Story Time

A recent achievement of Matt has been in reading. It has improved a lot in the last 2 months since he joined a class of regular kids. Although previously he could read individual words, he now reads sentences! In the last couple of months, he's begun to read to us. He would get a book, either Spot Goes to School or Teachers Are For Reading Stories and sit down in front of us in his little chair. He would open the books so it faced us and read the lines. An audience is required, so we sit and let him read, correcting him gently when he reads a word wrong. His little sister got the hint and she now sits down excitedly in front of kuya when she sees him get a book from the shelf of kids' books.

I guess Matt wants to do it like the teachers do during story time at school. Just this morning, since I was busy in reading email, he sat down in front of his sister and read Spot Goes to School. She would repeat the lines right after kuya said them. My wife did try to let him read Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs & Ham, but he still couldn't follow it much. The rhythmical repeating word patterns seemed to confuse him. Eventually though we hope that as he expands his vocabulary he will be able to read more complex sentences.

He has terrific 'picture' memory in that he remembers words by the patterns of the letters, not the letters themselves. I remember when he was still very young that he was often able to recognize brand names because they often appear in TV ads. It was easy for him to recognize Sony, JVC, Samsung, LG, Canon or Nokia. We soon discovered that if we change the color and fonts on say the word "SAMSUNG" he couldn't recognize it right away. So I guess kids like him really do read in 'pictures'. Even words are pictures for them.

We are excited that he is learning to read and he is doing it in a social way. We can't help but see that having a little sister has made it easier for Matt to open up.

Educating Children with Autism- NC School Sets Example

There's this great feature from WFMY News 2 about the progress of children with autism in a regular school. The story features Sam Johnson and Brightwood Elementary of North Carolina. It's a success story each parent with a child that has autism aspires to happen where they are. One is more support in regular schools for programs especially designed for children with autism. The other is an advocacy of parents that are being acted on by school boards.

Setting aside teaching resource for children with autism can be expensive. Teachers have to be equipped with proper training and teacher-student ratio has to be low enough so they could really focus on each child. They also need separate classrooms so these children can work with their teachers in environment that's free of distractions.

For more information on Sam's story and his school, please go to
http://www.digtriad.com/news/education/article.aspx?storyid=140683&catid
=164 and watch the video.

The Beginnings of Summer

Tomorrow is the last day of this school year for Matthew. They're having a party of sorts which will double as a recognition day. Since they're a small school, organizing small events like that is much more appropriate than renting a large space and doing formal recognition programs.

In a bit of good news, he will be joining a class of regular kids this summer. His teachers have seen enough improvement that they recommended it. His learning has picked up and according to his teachers bringing him back to an environment with regular kids might help speed that up more. They also want to get him to become more social by interacting with regular kids.

Although Matthew is 7, he will be joining a pre-school class. The same teachers will be teaching though. When he was in a Prep class at his previous school, he had one kid he liked to hang out with, but was never with friends that he talked or played with. In the past year that has changed somewhat. He now plays with other kids, though not at the social level of play that kids his age are at. He now tries to start conversations, although to someone who doesn't know him all too well, it may be confusing. He still refers to himself in the third person at times, or asks a question when what he wants is for you to ask him that question. He repeats often-used phrases but never really says things in his own words. These are quirks in conversation that  a person not living with him or teaching him would find odd or difficult to deal with.

We are hopeful though that getting him in a class of regular kids will help him improve his social skills. At this age, that is one thing that we need to concentrate on. We are past the critical point, 7-years old. From here on, we are working to teach him skills so he can start doing things on his own.