Friday, November 15, 2013

writing, coloring and learning

Whew, been busy... new job, fall illnesses (all those new germs being swapped at school), the cat needing to see the vet after a cat fight injury got infected... my own case of cat scratch disease (yes, it used to be called 'fever') - just a roller coaster.

My son's IEP got done, and in the end I think we got what we wanted. And what we wanted is essentially for him to be in the classroom learning the core material but being supported - again, in the classroom - if needed. From what I can tell IEPs often get loaded up with 'extras' that pull the child from class and end up overloading rather than supporting him/her.

As we stressed, we viewed in-class aid a bonus not only for our child but other children as well... then need not know the aide is there for our son per se and can benefit from the additional instruction as well. The key is to create a supportive environment so our son can do what he is itching to do: LEARN!

One of the specialists really understood what we were trying to communicate (the speech therapist) and she seems to be enjoying constructing new ways to interact with our son in his classroom environment without distracting him (or the rest of the class) from what they are there for. Win-Win! The teacher, I am not so sure she will ever get it, still of the 'look me in the eye' gotta 'live in the real world' view, but at least she has toned it down after we repeatedly hit her over the head with what he needs is an environment he can be comfortable enough to relax and grow.... And our son, he is learning, learning well and loving it, especially learning a new language. He practices his Latin (at this point colors and numbers) every chance he gets and is teaching his sister. And now he loves writing and asks me to help him write letters (by helping him with the spelling, he chooses the words and writes them himself).

Speaking of writing, we have found that thick markers make it much easier for him (kudos to Mom!), although his skill with a pencil has increased dramatically as well. But with the markers he does not stress about the line being 'a bit' off since, well, the line is so dang thick who can tell? At least that is how it seems to me. He has a special set of markers all his own and he treats them as a craftsman would treat his prize tools. And he writes and colors with them in ways he never did with crayons, pens or pencils. So my recommendation: get your autistic kid some fatty markers (heck your NT kid too). They take away a lot of the stress of writing and particularly coloring.

Have to pass along one anecdote: our son got his quarterly grade report, which was very good. Along with it were samples of his work and 'exams.' Again he did very well, except for one 'exam' where he did not finish coloring in all the shapes... his teacher was puzzled since she knew as well as we did that he knows all his shapes... but for our son the shapes were not the challenge... he spent his time trying to color as best he could, heck the shape he colored yellow practically glowed. And his teacher did not pick up on this at all: the fact that for our son knowing a shape is easy, coloring inside the lines is what he views as hard and so that is where he devoted his efforts. Not disabled... differently abled.