All About Autism

[Double E]

Haven’t been here for a while.


My boy in K1 had his first spelling test in school last week. He had to spell 5 sets of 3 letter words. And luckily for me, he has no prob with spelling, only practice 2x with him. But I guess, I expected too much cos when the result came, he scored 4/5, he missed out a letter in the last word. I know I should be happy about his achievement, but hiazz, I am actually upset cos I think he can score 5/5. This incident made me realise I am a KS mother after all. Like scoring B is not enough, must push the kid to score A*. I am quite upset and angry with myself to have such thoughts.

Anyway, sorry for ranting here. Hope all mummies here have been doing well with your kiddos.

[Couragemom]

Double E:

Couragemom:

Hi parents,


I have just started toilet training my son last week and so far to now he seem to get the idea that he needs to urinate and/or pass motion in the potty as long as I time it correctly or when he is off his diapers. My next step is to get him to communicate his wish to pee/shit to me then after that, shift the use of potty to normal toilet bowl then finally tell teacher to get him to use the school toilet bowl. I am now worried that he cannot make the transition to the school environment.

It has been 3 months since he enters the new pre-school and he still rejects the school snack (I don't give him home snack anymore), so I am worried he cannot do his 'business' in school. Any advice or past experiences to share with me?

Is he on diaper in school? u also have to check when is the teacher ready to guide him.

Hi Double E,

Yes, he is on pull-up pants in school. In his N1 class, only 3 (including my son) out of 12 students are on diapers still, the rest all toilet-trained!!! The teachers bring the kids to the toilet every hour. Before i start to toilet-train him last week, the school teachers told me my son shows no resistance towards going toilet but he will just go and make the shhhhhhshhhh sound and 'pretend' to urinate, that is all. Now that it is the real deal, not sure how he will react!

How about your son?

[sharonkhoo]

Double E:

Haven't been here for a while.


My boy in K1 had his first spelling test in school last week. He had to spell 5 sets of 3 letter words. And luckily for me, he has no prob with spelling, only practice 2x with him. But I guess, I expected too much cos when the result came, he scored 4/5, he missed out a letter in the last word. I know I should be happy about his achievement, but hiazz, I am actually upset cos I think he can score 5/5. This incident made me realise I am a KS mother after all. Like scoring B is not enough, must push the kid to score A*. I am quite upset and angry with myself to have such thoughts.

Anyway, sorry for ranting here. Hope all mummies here have been doing well with your kiddos.

Relax! Everyone makes mistakes. Did your kid mind? What I do when this happens to my kids is to say \"What a pity you didn't notice that! You could have got full marks!\" This kind of turns it back to them, and helps them realise that it's within their control, and hopefully they will want to improve.

[pinkamoon]

Hi Couragemum,

Celebrate his successes! If he poops or urinates in toilet bowl, cheer and shout hooray! (I mean really show him how happy you are) I even took a video of how he did it and played it for him to see. Our children need visuals. Let him flush the toilet and have a sense of accomplishment when he does well.

Double E, I am sure your son can do better! For me, my son had problems with not being perfect. He wanted perfect results. He cannot accept failures. I had to train him to accept failures and be happy with 0. I mean he can do his spelling, addition, subtraction etc.
The real challenges come when he has to read and understand comprehension passages and problem sums. I have to tell him 0 is such a nice number, we cannot live without 0 and make funny remarks like if there is no 0, numbers go like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1 again to make him laugh. He can cry for a while when he cannot get his answers correct.

Slmkhoo, I salute your efforts in helping your child! We shall learn from you and keep on moving!

[Blokus]

Double E:

Haven't been here for a while.


My boy in K1 had his first spelling test in school last week. He had to spell 5 sets of 3 letter words. And luckily for me, he has no prob with spelling, only practice 2x with him. But I guess, I expected too much cos when the result came, he scored 4/5, he missed out a letter in the last word. I know I should be happy about his achievement, but hiazz, I am actually upset cos I think he can score 5/5. This incident made me realise I am a KS mother after all. Like scoring B is not enough, must push the kid to score A*. I am quite upset and angry with myself to have such thoughts.

Anyway, sorry for ranting here. Hope all mummies here have been doing well with your kiddos.

Hugs! I think you behaved that way because you know he's capable of full marks. If he's at 3/5 level and he scored 4/5 you would have cheered to the moon and back. Don't worry, there's plenty more test coming up to prove himself. Mistakes are great because it helps the kid pay more attention next time. Use the chance to teach him to check his work.
Always use failures as a teaching opportunity for him & yourself. Don't despair!

[Double E]

Thanks all for the encouragement.


I feel that he hasn’t grasp the idea of having to do his best and that he should aim for 5/5. So I told him that he needs to get 5 correct, all ticks then teacher will give him 3 stars. I told him because he has one mistake, now only has 2 stars. So I asked him if he wants 3 or 2 stars, he said 3. I m not sure if I have used the correct method to motivate him, but I hope he understands and will not treat failure lightly or knows that he needs to improve

[BB3]

fluttershy:

Hi Couragemom,


What are the therapies & programs that you enrolled your son at? and how many hours per week? previously my son attended ST & OT once a week but he cried even before the session begin until it ends. I found them to be ineffective at all (we tried 3 months). From my point of view, I think that the behaviours & sensory overload need to be addressed first before even trying on ST, OT or both. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Hi Fluttershy

From my own experience ST & OT were not useful until my son was able to focus on instructions from the therapists. We focused on ABA in the initial years and only re-tried ST & OT after he was compliant and able to follow the therapists instructions. I have also learnt that you need to keep re-assessing every now and then to determine if your child is continuing to benefit from a specific therapy or if its time to move on to another; there is so much to be done and you need to choose your \"battles\".

Its a long road but take heart, my child has progressed so much but there is so much to be done as well. From not being able to speak at 3 yrs of age, he can now speak in full sentences; our next challenge is to get him to initiate a conversation.

[tabgha]

pinkamoon:

....

As a mother, I did not feel that OT is very useful for my child. That being said, it does not mean OT sessions are not useful for all children. Every child is different. The basic principle of OT, I feel, is play. Playing should be fun, engaging and child centred. Very often, OT sessions became instructional. How can we expect our children to enjoy playing when what was expected of them was unenjoyable. We should go into their world instead, enjoy what they enjoy and laugh over what makes them happy. When I told my therapist what I intended to do, he was unconvinced. When I shared my dietary intervention with him, he too was not very supportive and cited examples of dietary interventions not working on other children.

Hi Pinkamoon, need to clarify something here. The basic principle of OT is NOT about play. (the play part is a bonus in OT) The basic principle of Occupational Therapy is meant to develop, recover, or maintain the daily living and work skills of people with a physical, mental or developmental condition.

Occupational therapists make use of \"play\" to teach the child functional skills. The OT room is designed like a gym area where there are climb ropes, swings, sand play/water play... etc. But the purpose is to teach the child skills to help them to function better in daily living. It's not supposed to be \"fun\" as in playground \"fun\".

A good OT will see what is lacking in the child and will develop an OT activity whose goal is to correct or improve on a certain function or occupation. For example, an activity like climbing ropes helps the child with self-confidence, hand-eye coordination, vestibular balance , proprioception, etc. Another OT activity may help the child with organisational skills and planning in a step-by-step activity.

Some may argue that parents can also do the same with our kids. I agree. But we are not trained therapists, unless the parent reads widely and asks around to gather informed knowledge in order to help the child.

If you want play \"fun\", then gym classes or playgrounds will fit the bill.

[pinkamoon]

Hi tagbha, thanks for correcting me. I learn something today.


I did not mention much about my son’s first therapist. He is trained in floortime and as the name suggests floortime encourages parents to engage children at their level, on the floor to play. Parents will enter into children’s world, follow their lead and really play games they enjoy. The ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ of circles of communication is important and adults have to try to keep as many loops of commuication as possible. So, for me, i was playing with my son during the 1 hour session while trying to keep communication flowing.

That is the reason I could not get used to the 2nd therapies way as it was not floortime.

I also attended sonrise program which is similar to floortime where communication is kept alive between parents and child. In sonrise program, play is the core of the program.

So, now I know why OT was out for me because play is not the core but a bonus. On the other hand,Sonrise program is a homebased program where parents run their own program. It takes more efforts on the part of parents but it is definitely worth the time and effort.

[pinkamoon]

Haha… before ‘play’ gets me into trouble again, I should say ‘joinning’ is the principle behind sonrise program plus 3 Es - Energy, Enthusiasim & Excitement!