Proud Mom
School is almost over and camp is soon to begin. In closing the school year, Adam did a timeline of his life which you can view on Adam's own blog here.
I am swelling with pride for all the hard work he has done and I am that he's had a wonderful year at a truly inclusive school. Every day Adam always looked forward to seeing his friends there and started initiating "peer interaction." (I don't like using over-used terms, as they come to reflect what is otherwise known as "appropriate peer interaction" as opposed to simply peer interaction that may appear atypical -- or of peer interest that may appear atypical to onlookers).
I also verified this year that Adam's verbal communication cannot reflect what he thinks and how sophisticated he is. For instance, if I have a family albumn, he may say "dog" for daddy, deferring to an easier "d" word he knows. However, if he labels them with the written form, he can match names to his family members easily.
It's just an important point I want to make. Speech is not always as reliable as text.
I am swelling with pride for all the hard work he has done and I am that he's had a wonderful year at a truly inclusive school. Every day Adam always looked forward to seeing his friends there and started initiating "peer interaction." (I don't like using over-used terms, as they come to reflect what is otherwise known as "appropriate peer interaction" as opposed to simply peer interaction that may appear atypical -- or of peer interest that may appear atypical to onlookers).
I also verified this year that Adam's verbal communication cannot reflect what he thinks and how sophisticated he is. For instance, if I have a family albumn, he may say "dog" for daddy, deferring to an easier "d" word he knows. However, if he labels them with the written form, he can match names to his family members easily.
It's just an important point I want to make. Speech is not always as reliable as text.
8 Comments:
The disconnect between intended speech/meaning and actual output is one of the things that I see reported again and again by autistic adults. I know our guy finds it very frustrating. It's great that Adam has his device to help him. We never even thought of that, even though our guy could read long before he could talk. In future it will be standard practice to offer kids with speech delays the opportunity to write.
Estee, that is not a small point at all. It's huge, huge, huge. I know if we relied on Nik's verbal abilities then we would presume him to be grossly delayed in intellect; his nonverbal (though not written at this point) conveys so much more.
You have so much to be proud of in Adam in every way! :-)
Niksmom,
I know...it was the point...it's not small at all!!!
Not that I know anything here, but it seems to me to be a very big point. Reminds me of the tack they're taking with Down's kids- teach them to read as early as possible. Here it seems - teach/assist autistic kids with communication as early as possible. Why is that so hard a concept?
Sorry - rhetorical question while ABA therapists are the only option.
Okay. I'll take "small point" out!!! :) For those reading this comment thread, I said, "It's just a small, but important point I want to make."
I changed it to "it's an important point I want to make."
k?
:)
Yes, we have a lot of this. Joey knows a lot more than he can speak. Given paper, he is much better at communicating. I can hardly wait for him to learn to type.
The J-man is somehow learning his letters - I mean, we sing the alphabet song to him and that kind of thing, but we weren't holding up flashcards or anything, because he's TWO! However, if you ask him to type certain letters, he can, and now he is starting to actually pick up the flashcards we hurriedly got and say the letter associated, and sometimes what the picture is as well. We're not sure if just reading the Dr. Seuss alphabet book was the trigger or what, but HURRAY for my kid knowing way more than he can verbalize. And Adam too!
Dear Estee Klar-Wolfond,
Hey, my name is Sahar, I am with www.weareautism.org. I'm glad that your son Adam is making sound progress. Your blogs are interesting especially for individuals that are either afflicted by autism themselves or have family members afflicted by it. There are a prolific group of members on the website that I know would be keen to read your blogs. I think that weareautism.org will be of great interest and use to you as you will have the opportunity to interact with people that are in similar situations as yourself. Amongst us, there are dedicated users that will avidly read your blogs and it would be great if you could come and leave your comments/thoughts. Below I have given the guest access information. Look forward to hearing from you.
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Best,
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