More words and signs!!!!!!!

Thomas is doing so well right now. I’m just so excited! Everyone has been making a point of telling me how attentive he is and how he follows directions now and makes better eye contact and so on. It’s just amazing. About two weeks ago, he started being so much more precise when he signs “more” and he’s saying it too (“mo”). And a three days ago he started signing “all done” and he says “all-n” which he hasn’t done in a long time. The same day he started signing “eat” and “please”. He needed a tiny physical prompt to sign “more please”. That’s two words. And he said “eat” as perfectly clear as you can get. Even with the T at the end. I kept trying to get it on tape, but of course he wouldn’t do it for the camera when I was recording or he would as I hit the off button instead of the start button. But it’s huge progress just in the past week.

And he’s continuing progress with body parts. Until last week, I didn’t think he knew any. I’d try off and on to go over his body parts but never felt like he got any of it. This morning he was looking at the picture of Elmo on his chair and pointed at the eyes and said “eye”. He pointed at the other eye and said “eye”. Then he pointed at Elmo’s nose and said “nose” (not completely clear, but after repeating it several times it got clearer), then he pointed at where Elmo’s ears would be if he had ears and said “ear”. Then he did the same thing on the other side. Then he pointed out the mouth as he said “ou”. He kept watching my lips as I said “mouth”. And he kept trying to say it. Then a couple minutes later he was sitting on my lap and I asked him to point to his eyes. He proceded to point out his eyes, ears, nose, mouth (“ow”) and even head. I was soooooo proud! You can tell he really has to think about the sounds he is making and you can see how proud he is of himself. It’s just exciting. And he’s just started this in the past week.

I have to admit I am a bit scared that he’s going to stop using his new words and signs. It’s happened so many times before where he starts using a new word and uses it for a week or two and then stops using it. But I am feeling so hopeful right now.

"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

Journal Entry from June 4, 2008

I think I have just about figured out the school situation. First of all, the school district evidently was letting too young of kids in the autism preschool so that is no longer an option. So after them pushing and pushing it, he can’t start until January at the earliest. I figured out what private school I want him in. They only do 3 days a week max at this age, but she thought he’d be able to get in there in August. So it will be three half days. She gave me a list of transportation companies too. I am trying to figure out how the parental fee works for TEFRA. If they go by last year’s tax return our parental fee would be $200 per month. If they go by our current income (which has gone up from last year) it would be $400 per month. I have found some papers that say they go off current income, and others that say they go off last year’s taxes. It’s a huge difference. If we do end up with a $400 monthly fee, then I think we will just wait until our insurance runs out. We have a $300 deductible and then $20 co-pay (which would be 3x per week). I would like to keep the extra hour of speech as well, along with the EI speech. I think that would be a good mixture of services for him without being overwhelming to him. We should keep our monthly charges under $400/month so I think we will wait for TEFRA until our number of visits runs out. We are also going to keep M from the PLAY Project coming once per week over the summer, although it is now private pay, since the program is over for the year and the grant is up. I thought about starting TEFRA to cover that, but I think if we just use our insurance it will end up being cheaper. I think I have it figured out anyway. I feel much more at peace about it.

I think that I’ve decided that the OT is irritating. The first time she went 2-3 weeks ago now, she went slightly overlapping the time that the ST and DT were there, but was able to get in a separate session. Then last week, when she said see you next week, she did not go at the same time, she showed up in the afternoon instead of the morning (without telling anyone about the change in time, which was overlapping the appointment with the new speech therapist (the private speech therapist that I have added on). I was so irritated. Well, angry is more the word. The ST said it was just a little overlapping (which doesn’t make sense if the OT was there at the times she said, they would have been 45 minutes overlapping), and the OT helped with a couple things. I think the OT was…..inaccurate about the times she was there and the length of time she was there. I trust the new ST and the daycare said that she was there from those times and was very professional. Anyway, I think I am back to just irritated and am not expecting too much from OT in the future. I’ll just work on some of those things myself. I shouldn’t do that, because she’s getting paid to do it, and I am not a therapist. I don’t think I am a good therapist for my son. I can do the “therapy though play” but I am not a therapist. Some parents can do that, but I don’t think I am one of them.

We’ve made a bit of progress in the last couple weeks. First, we’ve put the milk back in Thomas’s diet and all is well. It makes cooking so much easier. Melted cheese makes a lot of food more appetizing which is extremely important since he’s gotten so picky lately. It’s been 1 ½ weeks now with no side effects from the milk, so I think we are safe there. I am more convinced that the gluten is an issue. I decided to try it myself and I just went a couple days with no gluten. Today, I’ve eaten gluten all day and I feel like crap. I think that our entire family needs to eat better. I enjoy cooking so I’ll be trying to cook more from scratch and use less with preservatives in it. I also cooked some gluten (and casein) free lemon cookies that are phenomenal. You wouldn’t know they were gluten free. I used the flour mixture from glutenfreemom.com. It is an awesome flour mix that has a great consistency. I also tried a recipe for GF granola bars and they are awesome. Unfortunately, when I was looking at the ingredients of rice crispies, I missed the “malt flavoring” which has gluten, so they technically not GF. It seems to be a very little amount, since Thomas has not had any problems with them, but next time I will be more careful.

Anyway, the other good thing to report happened on Saturday. We were watching a movie as a family and I said “Thomas, look at the doggie” and he said “woof woof”. It was more like “woo, woo” but it was really cool. Then a minute later, I said, “Thomas, what does the doggie say” and he said “woof woof”. It was so cute. He knew what I meant and he knew the answer. He looked so pleased with himself too. We, of course, were clapping and congratulating him. It was awesome. When I was talking to M from the PLAY Project the other day, I was telling her about him giving me kisses. He concentrates so hard, and you can see him working out in his head how he is supposed to move his face before he kisses me. She said that it shows he has motor planning issues, which makes sense. It just takes a little longer for him to figure out how to make his body do what he wants. It was the same thing with saying “woof woof”. His lips were puckered for several seconds before he added the sound. You could tell he was really concentrating on that. It’s good to know because his therapists can work on that with him. Over the past month or so he’s been imitating our faces when we make different sounds or say different words, but he hasn’t really added the sound, and that is probably why. He’s concentrating so hard on how to make his face and mouth the right way that he doesn’t get to the part where you make the sound.

We went swimming last night and it was a lot of fun. He’s really getting good. He was jumping from the sides into the pool and was doing really well. He likes going under so we would just let him stay under for a couple seconds and he would start paddling and kicking just like he should. He was really doing such a good job. I was so proud. And when he has hold of the edge, he can get himself out of the water too, which was a bit of an issue as he ran off a couple times while we were stuck in the water, but I’m still very proud. I’m going to try to remember to bring the camera next time so I can get a couple pictures and a short video.

I also am going to be changing offices for work. I was thinking about asking if I could transfer, and then suddenly my supervisor asks if I want to work on a new project over there. We’re not sure if it will be perminant at this point, but that’s cool. I will miss the people I work with in this location, but I think it will be a good move. It will cut out at least an hour of my daily commute (not to mention save a whole bunch on gas), and I will be closer to be able to occasionally sit in on a therapy session or something like that. I’m excited.

Journal Entry from May 27, 2008

This weekend I came across an article about a 5 year old boy in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Basically the teacher was sick of behavioral issues with the boy, so she had him stand in the center of the class and had all the other children tell him what they did not like about him. Then they voted him out of the class. She sent him to the nurse’s office for the rest of the day. This is a kindergarten class. And she was involved with his IEP meetings and knew that he was being evaluated. She still has her job and the police department determined that no mental abuse took place. How can that possibly be????? You just don’t do that to a child! Any child! AS gives him social challenges and how is this going to help??? It’s not! His mother has said that he has not gone back to school and won’t be this year. And when he goes with to bring his sibling to school he cries. How can a grown woman teaching kindergarten do this to a 5 year old child? And what about the other kids in the class. What is it teaching them? Maybe someday they will have some challenges themselves and they will think back to that day in Kindergarten and think that they are worthless or someone to make fun of. The whole thing just makes me so angry that I can’t even express it. Well today it does. Yesterday, when I first saw the article, I just felt defeated. I thought of it all day and I just felt defeated. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. Is this the world my child is going to grow up in? My biggest issue with Thomas’s diagnosis is how he is going to feel growing up. Is he going to feel rejected? Is he going to feel like he doesn’t fit in or have a place in this world? Is he going to grow up embarrassed or feel like an outcast? I never felt like I fit in growing up. I never quite found my place in school and I don’t want that for my child. Regardless of his dx. But this kind of a story makes me fear for my son. Because there are people out there like that. Teachers even.

Not to mention that it is so illegal. That teacher knew they were working on an IEP and that he was in the process of being diagnosed. How can you do that to a child with a disability that you know makes him socially awkward. A child that you know has trouble navigating his world. How dare you! And as a child with a disability, he has a legal right to accommodations for his right to an education. And how did the police determine that no emotional abuse take place? How can you possibly say that wasn’t abuse regardless of his dx. That is abuse for any 5 yo. Or any adult. How would any adult like to be surrounded by their peers while they told you what they didn’t like about you? That is abuse. Period.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/...t-classmate-5/

Journal Entry from May 21, 2008

I am still trying to figure out the school situation. I just don’t know what to do. The ones through the school district are nice and seem to be pretty good. I also have been looking at private schools. They are covered by insurance. We’d have to apply for medical assistance (TEFRA) so we would have a parental fee. But they would cover 100% of the charges and I also found out that TEFRA would cover Thomas’s portion of our health insurance. Once he starts a ½ day program we’ll also probably be able to cut the daycare cost by quite a bit. The more I think about it, I think we’ll just end up being even. I also found out yesterday that there are several transportation services that will bring him to and from the program. As long as it is considered a medical appointment, they will do to or from or both. And it’s covered by insurance. I feel a little nervous about him being so young riding by himself, but the person I talked to said that a lot of families use these services and I’d probably be able to ask for some recommendations. Before I found out about this I was wondering how people do it. Are SAHM’s the only ones that can get adequate services for their children? But this will make it doable. I tried to figure out if I could stay at home, maybe even take a 6 month leave of absence, but we can’t afford it financially and I’ve tried that just short term and I just go stir crazy. I’ve been trying to do therapy on my own, and I do OK with the Greenspan floortime model because I just play with Thomas more effectively to emphasis interaction and speech, but the others I am just not good at. He just frustrated, I get frustrated and we never seem to quite accomplish anything. Maybe as we both figure out what we are doing it would go better, but I just don’t think that I can be a good therapist for my son. We’ve done really well with the floortime, but that might just be because it is play, or maybe it is because M comes every week and helps us play with him better. I wasn’t so sure about the PLAY Project at first because “I play with him just fine without someone telling me what to do”. But both Sam and I have agreed that we’ve come a long way since Feb. I have also learned a lot by just watching M play with Thomas. She’s so good with him and while it’s all well and good to get advice, I learn better by observing. It’s made a huge difference for me.

Anyway, yesterday I went for a tour of an autism day program center. Their autism day program is either T/Th or M/W/F for three hours. It is one-on-one. They had a lot of classrooms but just one classroom for the younger kids. They have an indoor and outdoor gym. They have speech and OT there on site, but that would be separate. It seemed really nice. One thing that put me off about another school I saw was that it smelled, but this one did not. I think it would be a great place for him. I am also looking into some ABA programs. The one that came recommended I have filled out the application but I still have not heard back from them as to how long the waiting list is. I don’t want to send out all kinds of applications if he’s not going to even be called for a year. Or if they are all a year (which is seeming more likely), I can at least know what approach I can take to this. Maybe start him in one program but switch to another a year from now when we can get in. The day program I saw yesterday has a year waiting list, but she said that August is the biggest time of turn over and she said that, no guarantees, but she expects to be able to go through the entire waiting list in August. Lots of people enter other programs or do other things, or move, etc, so she said that she generally goes through the waiting list pretty quickly at times.

I think I am kind of leaning toward that program, but I just don’t know. ABA is really the approach that has the most research behind it so maybe that is what I should do. Again, I don’t know what kind of waiting list we are looking at for that. But is Thomas is really as mild as the doctor seemed to think, maybe, the trials of ABA are a little overboard for what he needs. But, honestly, I am starting to see that his autism is more severe than I originally thought. I don’t know if anything has changed or if it’s just becoming more obvious as he and his peers get older. Probably both. Maybe I just accepted the diagnosis better thinking that he was more on the mild side. Or maybe I am just feeling a little pessimistic and overwhelmed right now (which I am) and that makes me think that he is doing worse than he actually is. Or maybe we/I am just not seeing the amount of progress I was expecting and hoping for. I don’t know. I just wish someone would tell me the right thing to do. I just feel like I am looking time. They always stress how intensive, early therapy is so important and that it will effect how they are able to do as they get older. I feel like if I don’t do intensive enough now, that it will affect the rest of his life, which it probably will. Like I said, I would just like someone to tell me what to do.

I finally called the OT the end of last week. Thomas is supposed to get 1 hour of OT per month, which is a tiny amount of therapy as it is, but she’s only met with him once. Talking to her on the phone she basically gave me the impression that she doesn’t think that he needs it, that his social skills are a huge problem. She also said that she’s been seeing him weekly at playgroup. But it’s not like she is there the whole time and she doesn’t pull him aside and work directly with him. I finally said that I thought it was agreed in the IEP meeting and paperwork that he is to receive and hour of OT per month. She finally started apologizing and said that he’s going to meet with him twice this month to make up for it. So that’s fine I guess. Kind of irritates me. If he’s doing just fine, how about starting on some self-help things, like dressing himself in anticipation for potty training? But at least now I know that he’ll be getting it. Although again, this is one of those times that I wish I was a SAHM so I could oversee it better so I know for sure that he’s getting what he is entitled to and needs. Anyway, when I picked Thomas up from daycare yesterday she said that the OT showed up yesterday without calling to tell them that she was coming, and since it was a bad time of the day, she’s just going to go tomorrow when the other two therapists are there. I had enough of a problem with the idea of doing two therapies at once (which is something that was not clear at the IEP meeting but I now understand can be helpful), but three therapists at once? Are you kidding me? How do you expect to get that to work? What will end up happening is one or two of them will be working with them, and the other will probably end up helping the teachers with the other kids. That does happen occasionally with the two therapists. I can understand that there are times it is better with just one (for just a little bit of the session), and I have made peace with that. But three at once? Come on… I will wait to see what their notes say today when I pick him up, but I’ll most likely be giving the OT a call to make sure that it is separate from now on and that she calls and makes an appointment. That is not too much to ask. At least I am learning what questions I will need to ask at future IEP meetings.

Because of all these questions I am also trying to figure out what to do with work. I mentioned above that I tried to see about becoming a SAHM but it probably would not work out well, or at least work without adding a whole new set of stresses. I have also been thinking about cutting my hours, temporarily which my Dr said she would write a medical note for, or transferring to the other location. I have been keeping track of how much time I spend in the car. I average 2-2 ½ hours per day in the car. Yesterday, for example, I spent 2 hr 50 min driving and drove a total of 65 miles. That is a lot of time and gas money. If I transferred to the other office, it would cut a minimum of an hour off my daily commute. That’s a huge difference. Plus, if I wanted to sit in on a therapy session, I could go to that during my lunch break without having an hour + commute there and back to work. I have liked working where I am, but we also got the funding for our new lab cut, so the wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I had with that new lab is gone. I still have job security over there and should have plenty to do, I don’t have that huge, can’t miss out on it, thing keeping me there. But I like the people and I have my nitch. But lastly most of what I do is on the computer so I could probably transfer that easily. Or maybe I could just arrange to switch locations for 6 months or something. I don’t know.

Well, that’s a whole big long-winded list of what-if’s. Again, I just wish someone would tell me what the best thing to do is…

Journal Entry from May 9, 2008

Things have been a little stressful lately. I keep getting sick over and over and Thomas had pinkeye earlier this week. I have been feeling a little pessimistic lately. I’m not sure why. I just feel like I need to reorganize everything and start over. I’m looking into a private school that has a autism day program. We’re going to apply for TEFRA and even though it will be an expensive co-pay, I think this is going to consolidate and increase all his therapy. I’ve heard nothing but good things from this school so hopefully we like it. Evidently it would be $100,000 per year if you were to privately pay for it, which is outrageous. But we’ll apply for the TEFRA MA and between our insurance and TEFRA they’ll pay for it. We’ll have $100-150 monthly copay, but it’s so worth it. He definitely needs more than he is currently getting, so I am really anxious to see how this works out.

I’ve also been having a great internal debate about my job. I love my job for the most part. But I feel like I need to be spending more time with my son and my family. I just can’t juggle everything that I have to do. I have been struggling with all of it for so long and I am just exhausted. Plus, I’ve been working so hard on getting procedures written and validations ready for our new lab and the funding was not approved. I feel like I don’t really have much of a purpose right now. I wonder if I should move to the other location, which is a whole lot closer to home and would probably cut an hour off my daily commute. The opportunity I had with the new lab was a chance of a lifetime. A chance to prove myself and give myself leverage to move up. But now that’s gone. If I move to the other location, I love the people over there, but I’d be the new one, and the low one on the totem pole. I just don’t see a way to really move up there. Maybe I just need to find my nitch. I also thought about going part time, but they generally don’t do that and if they did it would probably just be a short-term kind of thing. It would also probably affect my benefits. I just don’t know what to do. I was really excited about the opportunity that fell in my lap and now I’ve lost that and I feel lost. But if I were to be a SAHM we wouldn’t have enough income to cover the bills and I’ll have a very difficult time getting back into the workforce. I had a hard enough time getting back into Microbiology as it was. If we get Thomas in one of these programs it will probably make me feel better. But I still feel like I should be going to some of the therapy sessions and some of the playgroups and things and overall just participating more. I just feel like I am failing.

Thomas has been doing pretty well. I wish we could just keep building on his improvements. It seems like he has a breakthrough here and there, but it’s not something that he continues to do. I hope that it changes, but his only regular words continue to be mama and dada. Yesterday was pretty good though. He said baba when he wanted his drink and later he was signing more and said more too. I am trying to work on the opposites with him, open and close, in and out, over and under, etc. He is using “more” like “I want”. But I guess that’s OK. He also was imitating me and H when we were making animal sounds. We mooed and woofed and he imitated our mouths. He didn’t actually make any noises, but the imitation is a very good thing. He’s actually been doing that more, imitating the mouth motions of words or sounds we make. Not consistent really, but more often than before.

I bought “Baby Babble” which is kind of like baby Einstein but with extra emphasis on the speech aspect. Thomas loves it. And when I say he loves it, that’s an understatement. There are some parts that he laughs at so hard that he practically falls over. It’s hilarious to watch him. Anyway, the video was put together by the founders of Thomas’s new speech therapist company. And I just got the call for his first speech appt. She’ll be doing it at the daycare. Next Wednesday will be the first appointment. She’ll be trying to fit in one session each week and starting in June they’ll get a regular time set up.

Wednesday when I picked Thomas up from daycare I let go of his hand while I was putting things into car. Sometimes he runs, and I follow, but sometimes he just waits to get into the car. Wednesday he ran and as I went to follow him I saw it was too late. He was stopped at the edge of this huge mud puddle. They were doing landscaping, so they had dug out this 5x5ft area, which had filled with rain. It was the nice black mud too. As I called his name, I saw him, as though in slow motion, fall face first into the puddle. He got right back up and was covered head to toe in dark black mud. He just looked down like, “what happened?”. I was laughing so hard I was almost crying and one of the aids from one of the other rooms at the daycare saw it happen too and she was laughing too. It was seriously one of the funniest things I have seen. I'm glad he wasn't upset about it, just stunned. So I brought him inside and had to change him in the bathroom. And of course he had already gone through his extra set of clothes that morning, so we borrowed extra clothes and went shoeless. Good times….

Journal Entry from April 30, 2008

Thomas has really started having more tantrums the past couple weeks. They are not terrible really, but he will just be inconsolable for a while. This has kind of coincided with his obsession of the gate on the porch. He opens and closes it, and opens it and closes it, and opens it and closes it…… He’ll just keep doing it until we pick him up and carry him into the house crying with tears steaming down his face. Last night when I kept trying to redirect him to go into the house, he took me by the hand and walked with me into the house, and then he went back inside and closed the door behind him. I then went back outside to get him, and he was running down the driveway toward the street. It really scared me. Usually he’ll just go back out and play with the gate some more. We live in the middle of the city so it is incredibly dangerous for him to be running from me. Now that it is finally getting nice we’ll start going to the park again. I’ll try to have him walk with me so we both are more comfortable with walking on city streets.

We talked to M (from Play Project) last night about the gate-shutting thing and we think that it is a cause and effect thing he is going for. And he’s made it part of the evening routine (we don’t have the problem in the morning, he might do it once or twice, then gets right into the car to go). We’re going to try to get a really fun, cause and effect toy to get him away from the gate. We’ll make that part of the routine. We’re also have a big problem with the routine thing at daycare. He’s getting more and more set on his routine. We were able to break him of the routine of opening his bedroom door after we put him down for bed. He would sneak back to the door and open it and peek out over and over and over… So we got a doorknob cover so he couldn’t open the door. It was on there about a month and I took it off over the weekend. He did really well and hasn’t done it since. It’s nice that it worked so well. Hopefully we’ll keep doing well with that.

Every other week Thomas goes to the autism playgroup with daddy one morning (the other week it is an afternoon playgroup). For various reasons they have not made most of the morning playgroups, due various people’s illness, spring break, lack of transportation, etc. Yesterday was the first time that they went to the morning playgroup and then brought Thomas back to daycare for the afternoon. First of all, there is theoretically enough time to get there in time for lunch, but yesterday they will just finishing lunch and laying down for naps. Then, (we’ve actually been having this problem in the mornings too) we usually start out in different room and he plays for 5-10 minutes before the teacher in his class arrives. He is absolutely set on starting in that other classroom, including yesterday. He was already upset when we wouldn’t let him in there, and then we brought him into the classroom and they are finishing lunch and we try to get him to sit down and eat and that isn’t working. He ended up just screaming. We got a call an hour later wondering if something had happened that morning (like shots or something) because he was still really upset and wouldn’t settle down. I also wonder if it was because I was there. Normally I wouldn’t be there, but I was meeting Sam for an appointment we had yesterday. I don’t know what to do. Should we skip the Tusday playgroup because it interferes with lunch? Or should he have lunch before leaving the playgroup (just bring something with)? Or should we see if he can sit in the daycare office and have lunch on that day and then have him go down for a nap?

M also suggested that when we bring him late, we should have him sit in another room for a couple minutes with one of his favorite toys so that he gets to have a little of that free play that he usually starts the day with. I just don’t know what to do. I think that the playgroup is beneficial because he gets 1:1 attention interacting. Most of the other kids are autistic too so it is very structured and they teach the basic social skills that our kids are lacking. I just don’t want it to be such a distraction that it ruins the rest of his day. At the beginning when Sam was still working nights, they had made the suggestion that if we weren’t able to do the play groups maybe the DT and ST could stay for an extra hour on his regular therapy day. Maybe they should continue with the Thursday group and every other week do an extra hour of therapy. I don’t know. It’s hard to know what is going to be most beneficial to him. M also went to observe and make suggestions at daycare. She said that there is basically no transition between activities. The teachers clean up and then the kids are just expected to do the new activity. She tried to explain that Thomas is very focused on what he is doing and does not notice that they are cleaning up so it comes as a shock that he suddenly has to stop the thing he was enjoying and do something new. She suggested flashing the lights or singing a clean up song or something. They have been using the pictures, but we’re still not completely sure he knows what they mean. We need to figure out something to communicate the change to him. It makes it so much more work and stressful to have meltdowns every time they change activities.

I think I am going to buy a set of pecs pictures. I have been trying to do my own, but they are not as nice and take too much time. I would like to start using the visual schedule. I just want a nice set to use so that it is easy and complete and everything. I put in a bid on ebay for a CD with pics, so hopefully I will get that. Well that’s about it.