School Registration

So we headed down to the local public school (Edna Staebler) to register Fox for school and it wasn’t actually too bad.  We talked with a teacher and the principal and they came across as supportive and willing to work with us, which is a far cry from some of the horror stories we’ve heard.  Of course, it was really only the preliminary stuff – we just filled out the registration forms which were straightforward enough.  We’re still hoping to get into Kidsability, but this second option is not looking nearly as onerous as I’d feared.  Sure, we’ll still have to do a lot more ground work if we end up going to public school, but it’s amazing how the attitude of the teachers factors into making you feel at ease.

That said, we still need to decide whether we’re even going to send Fox into Junior Kindergarten.  The JK program is alternating full days, 2 or 3 times a week.  Fox has been doing alright with Nursery school which is a half day, but we’re not sure how he’ll do with a full day schedule.  It’s something to ponder anyway.

We heard back from our KW Hab resource and it sounds like the real work won’t happen for a while, so we have time to regroup and find out exactly what the next steps are.

The Rundown

So as the first entry from me in a long time, let me first apologize for anyone following along at home (I know, all two of you).

In any case, in the last 8 or so months, there's been a lot of changes, as you might imagine. The quick rundown:

• RDI: We've been continuing with RDI, working on strengthening the Guided Participation Relationship. Fox regularly helps us do the laundry, or cooking. He especially enjoys making smoothies from fresh fruit. Still a long way to go, but as they love to say, "it's a marathon, not a sprint".
  
• IBI/ABA: We attended a course provided by Kidsability called the Autism Learning Journey. It's invaluable for showing parents how they can implement the IBI/ABA techniques at home on their own. A lot of this was review from things we had already read/seen, but I guess repetition is the key to learning, right? Regardless of that, there are still definitely a lot of things to recommend it. There were also some great insights that I took away from it regarding communication (at some point I'll go into the verbal operants), the analyzing of home videos is always enlightening and there was also a "Make and Take" session at the end, where we constructed various teaching aids. We also decided to take a break from our private IBI for now, for a number of reasons.
• Speech: Fox has come along but progress still feels frustratingly slow. He's actually saying some vowels properly, but consonant-vowel pairs seem mostly beyond him, and same with multiple syllables. This is definitely an area where we need a lot more work and practice.
• Music: We've started attending Music Together on Saturday mornings. Similar to Kindermusik, it's a childhood music program and so far both kids seem to be responding well to it.
• Naturopath: Lisa began bringing Fox to a DAN doctor to investigate if naturopathy and diet intervention would be a good fit for us, particularly because Fox has become such a picky eater. We've just recently discovered that Fox has an intolerance to egg and wheat, so now we're back to working on a gluten-free diet. Sigh.
• Community: Networking with other families at the various events and courses got us pointed in the direction of a new website, the Autism Spectrum Connection. It's intended as a social networking site that will serve as a hub to connect parents, organizations and individuals who live with/work with/are people on the spectrum.
• School: Schooling is a tricky subject for us. We've registered and are really trying to get into the Kidsability school. Here he will be working with teachers who have been trained to work with special needs children and should get the attention and assistance he needs, without us having to advocate every step of the way (at least, I hope). We've completed the referral process with the help of our SLP and OT, and are just waiting to hear back from them in March. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that Fox will be accepted, so we're also planning to sign up at our local public school as well. We believed we'd be getting a lot of help from KW Hab, but they strangely switched out our resource last month at the lousiest time. Not surprisingly (but frustratingly nonetheless), the our new resource hasn't really brought up anything about the whole process - even though she supposed to be our liaison to the school. I'm not looking forward to all the extra work we'll have to do if the Kidsability option doesn't pan out, but I think expecting the worst means you're more likely to be pleasantly surprised. In any case, we go to our local public school tomorrow morning to register, meet the principal and a teacher possibly.
  

I'm sure there's a lot I've missed or glossed over and I'll try to elaborate if I remember to, but that's a good start.

:Duan