In his own words

"i like thomas and freinds and i like spongebob i have thomas toys i also like angry birds"

~ found on Bitty's "user information" on the flipnote website. Too cute (and quite fitting, no?) Just had to share.

:)

On a related note, here are a couple of his latest flipnotes.

He figured out how to take sequential pictures and make movie-style flipnotes with them. These are all pictuers of his toys. Pretty creative if you ask me!





This one he narrated himself, I love his voice (and wow he is speaking more and more clearly)! He's quoting a lot of it from "Oliver the Western Engine" in which Oliver gets stuck in a turntable well. I have to give him credit, he couldn't find his wooden Oliver train so he improvised and used another one to play the role of Oliver in his pictures. I was impressed that although he was a little stressed out about it (and keeps asking me where Oliver is, unfortunately I don't have a clue), he was able to come up with his own workaround.




(he changed his username to "spike fan," I don't really know why...)

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Overheard...

Various conversations and comments from the last couple of weeks:


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Cuddlebug (reading billboard): 'Red Bull gives you wings'... I wish that was true, because I really want to fly...

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Bearhug: Time machines won't be invented in my lifetime, because if they were I would've come back to say hi to myself by now. I would do it at this time because right now is when I'm interested in time machines.

Hard to argue with his logic, huh? :)

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Bearhug: "Do you know where I can learn telekinesis?"

me: No...

Bearhug: "Daaaarrrnn!!"

lol :)

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Cuddlebug: "I recommend you don't ever lick the bottom of my shoes. (pause) I don't use my hands to flush the handles of public toilets, I use my shoes."

Good thing I don't make a habit of licking the bottom of his shoes... not sure why he thought to tell me that. Eewww :/

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Bitty's latest thing is "are you just kidding?" whenever we say something he doesn't agree with or answer a question in a way that he finds unacceptable. Sometimes we just can't convince him otherwise, so we finally have to go with, "uh, yeah, we were just kidding..." ;)

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Bitty: I wike Thomas, do I? Because he's awesome!!! But [CB & BH] don' fink he's awesome do they? Is Thomas awesome? Am I seven to wike Thomas?

Cuddlebug and Bearhug have been giving him a hard time about the fact that he likes Thomas ("Thomas is for babies!" "I not a baby! I'm a big boy!") but as I keep reminding them, they were really into Thomas when they were 7 too, so Thomas IS for big boys.

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Biology, according to Bitty

Bitty often asks me out of the blue what certain words mean. Because of his language difficulties, he doesn't always pick up on "context clues" and he has a strong preference for concrete, easy-to-visualize explanations.

I do my best, but my walking-dictionary-on-the-fly skills sometimes fall short.

Bitty: What does "born" mean?

me: You mean like when babies are born?

Bitty: When I was born.

me: It means you came out of my tummy. Babies are in their mommies' tummies before they are born.

Bitty: I was in your tummy?

me: Yep

Bitty: Did you eat me?

(groan, HOW did I not see that one coming?!)

me: No, honey, babies grow in their mommies' tummies and when they are big enough to be born, they come out of the tummies.

Bitty: I don't want to go in your tummy.

me: That's ok, because you're already born. You've been out of my tummy since you were a little baby.

Bitty: Was I born?

me: Yes

Bitty: So I not in your tummy anymore?

me: No, you're a big boy now, way too big to be in my tummy.

Bitty: Do mommies eat da babies? To put dem in da tummies?

me: *NO*, no one eats the babies, they're in the tummies to grow.

Having been through some of these discussions w/ Cuddlebug and Bearhug, I had my explanation all ready to go as to how babies get IN and OUT of tummies, but he wasn't having it (after all, when you're convinced you already know something, who needs mom trying to explain it to you, right?). So I tried to change the subject.

I had a lightbulb moment yesterday when I realized that his coming to that conclusion probably had something to do with this little chat earlier that same day as we were eating lunch:

Bitty: Does my tummy have a mouf?

me: No, the food goes from your mouth, down to your tummy.

Bitty: Where does da food go after da tummy? to da WEE-WEEEE??

(yeah, I'm sure the elderly couple behind us enjoyed that little anatomy lesson, lol)

Two completely unrelated topics in my mind, but in hindsight I guess I can see how he put two and two together... :/

He's asked me about it again a few times since then, at random moments:

Bitty: Mom? I don't want to be in your tummy.

me: I know, don't worry you're not going to be in my tummy anymore.

Bitty: Because I was born, was I?

me: Yep.

Bitty: Are you gonna eat me? To put me in your tummy?

me: NNOOO, no I'm not.

I'm thinking maybe I should have dh add a little biology to the mix for his summer homeschool lessons - to illustrate the difference between the digestive system and the reproductive system. Maybe the visuals will help.

In the meantime, I just hope he doesn't decide to start asking questions like that the next time he sees a pregnant woman (sigh).

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School / IEP update for Bitty

A while back I posted about some of the difficulties Bitty has been having in school.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, we had a meeting with the school to review his IEP and discuss changes to help better meet his needs. We learned that he was basically requiring almost constant one-on-one support from the resource teacher / parapros in his class which isn't really what they are set up to do. The challenge comes down to communication - if the subject is straightforward and doesn't require much verbal explanation he does great. Spelling, for example. He is a spelling kung fu master :). On the other hand, any subjects or new topics that require verbal explanation are quite difficult, not because he can't understand the subject matter, but because he struggles with language. He's a fast learner and that has helped him to keep up as well as he has, but the whole situation was really stressing him out because he recognized that most of his classmates did not share his struggle to understand what was being said, or what was being asked when the teacher would ask questions.

His teachers suggested he might do better in a smaller class setting, at least for the core subjects, and we agreed to put him in a self-contained ASD class for part of the day (almost half the day when you add up the hours) for math, reading, and writing. For the rest of the subjects he is still in his regular ed class with resource support. It's a much smaller class where all the kids have similar issues and the teachers have the flexibility to tailor to the kids' pace and individual needs much more than in the larger classroom. They also do activities like morning yoga since the physical activity helps the kids focus for learning (honestly, I think all kids would probably benefit from something like that, not just kids on the spectrum). We'll reassess later this year when we update his IEP for next year.

He started in his new class after the Thanksgiving break and so far it is really working out well. His anxiety level is considerably less, he no longer cries about having to go to school and he is doing well academically. He's back to getting all 1's on his daily reports (they have a scale from 1-4 for how he does at staying on task and following instructions with minimal reminders, etc.). It's been hard to see him struggle so much, and although I wish it wasn't so hard for him I'm grateful he's getting the support he needs and relieved that he's back to feeling positive about school.

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Language barrier & school struggles

We had teacher conferences last month. All in all, it went well, especially for Cuddlebug and Bearhug. They are working really hard and doing great - all A's and B's (mostly A's!) :) and they are thriving in their accelerated classes.

Bitty is also working really hard but he is struggling more with school this year than he has in the past. I'm grateful that his teachers "get" autism and understand the source of his difficulty is language related and not cognitive or attention related.

His teacher shared her concern that he is really struggling with anything that requires verbal explanations or verbal interaction. It's something we've been aware of for long time (obviously), but in 1st grade there is more of a need for language skills to be able to keep up with the class. His teachers have all noted that he is very bright and catches on quickly with anything that is not language-intensive.

The best analogy I can think of is someone who is going to school in a foreign country, and they aren't exactly fluent in the native language... they have the added challenge of trying to keep up with conversations and translate instructions so they can understand what is expected.

That's pretty much where Bitty is at. The good news is, he is not being disruptive or having behavior issues when he runs into difficulty following what the class is doing. The not-so-good news is, he is basically zoning out when that happens. They're working with him to raise his hand and ask questions when he doesn't understand something, but often he just tunes out and ends up either not responding, repeating back the question, or saying "I don't know" when asked a question (the "I don't know is fairly new, he's been working on that as a more appropriate response than repeating back the question since last year).

He comes home with a daily communication sheet with the day broken out into the various activities and subjects that they work on every day and feedback on how he did during each. There's a 4-point scale, with 1 meaning he was able to work independently or with minimal reminders and 4 meaning he need LOTS of reminders to follow instructions and stay on task. He started out getting mostly 1's and 2's but as the school year progressed we started to see more and more 3's, and then 4's.

His teachers often write in the comments that his behavior is fine, it's just a matter of not seeming to understand what is expected or not being able to appropriately respond to questions (eg. answer questions about a book they read during reading time). He tends to do better earlier in the day (but not always) so I think to some extent it just takes a lot of effort and his capacity to put forth that level of effort starts to wear thin as the day goes on. But beyond that I have come to believe that there are situations where he truly does not understand what is being taught due to the language barrier.

He has started asking us on a regular basis what words mean. It's great that he can do that now but I am sometimes surprised by the words he asks about, having assumed he already knew them. And I find it difficult sometimes to explain what one word means without having to define it with another word he doesn't understand. When you think about it, in order to understand the dictionary you have to be starting from a basic understanding of the language.

Anyway, so dh and I discussed and decided that since we know that both his regular ed and resource teacher are well aware of the issue and are working with him on it, we'd see how he did over the next few weeks and if things didn't improve we'd approach them to see if we may need to consider adjusting his level of support.

Well, we didn't end up needing to suggest that, his resource teacher called me last week to say that she and his speech teacher wanted to schedule an IEP review to consider increasing his services at school to better meet his needs.

This is why I love our school - we've been fortunate that most of the teachers we've worked with over the years so far understand autism and they are proactive about meeting students' needs. (it's also a big part of why I'm nervous about the transition to middle school next year - a whole new environment, but keeping our fingers crossed).

We're scheduled to meet next Monday, I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, we're working with him at home also and trying to use visuals and hands-on learning as much as possible. That's nothing new as all of our kids learn better that way, but we're kind of in new territory with Bitty as his delays are more pronounced. Suggestions welcome.

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Conversations with Bitty

Bitty asked me one evening as I took him upstairs to tuck him in for bed, "does me hab schoo tomowwow?"

I couldn't help but smile, his wording is too cute but it is also an indicator of just how far he's come with his speech and communication skills. You may notice that he didn't say, "do YOU hab schoo tomowwow?"

After a LOT of time and effort, he uses the pronoun "you" correctly most of the time now, meaning referring to the person he's speaking to and not to himself.

It didn't occur to me that there would be a "next step" of differentiating between I and me (is the English language complicated or what?!) until we started hearing sentences like the one I started this post with:

"Does me hab schoo tomowwow?"
"Iss me sick?" (he had to stay home from school a couple of days this week as he was running a fever, he's feeling better now).

Other times (usually at the beginning of a sentence now that I think of it) he does great:

"I don' WIKE DAT!" (we hear that one a lot, sigh)
"I not hungry"

However he decides to word things, I remain infinitely grateful that he is (mostly) willing and able to communicate with us. It means the world to have some insight into what he's thinking (even though sometimes he still leaves us guessing).

He often likes to ask questions that we think he already knows the answer to. Maybe he likes the reassurance of hearing the answers again, maybe he's just making conversation.

For example, he drives his brothers crazy asking things like "do you wike Pokemon?", "wha'ss you fay-brit cuh-wer? Iss wed you fay-brit cuh-wer?" or "do you wike Kirby-right-back-at-YA?" (a cartoon that apparently went off the air years ago but still lives on YouTube).

If he deems the answer "unacceptable" he can be very persistent (ie. when Cuddlebug tried to tell him he doesn't have a favorite color). That can lead to some funny conversations, like Cuddlebug making up random names for colors that don't exist because he refuses to just pick a color and Bitty refuses to stop asking until he gets a satisfactory answer.

Bitty still tends to ignore us at times, and it can take a LOT of effort and repetition to get any kind of response when we are trying to ask him something or initiate a conversation with him. Or (gasp!) trying to get him to do something.

But other times he will actually seek us out and I am loving these little interactions:

Bitty, to me: "Iss Kirby a pink ball?" (grinning)
me: "Yes, Kirby is a big pink ball."
Bitty: "Does Mom wike Kirby?"
me: "Of course I love Kirby, he's one of my favorite characters!"
Bitty smiles in response.
me: "Do YOU like Kirby?"
Bitty smiles even bigger, nodding his head emphatically with a huge grin. Priceless :)

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