Way back in January, I posted about our concerns with Finn and his lack of communicating and the beginning the process of getting him some help. Shortly after, I lost my laptop. So, I wanted to come back and give an update of what has happened with that. I feel this is an important post, in that this is something that makes life a little better to know others are going through similar situations. If you have a child that is behind, then you know it can be such a worrisome thing. Constantly wondering if you're doing enough. Trying to research for any and all tips or anything to reassure yourself it will all turn out fine. That your child will someday function on a level with his peers. Worrying if someday he'll be bullied or left out because he is a little different from those around him.
In January of this year, as I mentioned in the previous post, we took him for an evaluation by the school. It was a definite that he needed some speech therapy and needed the classroom immersion to go with it. So they placed him in the PPCD program. Which here is preschool for 3-4 year olds who need the extra help and push. Kind of a special education, with the goal of having the child where they need to be by kindergarten. At that point, they want to evaluate him again. Then they will be able to see more clearly if autism still may play some role in his development or if he truly is at his own pace. They believe a good portion of it all is contributed to communication. So they want to give him some time to get more speech therapy under his belt. He currently goes to school daily for 3 hours. He gets 1 hour of speech therapy twice a week. They did say that he isn't needing behavioral therapy. That they think he will benefit greatly from the immersion in class with the socialization that comes from that.
He started the week of Valentine's day this past February. Within 2 weeks, I noticed him starting to change. He LOVES school. He went with no issues and actually cried when I picked him up the first couple days. Once he noticed he goes daily, that went away. I was so glad it was easy for him since he had always stayed home with me. In those first couple of weeks, he started making more effort when we talked to him. He'd start looking at us instead of down or at something else in the room. He started telling people bye and acknowledging when things were said more. As the weeks went, this continued. It was slow improvements but with each week Id notice them.
When school let out for summer, I was nervous about what this would mean for him. So I got on Pinterest and armed myself with some activities and things to do daily. I didn't want him to lose some of his progress. So daily I would have him sit at the table for about 30 minutes and we would go through a few things. Review letters, introducing sounds, counting, weather(which is kind of boring in Texas in summer since everyday is about 100 and hot) and by recommendation of his teacher we also incorporated activities of sorting. She mentioned that's where they were leaving off in class. So we did sorting by color and size. We are still working on sorting by categories.
In July, his school district offers a summer school program that lasts 3 weeks. It doesn't teach new things but it is a maintenance course. Just reviews things to keep it fresh on their minds. He did really well with that. It was at a different school with different teachers but that didn't seem to even phase him! My husband was having to fix things on his motorcycle so we were on one vehicle. I made the choice to let him try riding the bus and that went really well. He loved it. It hurt my mommy heart a little to see my little guy climbing up those big bus steps!
Now we are about a month into school starting. I have to say that between when he originally started until now, his speech has made vast improvements. As well as the rest of his communication. He will now indicate he is hungry. He'll point to things he wants and when asked to choose one or the other he will verbally choose. He says quite a few more things now. No where near where he should be quite yet but enough to know we are heading in the right direction. It's the biggest relief to see this happening for him. His teacher has actually mentioned that he is ready to start the beginnings of reading. Which I think is great and I think could be really helpful with his speech! His vocabulary is probably in the 50-70 word category now. We still cant hold conversations but we can get one word answers.
The biggest thing I've noticed is he sings quite a bit now. He loves music! He actually enjoys when I turn classical type music on. He will play around on our piano as well and we don't hate the sound he makes. He actually is seeming to understand there are orders you can play in to make it sound a certain way. I will definitely be looking into piano lessons when he seems to have a little more focus.
So as of right now, that is the update. I think I will try to track him weekly on here. With this post I've tried to remember everything I could about the last few months. I'm sure there is plenty I have forgotten to include, so hopefully updating weekly I can track his progress more accurately.
I would love to read posts about others in similar situations. We are still so new at this and are just kind of learning as we go. Id love to read posts about the issues you have gone through!
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