"Eye"

Well, now I am up to date with the journal entries.

Here are a couple pictures. He has a bit of a black eye in the family pic. He fell off the couch a couple days ago and fell onto an empty coffee mug. Doesn't seem to be bothering him any though.

This morning the private speech therapist came over and we talked a bit and she did some things with him. She's really great with him. A lot of therapists, from what I have found so far, are a bit more reserved when in a new situation, especially with parents. She just drove right in, and when he was fussing, it didn't phase her. I really liked how down to earth and down to business she was. Thomas really liked the Connect Four game she brought with. I think that is something we are going to have to try. I also decided (before now I was planning on it, but especially after our discussion today) that I am going to get rid of a ton of toys. We have too much and such a little space for it all. We are really not very organized people to begin with. He has so many toys he doesn't know what to do with them all. When I was telling her about him dropping all his books off the bookshelves, one at a time, she suggested getting a small chair and table for him and get together three toys for him to play with that have a beginning and end. She said new things should be to the left and move to the right as he finishes (L-R like we read, etc). She said a lot of kids will find it helps them regulate themselves. I've been thinking about getting him a table and chairs anyway, so I will try to do that soon.

She was showing him a cool book where each page reveals a little bit more of the monster. He loved it. He even said "eye" by himself and pointed to it and everythign. She was working on getting him to say "nose" too. He imitated her mouth, but no vocalization with it. He did point it out when she asked where the nose was. And once or twice after she did it, he pointed at his own nose. Sometimes he needed a physical prompt to point to the nose, but he did alright. He seemed very proud that he was saying "eye". I'm going to keep working on that. He has never really been able to point to any body part and I think kids are supposed to have 2-3 body parts they know by 18 months. He's now 28 months old. Hopefully we can keep building from here.

He did great signing "more" during the session today and even this morning I noticed it. This is one thing he does very consistently. But up until now, most of the time, he put his knuckles together, not his fingertips. But now, he's doing it perfect. He even started putting an "m" sound with the sign. These are all good things to be seeing and hearing.

Other than that, I think it was a difficult session. Thomas was just having a rough morning. He kept fussing and throwing himself down. He actually had tears streaming down his face at one point. I think he may have just been having a rough morning. He was like that a bit before she got there too. He's having a nap right now so hopefully he'll be better when he wakes up. I was thinking about trying to go to the park this afternoon. If it doesn't rain that is.

I also found the PDF report from the school officer of the kid in Port St. Lucie who's class voted him out of class. It is despicable that the teacher did that. I understand that it was hard to deal with the behavioral things and that it is hard on the other kids. But rather than dealing with it like that, you can teach kids to be accepting of others. How about talking with the mother and the others in the IEP team to see if there is a better strategy to deal with the behavior. It says in the report that she would send him to the principles office for having his shoes on the wrong feet. Is that seriously something that kids get sent to the principles office for nowdays? He's in Kindergarten! I still can't believe that she would ask the kids to say those things with him standing in front of the class. How humiliating!

http://web.tcpalm.com/2008/05/29/Bartonrpt.pdf