Having a special needs child means, sometimes, that you concentrate so much on the ‘special needs’ aspect of everything that you actually don’t know when you cross into ‘normal kid’ territory.
Part of the Monster’s IEP and pre-K curriculum involves pre-writing activities – this segues into his OT goals (holding a pencil/writing implement for developing strength in his hand) as well as the normal school curriculum for 4 and 5 year olds. Continue reading
The Monster loves his electronic devices.
I think, given the opportunity, he’d happily run the iPad down to zero battery life on a daily basis. He’s long known how to handle the various iDevices around our house and the Nooks as well, so he’s been – in that realm – as electronically-fluent as most kids his own age. Continue reading
Sorry for not posting yesterday – things just got way, way too hectic at work, and I just ran out of time to get something scribbled up here.
One of our biggest frustrations with the Monster’s verbal ability is a lack of narrative tone. He’s very good at descriptive, literal use of language, and has been known to burst out with an observation about his surroundings – what’s in his view, what’s where, describing things… but he’s not much for telling the story of his day. Continue reading
I mentioned in a prior post (see here) that the Monster has homework on a nightly basis.
Now, I like that he has homework – it’s something that will get him in good position for when he does finally get back into a more mainstreamed environment. Continue reading
Purim starts on Saturday night.
At our house, Purim really means one major thing – the Purim spiel at our synagogue, where the wife’s always one of the stars. (She’s playing Vashti this year.) Continue reading
Today is Presidents’ Day, which means that schools and my office are closed.
The wife and the baby have baby-and-me class on Monday mornings, so when we do have a federal holiday on a Monday, I stay home with the Monster, then swing out to the JCC with him to go retrieve the baby, letting my wife have some time for a workout. Continue reading
Just by the nature of things, the Monster still largely engages in parallel play. This means, when the boys are playing on the floor, they’re generally either trying to play individually with the same toys, or playing off in their own corners. Continue reading
Every so often, the Monster surprises us.
Yesterday was Gymnastics – we’re working on trying to get him into more of a narrative mode, so we do a lot of talking to him about his schedule, to see if he can’t start picking up on what day it is, et cetera. Of course, it was also St. Valentine’s Day, so his school had that stuff going on… Continue reading
As I’ve mentioned a number of times, one of his IEP goals for the coming year is, with fading prompts, to get the Monster to announce to us – on his own – when he needs to go to the bathroom.
At school, he’s on a relative schedule – they take him to the bathroom before/after lunch, once or twice more throughout the day, and then before he gets on the bus to go home. Since sometime in the fall, they’ve moved to a classroom that has a bathroom actually in it, so that they don’t have to take the kids (several of whom are in the same boat ) through the hallway to the bathroom. Continue reading
One of the goals for the coming year on the IEP is to get the Monster to ask for help when he needs it.
Asking for help doesn’t necessarily come naturally to anyone, but the issue here is getting him to verbally request assistance from another person, be it a classmate or an adult. Continue reading