All About Autism

[mashy]

Desertwind

At the end of the year, kkh rehab does a sch readiness prog. U can check it out. Maybe leave your name or something to show your interest. It’s to teach the kids what to expect in pri sch and the therapists will try out strategies to see what works for your kid in a sch setting. Like getting them to concentrate on their task, do show and tell, taking turns, handling money etc. I think it’s pretty beneficial. This is classroom like group session with activities. After each session, The therapist will tell u the feedback and what skill they were teaching that day. The therapists at rehab side are rather nice. I have gone thru a few already and none has said anything mean. At the end of the sessions, they will write a report which u can give to the teacher or bring up certain parts on how to help your child in sch.

[specialboymum]

Hi ladies,


Anyone know where I can get the temple grandin DVD? I search high and low in different video shops down town but can’t find it

[DesertWind]

chibi:

Hi Desertwind,

I 2nd what mashy says too. ......but she is completely different in primary school. always asking when can she see her friends again, keep smiling and laughing on the way to school.
she even wants to sleep earlier at night so that she can wake up earlier to go school .......i suspect too that as primary school is very structured, and ASD kids will strive in structured environment, maybe this is one of the reason why they seem to be better in primary school from my own opinion.

Hi chibi,
Hurray, so glad to hear that your girl is happy going to primary school ! :rahrah: Make us so happy to see our kids happily going to school right?

Yup, my boy right now loves going to kindy. I have already broken his heart once by pulling him out from a huge kindy last year after 2 terms. He cried so I gotta hide his 1st kindy uniform banking on the fact that he will forget eventually since he was still young. Despite the large kindy size he loves going to this kindy. But his 1st kindy teacher told me in no uncertain terms he needs one-to-one and the class size was just too large for them to pay him any attention. Furthermore, they left him out of game time since he could not follow instructions properly. Teacher told me without any qualms she just gave him one toy car and tell him to seat on the table and play with it by himself while the rest of the class played group games. I also witness my boy trying to hold the teacher's hand but she pull away and made him hold another kid's hand instead. (Not that I am blaming the teacher though!) My boy will just be wasting his time there! So no choice, I made the painful (but I still think it is right) decision to pull him out last year.

It is unlikely for me to do it again as I believe stability is much more beneficial for my boy at this point in time. So what if he could not do show and tell? So what if he is deemed childish and special? Kindy is not compulsory right? So long as he is not causing tremendous disruption nor is he ever violent, why shouldn't he go to kindy and enjoy himself?

Sometimes by looking at my boy's reactions, I feel in my heart he was pleading with me not to put him into an early intervention centre but let him go to a normal kindy whereby there are lots of other children to be with. I feel that he could not understand why he must go to an early intervention centre with only a few kids so boring when he could go to a huge kindy with lots of children and so many interesting activities to do?

So what if expert opinion was that intervention centre with tiny class size was the best but my boy everyday will cry and scream refuse to go there? What is the point if he was not happy in a supposedly \"more suitable\" environment?

So me and hubby has decided that the best environment for my boy would be the one whereby he is most happy in. Simple as that. Other issues let us tackle as and when they arise....

[DesertWind]

mashy:

Desertwind

At the end of the year, kkh rehab does a sch readiness prog. U can check it out. Maybe leave your name or something to show your interest. It's to teach the kids what to expect in pri sch and the therapists will try out strategies to see what works for your kid in a sch setting. Like getting them to concentrate on their task, do show and tell, taking turns, handling money etc. I think it's pretty beneficial. This is classroom like group session with activities. After each session, The therapist will tell u the feedback and what skill they were teaching that day. The therapists at rehab side are rather nice. I have gone thru a few already and none has said anything mean. At the end of the sessions, they will write a report which u can give to the teacher or bring up certain parts on how to help your child in sch.

Hi mashy,
OK, this sounds really good indeed! Yes, I will check it out. The KKH rehab. side sounds nice too!

[mashy]

Desert wind


Think I’ve shared this before? My kid was also kicked out of his nursery 6 mths after he started.

Well, we are glad we left and his other childcare/kindy was very accepting. He stayed on all the way from mid nursery till k2 graduation. When he wore his k2 gown, I wanted to cry.

Don’t give up. When one road closes, there are others. U may find better pp out there.

[DesertWind]

mashy:

Desertwind

May not be that bad in pri sch. I find so far my boy's pri sch experience has been pretty ok. Kindy teachers aren't as trained and they don't have the support.

Hi mashy,

Yes, it is just too bad that some of the good kindy/CCC with good and supportive P and T are so far from our house. It is not that there are no good kindies/CCC but location wise may not be practical for us to send our boy there. I really hope by the time he is due for P1 he would have outgrown most of his problems!

[lavendery]

specialboymum:

Hi ladies,


Anyone know where I can get the temple grandin DVD? I search high and low in different video shops down town but can't find it

I think you can buy from Amazon. That's what i intend to do so.

[DesertWind]

Talking about PIL and my parent’s reactions. My own parents just thought my boy is quite "straight". You know the Hokkien word for "straight"? Means not so clever or flexible right? But never once did my parent’s side of the relatives thought there was anything wrong with my boy. To them my boy is really normal and cute. He is after all just a 4+ yo right? To me, this side of my relatives seems to be from the "old times" ie. before ASD diagnosis was so prevalent!


Whereas my PILs side (perhaps with more interaction with my boy and more educated) thought my boy was not too typical. It drove me nuts when my MIL got paranoid and kept telling me to bring my boy to the doctor for developmental check up in the past. They also looked at my boy’s self-echolalic tendency with alarm. He tends to repeat what he saw on TV to himself and it is difficult to get his attention half the time. I told my MIL once angrily that if there was anything wrong with my own son, surely I would be the first one to panic and will do all the necessary check-up right? But since I was not even panicking, why should my MIL be so paranoid?

They think I am in self-denial, I think they are paranoid. Who is to say who is right or wrong?

[DesertWind]

mashy:

Desert wind


Think I've shared this before? My kid was also kicked out of his nursery 6 mths after he started.

Well, we are glad we left and his other childcare/kindy was very accepting. He stayed on all the way from mid nursery till k2 graduation. When he wore his k2 gown, I wanted to cry.

Don't give up. When one road closes, there are others. U may find better pp out there.

Thanks for your encouragement mashy!

[mashy]

Desert wind


‘straight’ means honest and not shrewd.

I think there’s good and bad lah. I don’t think your PIL meant to hurt u. They are just highlighting something u may not want to face. Let’s be honest, he isn’t typical. If he has been, we won’t be having this conversation and you won’t be cracking your brains wondering what to do with his education. I think through the process of finding out more of our child, we have become more sensitive to what others say. We will need to balance this and take a step back.

For me I’m quite the opposite. I suspected from the time he was 8-9mths while my ILs said he is perfectly fine. Just shy and quiet boy. I have told everyone we met and those friends we meet up that I suspected he has autism. Lol. Everyone brushed me off and said no lah, can’t be. It took a detailed drawing of the digestive system for my mil to see my point and asked me to bring him for assessment.

I cried too after the results came out. But for us, it was simply a confirmation of what we suspected all along. That our kid is quirky. The child dev dr sugg we go for group therapy with the pte therapists. After considering, we decided not to. Coz I think he is doing well now. The child dev dr has not spoken more than 10 sentences to him and simply sugg based on the psychologist report. So to me, that was just wasting my time and money. I just continued with the therapies at rehab and see how much more he can improve. Once I find that it is no longer beneficial, I will stop that too. Instead, I signed him up for enrichment classes like other normal kids. Sports, music, Chinese and soon English for comprehension. I think I’m just raising him up like any normal kid. Not much difference. I expect the same discipline, in fact more from him. I punish him when he steps out of line. The diagnosis is simply to make me understand him more, that it’s not his fault sometimes for not hearing me, that he may not like the same stuff as other children etc. He will take more time to master a skill because he gets distracted easily and doesn’t follow instructions. We just spend more time practicing then.

Btw, I think sports are really good for our children. If u have not done any in this aspect, do it. Helps in their coordination, discipline etc.