Writing a letter

During the past few months, Buddy has made some big strides -- learning to ride his tricycle, learning to use the potty, learning to put words together in longer sentences. We've also been working with him on writing his name, as have his preschool teachers.

I've been doing a lot of hand-over-hand with him because his fine motor abilities are still pretty weak and drawing isn't a strength in those with WS. They tend to have visual-spatial difficulties (difficulty in recreating complex shapes -- for example, when drawing a house, they may draw a square in one place, the triangle for the roof in another spot on the page, and the rectangle for the door in still another spot on the page) which makes drawing difficult, as well.

We try to have a daily time where we draw and write on the white board my parents got him for Christmas. He likes using that more than coloring in coloring books or drawing on paper. His current favorite thing to draw is a "mixer" -- he's fascinated by KitchenAid mixers and likes to have us help him draw them. Writing his name is a necessary evil, in his eyes. He's not really into writting letters.

So I was understandably thrilled when he climbed on the chair this afternoon, grabbed his marker, and said, "Let's make a K." And then proceeded to write something -- on his own -- that actually resembled a K. He continues to surprise and encourage me.

And the cute vest that I ordered for him arrived today--now I just need to make some bean (or rice) bags to put in the pockets to turn it into a "weighted" vest.

Success

We put Buddy to bed tonight after having the first accident-free potty-training day. And there was great rejoicing.

"Participate in toileting routine" was one of his IEP goals for this year so his preschool teachers have been working with him, as well, over the past few months. I'm so thankful for Mrs. Karla who said about two weeks ago, "You know, we wouldn't have a problem if you decided to send him in underpants--we've dealt with this for years." I really didn't think it would go well or quickly but decided to listen to her words of wisdom and just do it. One week later and here we are.

 

Rest assured I'm under no delusions that there will never be another accident, and night-training is another animal entirely. But I'm so proud of our little guy, who I guess isn't so little any more.

Party Time

February 13 was the Valentine's Day party at Buddy's preschool (he only goes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

Last week, in preparation for the party, we (and by "we" I mainly mean me) filled out the V-day Elmo cards I'd bought and took them in so he could "mail" them to his friends.

Today, I (and Cubby) stayed with him since they'd asked for volunteers to help the kids read the cards and I had volunteered. It was enlightening to watch how he did at the various activities.

I've always thought that his attention span was comparable to others his age, but I got a healty dose of reality as I watched him fidget throughout circle time and need to have constant reminders by his teacher to sit on his pockets, to sit up, to pay attention -- all while the other boys and girls were docilely doing what they were supposed to be doing. Is there something we should or could do with him to increase his attention span in a classroom situation? I'll have to look into it.

At any rate, the party was fun and he got to decorate a huge heart-shaped cookie. Somehow, Buddydidn't inherit my sweet tooth, so his cookie went relatively untouched . . . until we got home, that is, when my sweet tooth took over and I, uh, "took care of" the cookie for him.

Another breakthrough

One of the speech goals on Buddy's IEP is "increase vocabulary to enable three- and four-word sentences." He will echo pretty much anything we say or sing and occasionally he'll say things on his own (not necessarily clearly), but today he said what may be the longest and clearest sentence I've ever heard from him -- six words!

Granted, his phrase was, "Wanna watch TV on the computer," but nevermind that part. He actually said what he meant and meant what he said -- and it was understandable.

And so, because he'd done such a good job, we did, in fact, watch TV on the computer, meaning we watched some YouTube videos of, in this case, tricycles and unicycles. Oh, and a few airplanes.

First day of preschool

Today was Buddy's first day of preschool (as if you couldn't tell by the title of the post).
In addition to giving them the goals we set for his IEP, I'd written a short note (Husband wouldn't let me write a long one, "You've said enough--you don't need to overwhelm them with information.") to the teachers about Buddy and the aspects of Williams syndrome that he deals with. I wanted them to be prepared for some of the behaviors unique to him (e.g., hands over his ears) but also wanted them to know that he can learn along with the other children and that we expect him to do his best.

From all accounts, it went well. His teacher called this evening to give me an update--he actually ate his snack, he covered his ears a few times (she said, "We just said, 'Thank you for reminding us that we're getting too loud.'"), he participated in all the activities, he especially liked the instruments they used during circle time, and in general, he seems like a happy kid (which he is). She was interested in teaching the other children empathy with his sensitive hearing, which I thought was a nice approach.

I asked him on the way home what he did at school and was pleasantly surprised when he answered, "Made a rabbit." He doesn't usually answer "what did you do today?" questions so I was thrilled that he was talking about his day. However, the craft I pulled out of his backpack was an igloo (this is letter I week). I suppose the cotton balls on the styrofoam plate could have been construed as "bunnyish" . . . .

Setting Goals

Buddy turns three soon, which means he'll be leaving the First Steps program and transitioning into our area's preschool special education program.

On Thursday, we went to the first (of many) IEP (individualized education program) meetings. It went well, in my opinion--although I don't really have any other meetings under my belt by which to judge it. And since this was the first, I considered it more about me learning the ropes of these meetings. (As an interesting aside, when the service coordinator requested Buddy's medical records from the children's hospital, she received them on a CD because there were over 500 pages of records.)

The results of their testing a few weeks ago were in agreement with the results we got from Dr. Mervis's team in Louisville--he's average/low-average in most areas. We really are thrilled that he's doing so well.

I was in agreement with most of the goals for fine motor and language that they had written for him, and the one I disagreed with, they willingly changed. (They wanted him to learn his colors, which he already knows.) I also wanted them to add a few goals for gross motor skills, which they did.

The reason for writing these goals is so that his preschool teacher will know what to work on with him and so that we can work on those same things at home. When I talked with the teacher last week about enrolling him there, she and her aide both seemed to have a good background in special education and speech therapy, and she was planning on learning more about Williams syndrome so that she could be prepared.

I'm looking forward to getting him started and seeing how he does in the classroom (it's a small group with six other typically developing kids).