Okay, Okay, I am slack!

I freely admit to my slackness with this whole blog thing! I feel horrible that it has been OCTOBER since I updated. I mean my last blog was entitled Fall is Here! Well, since then Winter was here and now gone, and Spring has sprung! :-) Dalton has been making wonderful progress in the past months. LANGUAGE IS EXPLODING! He will now say "I want chip", "I want pop" and he is using his pictures to make his wants and needs known! :-) We have him on visual schedule that is taking shape as the family and his therapist get used to this whole idea. I know its' hard, especially for his free spritited family to structure up his life, but they understand that this is the world that Dalton exsists in and so if he thinks in pictures then they will communicate in pictures. Mom was so excited as he participated in Easter activities yesterday with all the cousins! He is paying so much more attention to his surroundings! I am excited to get him this summer at the summer camp that a friend of mine are starting for special needs kids, we hope to see his language blossom even more! :-) His play skills continue to be a struggle, but as with ALL kids with Autism this is going to be hard for them. Structured activities work so much better for them, but he is taking an interest in very simple cause and effect games! Poor Dalton, ever since I came into his life I have been sabotaging his life to make him communicate with us, and the "mean ole' Lesslie" struck again. I took his most favorite blue ball that he can bounce on away, had the family block the computer, and remove all TV access from the house (or at least made it so he couldn't have access to it! ) and low and behold the child started communicating with us and paying attention to what we were doing. Now, we are DEFINATELY a long way away from where my hopes are for Dalton, but we are making progress and I am very hopeful for this summer. We have a wonderful team all lined up and I will be training others to continue to sabotage my precious Dalton! :-) My hopes for Dalton are that his language will continue to evolve, but also that we can get a better communication system in place for him to learn and communicate with his world. We have been on the basics of PECS and I am in the process of creating a notebook for him to start using and my ideas are still forming as I am trying to determine what is the best next step for Dalton, but all we can do is try! If it fails, then back to the drawing board to create another system that works for Dalton. I wish their was a step by step book that told you exactly how to do these things with kids, but unfortunately their isn't and if you EVER find someone that strictly goes by the book then RUN, RUN, RUN! If you try to take these kids and make them fit into what the "books" say then you are going to fail. They do provide you with wonderful jumpstarting ideas, but then you have to take the ideas and mold them to the child's needs. I have a system that I use with one of my students and I am tweaking it to make it work for Dalton. It is a very simple system, but I think Dalton can operate at a high level, so I am in the process of adapting it to him. :-)
He is growing and learning by leaps and bounds. We are all still hopeful that language will come for Dalton, but fully embrace the communication system that we have now for him to tell us what he wants and needs. As Dalton grows, we grow in learning how to best suit his needs. I feel so bad, I feel like I am always changing things with the family and therapist. But, I was thinking well that is what we do with all children! As they change, we adapt our lives to fit their current level of functioning. We change as they change. Our changes are just much more systematic then parents make with their "typical" children. We have to think out every move we make and why we should make it this way, which can be major brain overload at times! :-) I am thrilled that he is paying more attention to life and his interactions with others this is a great sign. We still have a LLLLOOONNNGGG road ahead of us, but we take it one day at a time, one idea at a time, but we always keep Dalton's best interest in mind. We mold and change based on his needs!
I know I promised to upload pictures of Dalton's therapy room in October. And, I will eventually- maybe you will get it next Winter! :-)