Moving forward

Today was the day of our ABA team meeting. We have a team meeting every month, where all Jaden's team of therapists and supervisor will meet up together with me, discuss about his developments in his sessions and everything that happened during class / after class hours.

The past two team meetings and today's, which means in these three team meetings, I have been hearing praises from his therapists that he is picking up really fast in things they teach him to do and of course, the first few sessions of trying out new things would be tagged along with screams of tortures. Yes, that is how dramatic my little one can get. He would scream as if he is being tortured inside class, whereas its only one of the most normal stuff like pulling or rolling things or touching wet paint. 

Some of you might not understand why we would need Jaden to touch all these things. That is because most of these autistic children has sensory issue and to desensitize him from all these, he has to get use to them, and soon, once he familiarized with them, it might be even a way to make him feel at ease, comfort. It is somewhat similar to how a child would need his pacifier to sleep or bring his bolster wherever he goes. So to desensitize Jaden's sensory issue is very very important.

Jaden has mastered matching things almost perfectly and currently, we are doing a scanning program. The therapist will be holding lets say a balloon in her hands, and then she will ask Jaden to hand her the balloon which is lying on the tables with 5-10 other things. He needs to see what she is holding in order to match the right one on the table and hand it over to her. From there, once he master that, they will just try to say balloon without showing what they are holding and hopefully, by then he will understand which items on the table is the right one that the therapist is asking for.

We will also be including non-identical matching, just to challenge his mind. 

Non-identical + Matching = ? (doesn't make sense right? :p)

Well, its like ex: socks - He has to pick out from 15-20 items on the floor and hand it to his therapists, daddy's, his socks, and baby sock.. just to see if he can match them although they are of different sizes or shapes. As long as he understands the word and maybe, if I am lucky (although I think I am asking too much of him at this very stage) that he understands what are the functions of the things the therapists requested for.

I told my ABA supervisor that the next goal for my son, which I want to set is to let him feed himself independently using spoon. So that he can feed himself his meals. (Self-help program)

So guess this month is the month we are going to do that and we shall see how the reports come back next month when we have our team meeting again. 

Jaden has learn how to zip and unzip, wear and take off pants, wear and take off socks, wipe hands dry and most probably next month, I am going to ask them to teach him how to wear his shirt. 

Potty training is still going on, but we move on up to another level. This time, we bring him to the toiletbowl to pee instead, unless someone is using the toilet, then only he will be allowed to pee inside his potty. So far, he has been doing well. *touch wood I don't jinx it by saying it*

I am supposed to call up this dental clinic and make an appointment to have Jaden's teeth checked out as he has one tartar-ed covered teeth on his upper gum. *sigh* I didn't remember me having to go to the dentist that young.. and the best thing, he ain't eating anything sweet too. So maybe its just tartar and not some decaying tooth . That would be really scary, wouldn't it. Just wondering how he will behave at the clinic but luckily, the dentist is a family friend who totally understands his situation, so I guess I won't have a new person eyeing me badly for a kid who does not sit still. 

Thats about it, his updates for now. :)