All About Autism

[Couragemom]

Hi tyeogh,


Your effort (and not to say the amount of $$$$ for private therapies) are all worth it! Thanks for sharing such an inspiring post. I really hope I can see some light at the end of the tunnel for my son but meanwhile the ‘battle’ continues.

[Double E]

tyeogh:

Just want to do a shout out to all parents here. My boy is 4 yrs 10 mths now. The OT, ST and prayers worked fantastic. He is as normal as normal can be. Perhaps it is the frequency of attending such classes that he is now trained to be very communicative. He runs to me every now and then when he finishes writing 1 to 10 to say \"Daddy, see I do 1 to 10. Can I have star?\". We give a star to our other children as a reward for doing homework which they trade in for toys. Don't think he understands the trading part. He just mimics their request.


This boy is a gem. He is singled out to be favoured by both paternal and maternal grandparents. There was this day his mainstream school teacher gave out candy. He brought back 3 more for each of his 3 elder siblings. It was sweet and thoughtful of him. It probably summed him up in a nutshell. He shows concern when any of the family members are not around. Daddy, where mama (grandma) go? Daddy where mommy go?

And whenever I am about to cane him for misbehaving, he retorts \"Daddy, angry no good. I don't like angry. Happy good.\" The stroke still landed. A for logic and persuasion. F for getting away with it. No choice, I am the daddy. Haha.

Recently, he learned how to drink direct from a cup. So he announces to me with pride, Daddy, see, I so good boy.

Seeing him in this state makes all the efforts and sacrifices worthwhile.

To all parents here, hang in there. I think there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Does not look to be an incoming train....

Tyegoh
Great to hear that your boy is doing well. Somehow, I really think for the milder cases like my boy and yours, as they get older, their issues are lesser though still need to work on especially social skills.

For my boy, he too is affectionate now. Eg, if I pretend to cry cos he makes me angry, he will quickly come and hug me and tells me he will be a good boy. And he will cry together with me. Then again, he doesn't show such affection towards other kids lah, only to me, his grandma and daddy. And now, he can interact and play very well with the mei mei.

Also, for his upcoming school concert, the principal told me that he has matured alot as compared to last year and she didn't think he needed the kind of prep work and step by step guide that we had to give him last year. All glory to God indeed and we are excited to watch his performance in two weeks time!.

[Double E]

oh, one more thing. Now when my boy eats something nice, he will tell me \"mmm, is delicious\". Then that day, he told me the noodles I cooked for him is very nice.

[Liyuan]

humpty:

Hi


I am new to this forum and would like to say Hi! to all the mummies and daddies here!

I've got a boy who is 4yo and seems to be possible ASD. I'm now trying to teach him to sit still in class. He is now in full day child care and they have lessons that require the children to sit within a pre-defined square on the floor. My boy has trouble respecting this rule when the lesson doesn't appeal to him (e.g. chinese class). And he will start to wander around the room and play with the books/toys. The teachers have tried all means and ways to get him to join the class or at least just sit within the box...but he won't comply. None of the other children have this issue. And they are saying that by this age, they should be able to understand the class rules and the consequences of not doing so... My son is constantly in a \"war\" with the teachers about this. They think they he is not obeying authority and is disruptive to the class which often results in lose-lose outcomes on for both the teachers and my son...

I'm wondering how to teach him to do so... any ideas? It's causing him to be cast as a \"misfit\" even by the other children. So it's quite a serious problem when he doesn't follow the social norms of the classroom...

Is there OT that can teach this to children? And if so, what do they do? What are strategies that we can use to get him to sit still even when he is not engaged in the activity? He does really well for his favourite classes/teachers and can complete tasks and sit with full attention... only when he is bored (e.g. chinese...)

I agree very much with couragemom. For sitting behavior, token economy will probably work well. Have the visual of the target behavior (good sitting in this case) on a token economy. Allow your boy to choose the reward that he will like to work for. Each time he is seated nicely, give him a token. If he is not sitting well, point to the picture of good sitting on the token economy to remind him. I always recommend using visual prompts instead of verbal prompts (eg. \"David, sit nicely\") as visual prompts are much easier to fade. Start off with 3 or 4 tokens to work for to get his reward and you will probably need to reward fast initially. You will want the child to be able to get the reward that he chose. To increase the duration of him being able to sit nicely without reinforcement, you can either increase the number of tokens to work for before he gets his reward, or slow down the rate at which tokens are given to him. Do not give tokens at a fix interval. You will want to reward him intermittently so that he is unable to predict when will the token be given. The skinner box experiment tells you why must you reward intermittently and not on a fix schedule. The image below is an example of a token economy.
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s71/xstacle/TE.jpg\">[/URL]
You can also use a mat (like what couragemom mentioned). This will denote the space that he is suppose to sit within. But do remember that ultimately, your aim is to fade the mat and him being able to sit nicely without having a prompt to denote his space. So do fade the mat when you see that he is able to sit better

Hope it helps
Liyuan
http://www.autismstep.com

[Double E]

This morning, my son threw tantrums when the Daddy tried to dress him for school. He made daddy so angry that daddy ordered him to wear the clothes himself and asked me not to help him. Guess what, my son actually could do it and he can button up the shirt! I was amazed as he couldn’t do it whenever I asked him to try, he would lose his patience and tell me he can’t do it.


I think when one (in this case my son) is left with no help and choice, he got to suck it up and do it himself. Also kudos to my mother who has been helping me to train him too.

[Couragemom]

Hi Double E,


It is the same for my son. I tried to teach him to wear his pants but due to his poor hand coordination and balancing, he can’t do it properly so every time I force him to try, he will whine and cry. Now I am worried about his toileting when he reaches N2 next year where in general the students are just expected to ask teacher for permission and go toilet by themselves. My son has no problem taking off his underwear and pants but wearing them back is a different story all together. Haiz… Breathe in breathe out.

[Gifts from Heaven]

Couragemom:

Hi Double E,


It is the same for my son. I tried to teach him to wear his pants but due to his poor hand coordination and balancing, he can't do it properly so every time I force him to try, he will whine and cry. Now I am worried about his toileting when he reaches N2 next year where in general the students are just expected to ask teacher for permission and go toilet by themselves. My son has no problem taking off his underwear and pants but wearing them back is a different story all together. Haiz..... Breathe in breathe out.

Is it big business or small business?
If just pee, don't need to take out the whole underwear/pants. Just wear elastic band pants so that it is easy for him to flip out the 'thing' to pee and put back :).
If need to poo, can train him to poo only when at home.

[Couragemom]

Hi Gifts from Heaven,


I mean pee-pee. He usually does big business at home so I am not so worried. His balance is really bad and his low body tone makes things worse. For example, I expect that most N2 boys should be able to just pull down the pants/underwear, pee then wear back while standing right? But not for my son. Haiz…

[Couragemom]

Hi mommies,


Got a question for you all. Financially all the private therapies plus his half-day CC fee in a branded pre-school (I don’t purposely want to enrol him in such an ‘Atas’ environment, but more for the low teacher-student ratio) are taking a toll on the family. If I were to choose, I am thinking of letting him join a PCF kindergarten but continue private therapies (need to scale down some as well) as I deem them more important. What do you all think?

[Double E]

Couragemom:

Hi mommies,


Got a question for you all. Financially all the private therapies plus his half-day CC fee in a branded pre-school (I don't purposely want to enrol him in such an 'Atas' environment, but more for the low teacher-student ratio) are taking a toll on the family. If I were to choose, I am thinking of letting him join a PCF kindergarten but continue private therapies (need to scale down some as well) as I deem them more important. What do you all think?

Courageman
I did that about 1.5 years ago. Changed my son to a kindy from a CC to better manage the finances. At the same time, I also look at the therapies and see if there is any that I can drop or reduce the frequency (but of course has to be that he is more or less much better in that area, and I think no need to be so intensive anymore). But the changing of CC to kindy really helps on the pocket a lot. Furthermore I have two kids. When they were in CC, I have to pay $1400 per mth, after I put them in CC, I pay $1400 for every quarter ( I would have to pay $4200!! per quarter if my kids remain in the CC).

However, you also need to see what's PCF's teacher-ratio since the reason for your current choice of CC is due to the low teacher ratio. Also have to assess if the PCF teachers are patient enough to manage your boy as compared to the current CC. I think while financially is very tight, to me, it is more heart wrenching to see my son not being treated fairly and well at school.

What private therapies are ur son attending? perhaps you can cut on those instead of the CC if you deem your current CC has been doing a good job managing your son.