Third and Fourth Checklist Goals are Set!

Samuel has already told me what he wants to work towards on his next two checklists of school assignments: first a trip to McDonalds and then another trip to the Goodwill Store for another video!

I love that we have this mutually beneficial way of accomplishing something each of us wants. Now if I can just figure out how to motivate my NT students!

Second Work Checklist Completed!

Samuel has already completed the second checklist of work (language arts and math), on which he got to fill in stickers as he completed assignments. He is downstairs right now doing some quick school work and then we are off to the Goodwill Store to buy the video he earned; he is so excited and I am so proud of him! I'll post photos of the checklists soon.

Autistic Pride Day

June 18 is Autistic Pride Day. What is Autistic Pride Day? Take a look at this link for the answer directly from the group who created it, Aspies for Freedom.

This date was unknown to me until just a few nights ago, when I found it while looking around for some things on the internet. I was thrilled that I happened to find out about it only a few days before it was to be celebrated! It is nice to know that at a day has been chosen to recognize that there are those who do not regard autism as a tragedy.

Hopefully there will be a day when the voices who sound this opinion will be louder than the voices sounding despair and tragedy. Most of all, hopefully there will be a day when all people are treated with dignity and respect, and all human life is valued and appreciated, no matter how "difficult" or "challenging" the situation might be.

Samuel has now completed all the tasks and has filled in the stickers on his chart, hurray!

The next chart will be to earn a trip to the Goodwill Store, where he will be allowed to buy a videotape. I am going to include Language Arts and Math assignments on it. It's lots of fun to have Samuel motivated by these checklists. It wasn't too many years ago that I could not even comprehend using one for him!

There's Nothing Like A Little Motivation!

Samuel has been standing behind me, practically breathing down my neck as he eagerly awaits something that I told him I would work on tonight. The latest video he has been asking us to buy is "The Land Before Time." I am not exactly sure why he has become so interested in it, but it could be simply because it is a Universal Studios picture.

As Samuel was bothering me about buying this video for him yesterday I was busy thinking about getting him to finish a Language Arts workbook that we have been working on for some time. Actually, it has been sitting on a shelf collecting dust for the past 3 months while we took a little break from it (we started an on-line language arts curriculum in the meantime). Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head, "Tie these two things together!" I told Samuel that I would order him the video after he finishes the workbook. Later in the day he wanted to know when we were going to work in the workbook! He also asked me this several times today. Before jumping back into the workbook I printed out a punctuation worksheet on periods and question marks as a review of the last assignment he had done. Then, after he asked me about the workbook about 5 more times, I decided to add a visual element to tracking his progress; I would make a checklist.

We will put stickers on it as he completes each assignment. The movie promotional picture I put on it is freaking him out a bit, but at least he now will have a sense of how much longer it will take until he is finished. He wants to do some work tonight, but it's almost 9:00 and I am a bit tired!

Real Bowling

Our family has gone bowling several times over the years. Two of my sons have had birthday parties at our local alley. That's where Samuel had his eighth birthday party, and spent much of it fighting to get into the arcade room.

We were newly inspired to go bowling as a family again recently by our youngest son, who is currently the family bowling champion on Wii. So this past Sunday we trekked over to the lanes. Samuel and his younger siblings had rails up so their balls would stay out of the gutter. My youngest son got the best score of anyone, thanks to the rails. We were all surprised at how poorly we did compared to our results on Wii, especially my oldest son.

I was so happy that we were able to convince all the kids to stick with the game, even my 3 year old. That was no easy feat, considering that six of us were in the game! Samuel was especially impressive. He stayed with us the entire time, no running away and no attempting to escape to the game room! We gave them a moment to take a look after the arcade afterwards.

There is talk of us going again. I hope we will, it was lots of fun and we could all use a bit of work on our skills; not a one of us scored over 100!

It seems that most stories I have heard about IEPs lately have been quite negative, so it was nice to come across this more light-hearted list of IEP DOs and DON'Ts from "Mama on the Edge."



Life continues to be rather crazy, but it goes on and we have good days here and there. We have adjusted Samuel's day to include much more in the way of sensory activity. We are trying "Time4Learning" on-line curriculum for Math and Language Arts. I am amazed at how much better his attention span is working on the computer as opposed to toughing it out with worksheets and books while sitting at the table. Independence in completing tasks and teaching self-control are still very important parts of Samuel's education at home.

My youngest son has developed a strong fear of wind. I just learned that this is called Ancraophobia. I am not sure what has brought this on in him. He is constantly looking out the window to see how much the tree branches are moving. The wind chimes ringing (which I consider to be a happy sound) put fear in him. Windy conditions developed here this afternoon and my son hid under a blanket curled up in a ball on the couch, after he made sure all the blinds were shut! I am trying to keep everyone else in the house from teasing him. I even teased him a little at first, but now I realize that he really is afraid and I am trying to help him get over it.