Tuesday we tried something with J-Man’s OT called “Therapeutic Listening” (officially, it’s a trademarked term by somebody). You may have come across this under terms like ‘auditory therapy’, ‘auditory training’, ‘listening therapy’, and a host of other terms. I don’t understand how all this works very well at all, and there are different approaches to make things more complicated in learning about it. Here are some sites that give you an overview. I’d suggest reading them in this order: Vital Links (about Therapeutic Listening ®), Tomatis, Berard AIT, and Samonas (whose website layout is a mess, but that’s another matter).

From what I gather, the above methods vary some from one to the other. The following describes what we did for Therapeutic Listening on Tuesday. Any similarities between my description and the actual science and technical bases for any of these methods may be pure luck on my part. Like I said, this is new to me. It’s the end result that left me astonished, and plenty fascinated to learn more about this.

[Read more →]

I came across what may be the best web tool to come out in a long time.

A handful of Internet saints invented StupidFilter, open-source filter software that you’ll be able to use in blogs, community sites, or wherever to filter out stupidity in things like comments. I’m serious.

So as a test, I went to their demo and plugged in Michael Savage’s profane statement, “It’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.”

StupidFilter’s analysis?

“Text is likely to be stupid.”

Well, I think that settles it.

Now go read my other post and contact his sponsors. Thanks!

I’m one of the first people to encourage other parents to chuck the milestones books out the window. The ones that tell you what your child should be doing at 75.34 weeks to me do little except make you increase your antacid budget every month. The obvious exception to this is that if you suspect that your child is very delayed in one or more areas, go figure that out both through reading and with your pediatrician and other professionals. There’s a big difference between being 1.8 weeks behind and 18 months behind.

This is probably a blinding flash of the obvious for parents of kids with delays, but after a few months in Early Intervention and therapies and whatnot, you completely lose touch with what ‘developmentally normal’ is. It really is a time warp. At this point, I would have a hard time telling you how far behind our son is. We’re doing things on J-Man Daylight Time and ignoring how most of the rest of the planet tells time. He’ll do it when he does it, has become our motto (at least on our good days).

With J-Man showing some exceptional skills in some areas in the midst of being very delayed on most everything else, we’ve felt the need to go back and figure out what ‘normal’ is for an almost-three-year-old. At a parenting level, I’m not sure how much I’m concerned about this at this point. Like I said, he’ll get there when he gets there, at least I keep telling myself that. However, for purposes of getting him into preschool and doing his IEP, we need to get some handle on where he is (that Present Levels of Performance thing - with the wonderful acronym PLOP).

It’s hard to find to milestones charts that translate well into autism-ese. The obvious problem is that your autistic toddler could easily be two or more years plus or minus what is developmentally ‘normal’ for a three-year-old on these charts. He or she will likely be scattered all over the chart. You have to transpose quite a bit with them, but after thinking through it a bit, I still could get a rough idea.

At the bottom of this post are some links I found to help us get started. Hopefully they’re useful to you as well. I can’t vouch for their complete accuracy or anything, but they’re consistent enough with each other for what I was looking for.

I did discover that J-Man’s letter identification is probably on par with a level of 4-5 years old (he’ll be 3 in a couple of months if you just got here), just minus the ability to say some of them. If he’s in a relaxed state, he can point to any letter you ask for. Lowercase still confuses him for a good half of the letters, but that’s understandable. He’s getting there with numbers and has consistently identified five colors (again, when he’s in a relaxed state). With colors, I usually give him three to choose from (solid-color, construction paper squares) and ask him to point to ‘red’ or whatever. If he goes 10/10, he’ll get the proverbial gold star and we’ll start trying to identify colors in other contexts.

[Worth nothing that if you say something like "point to the green frog" he just stares at the floor. Combining a color and an object - 'green frog' - is too much to sort through as he has to figure out what's green and what's a frog at the same time. So, we just do "point to green" at this point.]

The key is the ‘relaxed state’. If he’s calm, he can do this stuff one to two years beyond age level. Otherwise, it’s a lost cause. Hitting that sweet spot is hard, which is as much the battle as anything. This is totally a sensory processing issue, which we’re working on constantly.

OK, enough of my rambling on. Here are the links I stumbled on. These center on speech, language, and literacy milestones. If you know of others, let us know.

http://www.capitolent.net/speech-milestones.htm

http://www.horizonspeechcenter.com/milestones.html

http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/lilm/early_literacy/preschool/milestones3-5.html

http://www.childcarelounge.com/articles/xlearningleteracy.htm

[Many good things have been happening at Chez Flashlight in the last 24 hours. Mary decided to make S'mores last night, and we have a guest poster! The expert commenter known as Gigi and her daughter Stephanie are about to wow you with some brilliant, valuable advice about Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

Gigi is a retired special needs teacher and guidance counselor of 31 years. Stephanie is a speech language pathologist (SLP). So you know you're getting top-notch information here. We're honored to have you two post this. Thank you!! - Tim]

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If someone has not yet given you a copy of your rights through IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), ask for a copy, which they are required to give you. This is your bible and you should never attend an IEP meeting without it. Here is a link to download the most recent (2007) pdf format Resource Guide for Parents. Other IDEA highlights are noted throughout.

Although IDEA is federal, every state is required to have a Protection and Advocacy system. Check for yours at the national website at www.napas.org.

You have a right to see all the assessment results and meet with the assessor(s) BEFORE the first IEP meeting so you have time to absorb it and get questions ready.

Educators are famous for turning everything into acronyms (see IDEA above and many others below) and use them as if everyone knows what they all mean. If you don’t, ASK!! Every 5-8 years or so, all the “label names” are changed to more politically correct ones, so just as soon as you learn them, they’ll all change. Personally, I think they do this just to screw with us.

Follow your gut. If something sounds fishy or not quite right, it probably isn’t. Ask questions, make requests in writing to keep the IEP team accountable, and don’t take no for an answer the first time. You might even tape record the meeting to keep everyone on their toes. Some IEP teams will be pretty ticked off by this and there may be much eye-rolling. Smile and insist. Remember – they may be the education experts, but YOU are an expert on your kid!

If you request a particular service and are told it is not possible or that your child does not qualify for it, stand firm. Request the assessment for that supports the need for the service you request. If the results don’t jive with what you think your kid needs, you have the right to request an IEE (Independent Education Evaluation) provided at PUBLIC EXPENSE. Again, make that request in writing.

The primary goal of the IEP meeting is to place your kid in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). This is especially important if full or partial inclusion in a regular classroom is likely and/or desired. Optimally, full inclusion with modifications should be the initial goal, working back to more restrictive options as needed. MEASURABLE goals and objectives should be written BEFORE placement is determined. In fact, it should shape how placement is determined. Modifications can range from providing an aide to providing visual cues, speech therapy, etc.

As I read through this list, it struck me that most of these tips either hint or scream at an adversarial relationship with the school district. Let me hasten to point out that most school districts really do the right thing, really have your kid’s best interest at heart and are really there to help you. They have been through this process many, many times before, to the point where it sometimes seems rote or rubber stamped. You may only need to gently remind them that although this is their 1,648th IEP, it’s your first. Knowing your rights is your responsibility to your kid, nonetheless.

(This is Stephanie talking now-Gigi’s daughter, the SLP).

The only things I have to add is regarding the specific goals/objectives, etc. More than likely they will be written before the meeting. If you don’t agree, want to add more, etc, it may seem time consuming and you may need to meet again, but it is possible.

Also, you mentioned that you were concerned about how to make the skills that J-man is showing (i.e. naming letters, colors, etc) into functional goals for the IEP and how to generalize them to naming other items. I may be totally off on this, but I do believe this is fairly common with kids with autism. I think it has to do with the fact that letters, colors, numbers are considered “rote” naming or rote memory and that naming other objects is more of “labeling”. I can’t remember the reason behind it, but the teachers will probably be familiar with this type of learning and memory and will help to incorporate that into his goals. AND those skills are very functional for a pre-school classroom, so it should all go hand in hand.

About AAC devices (augmentative and assistive communication), I know that the IEP process is different in each state, however I do believe that every IEP has a section that asks about assistive communication evals, or have all appropriate evals be completed (may not specifically say AAC). You can have that sections checked and then they are required to do an AAC eval (separate from the typical speech eval, etc.

As far as the actual eval and devices, I would recommend that several devices be tried out with J-man before anything is chosen. There is a TON of different types, software, vocabulary that should be looked at to figure out which one would best suit him. I know that some companies will even rent them out to see if they work for a specific child. I know that this is a long process and you may get frustrated, but keep with it if it’s what you feel is best for him. PLEASE feel free to ask me any other questions!!

I stumbled across an online store that sells printer toner and ink and then donates 5% of every sale to organizations that support research and issues related to autism. It goes by the straightforward name Toner for Autism.

There’s been some confusion in the autistiblogosphere (I made that up) about where their money goes, but by the accounts I’ve read, this store seems legit and the prices are certainly competitive. Given the personal stake one of the founders has in this since his daughter is autistic, there’s great promise here, and I appreciate their goal of raising at least $1 million.

With most anything like this, people are right to wonder what charities they might be supporting with their shopping. Their site didn’t seem particularly forthcoming with that information. So I thought I’d put this out there and see if anyone else knew.

I’ve taken a couple of days off (off by my standards at least) from the computer for mental health reasons. Once I get caught up, I’ll contact them and see. In the meantime, if anyone knows more about them or has bought from them, I’d love to hear your experience. I’d like to be able to recommend them, but always want to make sure and vet these things first.

Also, if you know of other businesses who donate percentages of sales to autism charities, we’d love to hear about them.

I totally geeked out on this site when we were trying to name J-Man back in the day. (2 1/2 years ago, ack!)

The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager is something to behold. Just type in a name (at the blinking square next to the “>”) and the chart refreshes like crazy to show you the popularity of a given name - or part of a name - over time.

No, we’re not expecting another one. I was browsing through some old bookmarks and saw this. It’s a classic!

Frightening fact: Lemon and Orange were popular enough to be ranked around the 1900s.