Easy Peasy

Two weeks before school ended in the Spring we approached our school district about out of district placement for Mitchell.  I had visited the Academy of Excellence in Learning a month prior and fell in love with it.  To our surprise, our district agreed with our request but wanted us to observe a few other programs before making a final decision.  Let the touring begin.

The Academy of Excellence in Learning or AEL is an ABA Therapy school whose goal is to teach the child to learn and give them skills needed to return to their home school within a few years requiring little to no support.  It was unlike any program I had seen or heard of.  The ABA approach is what we use at home and how our therapists get results from Mitchell.  He has so much potential that our current school was not able to pull out of him but we see it at home. The director I met with and the staff were awesome to watch while they worked with the students.  I felt at home there and it felt as if all our therapists would fit right in as well.  It was a good match for our family and therapy program.


Over the past month I have looked at 3 schools and have another scheduled for tomorrow.  I visited each school with an open mind but all the while collecting reasons why they did not compare to AEL.  One school had a completely different philosophy of therapy then AB and required our commitment to their program to move forward - ya do not think so.  Another just made me feel sad and uneasy and was not much different in structure than our program at Butler.  The school I visited yesterday was the most promising of them but not as intensive as AEL.

So I emailed our Spec Ed director to tell her our observations will be done by Friday and we can set up meeting for next week.  I assumed I would have to provide a case as to why I felt their options were not appropriate for Mitchell and wanted to get the fight started if there was going to be one.  She called me almost immediately to say a meeting was not necessary.  She did not fully agree with our choice of AEL but was willing to try it out.  She would send an email to AEL and copy me in the correspondence to start his intake.  WOW!  This was all so easy and I was so relieved.  So happy and relaxed knowing this new chapter was going to be a good one and the progress Mitchell makes is going to be phenomenal.

I anxiously waited for an email and at 6:45pm I got one, but was not prepared for what it said.  AEL  responded to our directors intake request advising that as of July 8 they have decided to close their school. @#$*%#$!!!!!!  What the (BLEEP) are we going to do now??? UGH!!

Sighs, tears, giggles at the terrible humor in this, anger, disappointment and sadness.  This program was going to change us, our family.  It would be like having 30 hours of ABA therapy a week in addition to the 15 private sessions we have.  Now we have to decided between the other schools that I really do not feel are going to change anything because they are not all that different from what our school has been doing.  For whatever reason the AEL closed, I am happy we did not start there then have to switch and it is tragic they have to close but what about Mitchell?  What the hell do we do about Mitchell now?

I cannot think of anything else today, I am sick about it.  I guess the school from yesterday would be our plan B but I am hoping the school I visit tomorrow will really WOW me and it will all be OK.  Things are never this easy, as I should have figured out when our out placement process was going to smoothly.  We have little or 1 month to find a suitable fall option and I am very tired even thinking about it.  I thought I could relax.

Back to Normal

Today was the last day of winter break. I am happy to have the kids back in school and I know they are happy to go back and see there friends but I am not looking forward to the early mornings, making lunches & homework. Yuck! The good thing about the school year is that it involves a routine everyone is used too, especially Mitchell. It's funny how little changes in our day can drastically change Mitchell's behavior. Changes in our daily routine don't exactly set Mitchell off but he definitely senses a change in the force as we like to call it. Over Christmas break we had one of his para pros from school over to keep him company and he also went to camp 4 days last week but today was his first day if therapy since Dec. 19 and he was a new kid afterwards. The last two weeks Mitchell has considerably more stimming, wandering the house without a purpose & other sensory seeking behavior. Today, after therapy, he went downstairs to play bowling & the marble run, whuch he hasn't done in over a week. And when Steve when Steve informed him it was bedtime, he repeated "night night" and ran upstairs. It amazes me how a day of doing something he is used to can turn him around so quickly. The rest of the week is only going to get better. Yay! Now if I can only kick this cold before it kicks me out of commission.

iPad

My friend Nicole & I were taking last week about iPads and how it's in the news everywhere these days how well they help kids with Autism. She was saying how we need to get the school to buy them for the kids. There are apps that can help kids on all ends of the spectrum get through their day socially and academically. Plus an iPad is a socially acceptable piece of technology. Mitchell carries his Dynavox everywhere at school but the verbal children don't have devices. This started me thinking of the way Mitchell uses our iPad at home. The day we recorded Mitchell using our iPad to learn words then typing them on his Dynavox, we had just watched a news segment on a tablet and it's many uses. In the segment though, all the parents could say about it was how their son will read books on it instead of real booms and play games instead of other video games, Really ? That's why it's so great? My son uses the iPad for apps that teach him things and he does this without prompting. He incorporates the iPad with his Dynavox, learning things most 5 year olds don't know how to teach themselves to do. Tonight Mitchell sat in his favorite chair with his Dynavox and began typing the words from the same flash card app as before except Grace had the iPad so he was doing it by memory. Coffee, duck, egg, frog, giraffe, hat, ice cream, jam , koala. He didn't just memorize these words, if you ask him anytime how to spell nurse or orange he can type it. How is it the school has not tapped I to this? Without the iPad & Dynavox we wouldn't have any idea Mitchell could read or spell. This week, I had emailed Mitchell's intensive teacher to let her know that tracing lines confuse him and he just needs a prompt to write his name or any other word or number. Then I also told her he can read/write most color words and many other site words. She seemed to be aware of this but now she knows I am aware of what they are doing/not doing at school. Mitchell is pretty good at writing, but needs reminders on his grip. But give him a keyboard and he sails through. I know other children in his class who don't write well either, having a portable computer would allow them to show what they too have learned. I am glad Nicole brought this up and maybe we can get the ball rolling with school. I wonder if the school knows what is in store for them when us moms get together and brainstorm?