Well, what do you know? Look who had fun at the splash pad.
Simply Amazing
Yesterday, Sesame Street introduced their newest muppet, Julia, a character with Autism. Drawing attention to similarities among all children, they’ve developed an app and online videos to explain what it’s like to have autism from the viewpoint of a child with autism.
Their new site, Sesame Street and Autism (see amazing in all children) encourages others to celebrate the uniqueness of each and every child. http://autism.sesamestreet.org/ You can view or print social stories for every day tasks like teeth brushing, going to the store and trying new foods. http://autism.sesamestreet.org/daily-routine-cards/ Read more
He’s Learning
Josiah apparently has me fooled. I’ve been watching his ‘home bound’ teacher work with him at the hospital the past couple of days and this woman is a master. She is definitely calling the shots and he is responding. She makes me look like a novice.
Josiah threw flashcards on the floor. Quite a few of them. He was instructed to pick them up, but of course he didn’t. Immediately, his teacher withdrew her attention from him. She stopped talking, stepped back a few feet and refused to continue working with him until he picked up the cards.
The Great Outdoors
It only took a wheelchair, a gait belt (substituting as a seat belt) and a pack of fruit snacks to get this boy out in the sunshine yesterday. I set the timer on my phone to see how long he would make it. 22 minutes and 8 seconds. Not bad. Most of that time Josiah spent on the ground playing with his shiny purple beads. Some of that time he spent perched by the door, waiting and wanting to go back inside. None of that time was spent walking around or climbing the play structure or going down the slides. But it’s progress.
I spent most of that time snapping pictures. It only took 65 attempts to capture a good one.
Whatever It Takes
He let me stay. For nearly an hour I laid right beside Josiah on his hospital bed and we played with a string of bright, shiny, purple beads. I could hardly believe it myself, but here’s proof.
I held them high above his head for a while to give Josiah’s arm a break; my way of ensuring he wouldn’t push me out. I was well aware, those Mardi Gras beads were the priority in this scenario, not me. I just used them to my advantage. When I got tired, rather than taking the beads back, Josiah reached over and held my arm up.
I’m here to tell you guys, your prayers are working. Last week at this time, there is absolutely, positively no way Josiah would have let me get this close or even stay in his room for as long as I did Monday night. He was far more interested in pushing me away, punching himself in the head and slamming doors at that point.