Hi all,
I hope you don't mind if I jump in to this thread for a while.
Yeah - I once taught at the school in Wantirna. It is an awesome school, although caters for the highish needs kids.
My DS has just been through the assessment stage (and it is still ongoing) He is in EI now and has come along great guns. His assessment has pretty much ruled out autism, and it seems like he also does not have aspergers. He still has a lot of problems with keeping to task and is a little behind in his gross motor skills. So we have started a few things. Firstly we now use boardmaker with "First" and a compic picture and "then" with a compic picture for what he is doing next. We also have a really great timer from Spectronics (expensive but worth it) that counts down the minutes very visually. He has learnt that he has to stick to task till the timer goes.
He had surgery a few months back, and his motor skills have improved since then. (had is tonsils adenoids out, and his nose coitorised) He had blocked ears before the surgery, so hopefully all of that keeps showing improvements.
So now they are not ruling out ADD or ADHD - so we will have to see how things go. If ADD had been a proper "diagnosed condition" when DH was a child he would have been diagnosed. So we have him now have him on a very natural diet, and that really seems to help.
Also if anyone is interested, I have access to Boardmaker (an awesome progam,) and I am happy to print up some pictures and laminate for anyone who is interested (although I can't go too overboard as I will be doing it during work time !!!) He has turned out very successful, so that really helps me put my mind at ease!
Last edited by lilima; June 11th, 2010 at 09:50 PM.
really? Wow - you have been just around the corner from me! (I grew up in that area). At least you have more idea about the spectrum than most of us have before we have been hurled into it all, far out it seems each day brings a new revelation!
Would boardmaker be good for my darling Cyclone that has so many problems with keeping atttention?
I've learnt that the hardest thing about the Aspy kids is alot of the issues come to head about the kinder/school years.....and when you look back there are things (like Spectronics? and Boardmaker?) that might have helped earlier. *sigh - I really understand about Early Intervention but when it takes so long to really know that it's more than just quirkiness *sigh *sigh *sigh
That's why with J it is really uncertain if it is me knowing too much or if there is really something there. Look up spectronics and boardmaker on the computer, and see what you think.. THere are some good boards that i could make you that would assist. I might even photograph a few of mine and send them to anyone who wants to take a look. Unfortunately I can't forward you the boards, as you must have boardmaker to open the document. It is about $900 to buy. Al lot of libraries have it. I have it at work, so have free usage.
Also you could think about looking in to having a DSR written and an ISP asking for support that you need. (for Vic only) or put his name down for casemanagement. Where you are Lu, it would be Care Connect. (I used to work there once upon a time)
I grew up in Mitcham, and worked at Irabina.
Also another good resource is to link in to Interchange. Out East it is Interchange Outer East. They run holiday programs, sibling support groups and mother/father weekends/nights away. They are awesome (Also volunteered with them for a number of years)
If you have any more questions Lulu, please just let me know.
I did story boards with Matilda last year. We used some of the boardmaker stuff & I incorporated it to work for us. I had a huge piece of cardboard and divided it into "Morning until lunch" Lunch to dinner and dinner to bed. I had pictures of what happened next and at night we "posted" the pictures back into the box. She settled a lot knowing what was happening next.
I also had a weekly calender where she could see what was happening the next day. It helped tremendously for her. We were pretty strict with it for a while, and I told all our friends that we couldn't plan things and then cancel for a month... because cancelling something is worse than having a short amount of lead up time.
Now we don't use it anymore, but we have a calender in her room with reminders of regular activities, i.e speech, OT, Swimming, church... etc etc.... I have when I work down for her because she struggles with my lack of routine.
Do you know what I hate?? (and I say this as a vent, because I know its not the most PC thing to say..... so please let me get it out).
I HATE the fact that I can't just throw my child a birthday party and let them be excited and happy and watch them have the joy associated with it. I HATE that the weeks leading up to it are full of anxiety and stress and the poor child is besides herself most of the time. I HATE that the party itself becomes trying to keep her together and then the few days afterwards are full of meltdowns. No matter how much OT we do, no matter how much preparation, how much talking about how it is going to happen, no matter....
She has thanked me for an awesome party, and that is what is most important, that she had fun. But I am grieving the fact that its that much more difficult for her to enjoy fun things that are especially for her. our poor kids... the anxiety they have to go through to do anything special...
I hear you babe, I wanted Riley to have a maccas party- then I weighed up the fact that he couldn't have the fries and that he would no doubt lose it completely and decided to have 2 friends at the park.
I think you are allowed to grieve what might have been.
mrsmac - I just had Mitchells at maccas at 10am Sat morning. He had 3 friends and the entire playground to themselves. Are the brekky dishes ok for Riley?
We still had 2 days of 'coming down' from it though
our poor kids... the anxiety they have to go through to do anything special... 
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