – and then starts jumping around on our bed and messing with the lamp. And then it comes onto me all at once – sock, socket!
Me: “No socks in the socket! Are you crazy?!”
Derek: [Manic giggle] “No socks in the socket!”
[Hilarity ensues]
So Allen and I were nearly comatose Saturday while Derek’s jumping around being silly. He gets one sock from his sock pile – just one, he makes a note of – and then starts jumping around on our bed and messing with the lamp. And then it comes onto me all at once – sock, socket!
Me: “No socks in the socket! Are you crazy?!”
Derek: [Manic giggle] “No socks in the socket!”
[Hilarity ensues]
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
It's the country life for us
This weekend we visited Allen's relatives living just outside of Bend. Each year on this weekend they have a large family reunion/cook out. I made pie and people loved it. Allen made Derek take a nap and I loved it. The dog ran around like a maniac and we all loved it.
The property out there is a sort of a compound. There's a central single-wide mobile home and several additional trailers, greenhouses, and mysterious buildings. (Tornado shelters?) We slept in one of the RVs. I was mostly grateful that it was horizontal and free, but Derek adored the accomodations. He'd wake up in the morning and chatter on and on about the trailer - the curtain, his bed, the dog's spot, a sink, the light with no light bulb, the mirror, the windows, the doors, the local puppy coming to visit and going in and out and in and out and in and out, oh, oh!! There is not a snooty bone in my kid's body.
The property out there is a sort of a compound. There's a central single-wide mobile home and several additional trailers, greenhouses, and mysterious buildings. (Tornado shelters?) We slept in one of the RVs. I was mostly grateful that it was horizontal and free, but Derek adored the accomodations. He'd wake up in the morning and chatter on and on about the trailer - the curtain, his bed, the dog's spot, a sink, the light with no light bulb, the mirror, the windows, the doors, the local puppy coming to visit and going in and out and in and out and in and out, oh, oh!! There is not a snooty bone in my kid's body.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Yay for Speech Therapy
I was in a bit of a funk over several things, over a lot of the summer, and was getting a real good funk on when our speech therapists transition from temporary to permanent employee or some such ended and we had our first appointment with her in ages. It brought me out of the funk a bit and helped me re-focus on Derek and get over myself a bit. I saw her be successful interacting with Derek and that gave me some hope that I can also be successful interacting with Derek and not have most of my day consist of yelling "Derek! Bebe!" across the room progressively louder and louder and getting no response whatsoever. I can chase him around the yard with a frog puppet. I can hide toys so he has to ask for them. I can bring a new set of toys in so he can transition from his tired old theme that has me about to stick a fork in my eye to a new and exciting play theme. I have a strategy to respond to him mentioning for the 3,465,987th time that the neighbors cut down their giant tree. (The strategy is to respond like he's sharing a memory - remember that time the neighbor's cut down their tree and it radically changed the shade in and view from and into our yard? Yeah, I do. And it makes me annoyed.)
In other news, my computer is breaking. Today I found the blue screen of death when I came down in the morning. So I'm backing up a lot. Also on our list of new electronic equipment is a digital camera and a printer. They're broken, too.
This weekend we'll be going to my husband's step father's biological father's new wife's family reunion in Bend. Also know as the chase-Derek-in-the-high-desert 10k relay.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Sometimes we're happy
Sometimes we're sad. Sometimes we don't wear pants. Sometimes we're bored to tears and want to stick our heads in the oven. Yay summer!
I know I haven't blogged in forever. Oy. Sorry about that. So here's some brief updates:
Sucky things:
I had big plans for the summer: new health insurance that would get us access to new therapists who would teach me things about how to set up a home therapy program, make realistic, challenging, meaningful goals and then achieve them. Then I ran into an insurance catch-22 and couldn't go through with those plans.
Over the summer Derek seems to have regressed a bit. He's better off than he was this time last year, but not doing some of the things that he was doing in June. I think the change from the familiar routine to practically no structure or routine has him a little disoriented. I was chatting with another mom who has two typical kids experiencing the same disorientation and crankiness, so it's not just Derek, but it has impacted his social and verbal skill gains. Bleh.
Playground pushing. More of it and harder. He pushed a toddler down some concrete steps the other day. And today pushed an older kid over so hard he knocked the wind out of her.
Good things:
Derek is interested in playing catch. We've been tossing a ball and balloons back and forth for several turns, much more than previously!
I've been going to therapy on my own, which has been really helpful, shockingly enough to me. It's useful for me to sit back and look at my own patterns of behavior and the reasons behind them. Then I can remedy the situation.
I've also investigated some support groups of other parents dealing with autistic children in the area, and it looks like that will be a positive experience.
I've been working on Derek's pronoun confusion and it's starting to show. He thinks one of my names is "me" and one of his names is "you". So if he says "Fire on me!" he means that I'm the one on fire, not himself. If he says "It's mine!" he means it's for me, not himself. See how this can get a bit confusing? And it's worse to explain it or correct him. It turns into a "Who's on first?" routine. So the speech therapist and I concocted a strategy to try to show him what he means. When he says "Fire on me!", even though he makes a gesture to throw the fire on me I act like the fire is on him. When he says "Come get me!" and tries to chase me, I act like he asked me to chase him. See? And I've noticed him using the correct pronoun more often, even in interactions where it's just him and me.
The car is fixed.
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