Speaker at our meeting

The guest speaker at my county's Special Education Advisory Committee meeting for February got some attention in one of our local newspapers! I am hoping this will inspire parents of children with special needs in our area to become more involved with their childrens' education.



We are hoping to set up a monthly "Respite Day" locally in the next few months.



http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2009/02/founder-of-group-tells-parents-to-use-available-re.html

[Message sent by leesja@gmail.com via AddThis.com. Please note that the sender's email address has not been verified.]

"The Transporters" DVD Series, Recognizing Emotions in Others

Following are a few links for a DVD series called "The Transporters" that was made in Great Britain. It is supposed to help children with autism learn to recognize emotions in others.


I remember coming across a sample episode on-line a while back. It is VERY similar to the Thomas the Tank Engine videos.. and all my kids were captivated by it.

The series became available in the U.S. last month. You can get more info about it from this website, where you can also view an episode.
http://www.thetransporters.com/

Here is a recent article about the series, which was sent to me in an Autism Society of Northern VA Yahoo Group post.:Kids with autism learn to 'read' people" dated 11 February 2009 by Mark Roth from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09042/948176-298.stm?cmpid=MOSTEMAILEDBOX.

I'm going to see if my local library will buy the series. This will go along nicely with Samuel's desire to "explore emotions."

Exploring Emotions and Actions

In the last year we have noticed that Samuel likes to "explore" various emotional feelings. During Easter last year he was focused on death and dying, and it seemed natural that he would explore this through the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Later in the year he explored this through Walt Disney. I do not know exactly how this came to be, but he would ask me and one of his helpers in particular about what would have happened when Walt Disney got old and died.

I am not quite sure what to make about the feeling that he is exploring now. It might be "things forbidden" or it could just be that he is curious about things that ultimately lead to him getting in trouble. I don't know. I do know that if he does something that gets him in trouble he wants us to narrate the story back to him.

One recent event occurred one morning while he was playing Wii. This was a "break" time for Samuel so his helper was organizing some things in the kitchen while Samuel was playing in the family room. I was working in the kitchen. All of a sudden Samuel screamed, started crying, and ran upstairs to hide. I went over to the television screen and the Wii system was asking questions like, "what language do you want?..." I realized that Samuel had been exploring the menus, had come across some kind of "clear system" button and had selected it. SAMUEL HAD DELETED ALL THE CHARACTERS, ALL THE INFORMATION, ALL THE SCORES WE HAD OBTAINED over the 40 days since we received it at Christmas. This included all the games and levels that had been unlocked due to our hard work. I felt really bad for my two other sons, who had done lots of hard work on Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and a crossbow shooting game. Samuel's helper took care of setting up the system so that a password would be needed in the future to do such a thing. I wish we had thought of that earlier! Live and learn.. Now, Samuel wants me to repeat the story of this. I won't. I tell him that what he did was wrong and that we have now fixed the game so that it cannot be done again. He apologized to all of us without me even asking for him to do so.

Samuel also likes for me to repeat a story that I had told all the children one time.. about how I had broken apart one of my baby brother's toys (a toy hour glass) so that I could get to the plastic pellets inside of it. I will not repeat this story for him anymore either. I talk about it in terms of how it was wrong, that I should have respected my brother's property.

The strange thing in all of this is that he seems truly remorseful and sorry for doing things that hurt others, yet he likes to get others to talk about it and I'm sure that he will "explore" other such actions in the future. We're trying to pay attention to what he talks about and what he is watching on the computer. His big brother says he got the idea about clearing out Wii from a video he watched on the computer.. YouTube or something like that.

He's going over the Ten Commandments one by one in Religion and I am glad that he seems to be able to relate to the idea that there are rules of proper behavior that should be followed. I have a few books that are great for bringing the rules of the commandments to his level. (For example.. "Thou shalt not kill," besides meaning that we really shouldn't "kill," also means that we should treat our siblings and friends nicely....)We are reading them; now I have my job as his Mom to help him apply them in everyday life.

Fun for me too

To satisfy Samuel's interest in "The History of the Years" I have been printing out select events from years. I began last week with 1900 and we have worked our way, year by year, up to 1905. Samuel is looking forward to seeing 1906 because he already knows that his favorite breakfast cereal company, Kellog's, was founded that year. I wonder if the website I have been using will mention that (spiritus-temporis.com).

I am having just as much fun reading up on all of this as Samuel is. I absolutely love history and I am particulary mesmerized by the beginning of the 20th century and the years leading up to WWI, when a massive upheaval started occuring in the world that nobody could have possibly predicted.

The Flip Side

My last post was about the great time I had with Samuel while we were out one evening recently. I hope I did not give the impression that every single trip out with Samuel is a breeze, that certainly is not the case. A good example of this occurred just a few days after my last post, at Special Olympics Basketball practise.

Samuel started playing basketball this winter for the first time. We did not attend practises consistently, but we did make it to 4 or 5 of them. A few times I took a helper along. By the last week of practise I was able to convince Samuel to stay in the gym (he had made a game out of running away at our first practise). The coaches had also developed a bit of a rapport with Samuel and were able to convince him, on occasion, to join in the drills. Samuel was the youngest player and he was definitely more interested in running up and down the courts than he was in participating. (I'm hoping that track will hold Samuel's interest better. We're planning to participate in that this coming summer)

That last week of practise was going along quite well. Samuel had been alternating between participating in drills and taking breaks by running around the court, when all of a sudden I caught view of him across the court bursting into tears. I honestly have no idea what triggered this. I went up to him and started asking him what he was thinking about, but he had no interest in talking to me. He screamed, "I'm running away!" and he sped down the hallway out of the gym. My two youngest children were with me so I situated them in the gym and proceeded to chase Samuel. He had gone into a room, turned on the lights, and then proceeded further down the hall. I was able to get him back in the gym, but we had to leave practise. Samuel grudgingly came along out to the car, but he still wasn't very happy. Somehow, over the course of the next 10 minutes his mood improved. We were set to go spend the rest of the day with friends and he was fine after the incident at the gym. He was amongst 14 other children and had a great time.

I never figured out why he was upset at the gym. All I know is that I was caught off guard. I had scheduled a helper but due to a miscommunication she did not meet us there. I had thought we would be okay because Samuel was in such a good mood, but I was reminded that day that things can take a turn for the worst mighty quickly!

A Nice Evening Out with Samuel

Last week I started participating in an autism support group that is being held in a nearby town. The group is called Essential Pieces and has existed for a few years now. They hold support group meetings in 8 week sessions. I first found out about this group some time last year but this is the first session that I have been able to participate in. As a preview to attending this group, I attended a conference they held last October about Sensory Stories. I found it to be a very professionally run conference and thought the topic was terrific. I'll talk more about Sensory Stories later..

During the parent meetings, some interns from a local university conduct a social group for children with autism and their siblings. I decided to take along Samuel and his younger brother to participate in this. The first meeting Samuel was not able to go because he had an eye infection. Then, this past week his younger brother was ill, so I took Samuel alone.

I was so impressed by Samuel's behavior the entire evening! We had to park in a parking garage and walk about a block to the meeting location. He stayed with me nicely, no having to worry about him running away! He also left his videos that he had brought along in the car without a problem, even after he had asked if he could bring them and I said, "I think it will be better to keep them in the car, then you won't lose them." I had told him ahead of time in the car where he would be and where I would be, and about how long I would be at my meeting. He seemed excited and interested and did not have any problem saying goodbye. Even though he is a bit older than the other social group participants (most of them look to be somewhere between 4-6 years old), he seemed happy to be there.

Our walk back to the car went great. He asked for a treat on the way, which was fine because we had to stop at a pharmacy to pick up some Pedialyte for his younger brother. Samuel was even well behaved at the pharmacy! He likes to look around stores and I had been worried about him getting into the DVD display. He found it and was able to look at it as I paid for my purchases and accepted the time limit I gave him very nicely! I let him listen to the "Cars" soundtrack on the way home.

Later that evening I thought about how nice it can be to take Samuel out now, after all the years of practising and using visual aids. We had been in a part of town that night where, about 7 years ago (when Samuel was 3 and I was pregnant with his little brother), he ran away from me and out into a road. What a scary event that was. Even though we can have tough moments out in public, it is nice to have more and more successes with him!

"History of the Years"

Samuel has a funny new way of showing his interest in history. He keeps asking us what happened in a particular year. My husband was watching a show on the History Channel last night about World War II. Samuel came in the room and asked, "What year is this?" My oldest son left a book he is reading about the War of 1812 in their bedrom; Samuel asked me, "What happened in 1812?" He also keeps asking me, "What happened in 1944?" and while he was getting a bath the other night he asked me, "What happened in the year 1?"

I'm sure if I asked him, he could tell me what year every video game was introduced. That seems to be where this interest in years came to the forefront for him. He has been watching a YouTube video that covers the history of video games and has been scripting it for the past few weeks. One time he told me, "I'm going to watch, 'The History of the Years.'" I asked him what that was about and he explained it was about the video games. Not long after this is when he started to ask all the questions about years.

I need to capitalize on this interest Samuel has for teaching him some history! Does anyone know about any good books or other resources for timelines?