Little Wins

This week has been somewhat difficult. For most of this week, Pod hasn't said a word, and I had a potentially serious Dr's appointment looming that I really didn't want to go to.

The umpteen flash cards I made her also became a focus, not for what was on them, but so she could order them and arrange them in lines. Of course, I didn't give them to her *all* at once, but they're now pretty controlled and I'm introducing them far slower than before.

On Wednesday we went to the storytime at the library again, and I picked up some books on ASL to increase my vocabulary. This time, she was happy to sit on me for the whole session as opposed to dancing or going on little missions to steal books from the storyteller. She didn't seem upset or disturbed, just contented to be where she was.

However this week hasn't been all filler and no killer, we've also had some little wins too.

Throughout the week, we've had some nice wins with the schedule, it does seem to be a nice stress reducer for her. She also clearly understands what each card means and the timeline, so that's a plus.

On Wednesday she started to knock back on the 'Knock Knock Box'. The 'Knock Knock Box' is this awesome activity that E brought around that's designed to increase her capacity for cooperative play. Basically, it's a box, with various items in it that are connected to sound. For example, there are toy horses inside (among lots of other things), and their sound (the sound I'm looking to get Pod emulating), is neighing. The box has a few rules, like I remain in control of the box, one item at a time, and each activity is initiated with me knocking on the box and saying 'Knock Knock'. Pod is then to knock back on the box, and then we sign/say "Open up", before opening up the box and getting one of the items out. Before, she didn't knock on the box, I had to get her hand and move it to knock, but on Wednesday, she actually knocked on the box. I then moved her hands to sign "open" and continued with the rest of the game. She still doesn't say any other things or make other noises in the game (except for shrieks of delight when I blow up a balloon and let it go), but still, it's a nice step in the cooperative area.

Last night she said the first word she's said in days, "TV".

Today, she came to me and signed 'want' at me, I don't know what she wanted, and she just patted me like I was a simpleton and then walked off.  We were working with flashcards earlier (telling today's story) and she said "TV" a few times, and "Teeth" (there are cards for 'watch TV' and 'Brush your teeth'), she also showed that she understood which one was which by pointing to the correct one when I asked her to show me (for example) 'go for a walk'. This makes me think that maybe down the line, I can use flashcards to teach her her alphabet. I'm also getting inklings of how to maybe teach her to read, but again, that's massively down the line, I think. I also laid them out in front of her and asked her what she wanted to do after she finished her lunch, and she pointed to the 'go to sleep' card.

She also gave me her 'more' flashcard when she wanted more food earlier, and I've introduced three more for her to carry with her for communication, 'Hello', 'I love you', and 'Follow me'. She pointed to each several times and I said them, then I used them to show her communicating 'Hello', and 'I love you'. She copied me, but we'll see if she understood what I was doing. When my husband gets home, I'll rope him into helping to model the purpose of these cards.

Earlier today, I was looking back at my memories from a year ago on Facebook, a year ago, Pod was saying words - in fact, a year ago today she Marco Polo'ed her dad! It's so easy to look back then and see the stuff she used to say, and compare her to younger children who are already forming sentences, and get so disheartened. That's really so easy to do. I mean, at the library a week ago, there was a little girl who was almost the same age as Pod who could read, like actually read. Now I know that there's no point in comparing children and that all kids are different and grow at different rates, but sometimes you can't help it, and sometimes you can't help but worry about it. All I ever seem to do now is worry.

But then Pod will do something.

Like come to me with two bottles, one that she likes and the other that she doesn't, and get me to transfer water from the one she dislikes into the one she likes.

Or she'll let me comb her hair without freaking out.

Or we'll have a cluster of those little wins.

And I'll feel a little less worried, a little more encouraged, and a little more like all of this could just work out in the end.

I think it's the little wins that keep us going.

Picture Communication Card Resources

Yesterday Pod and I met with E at the library to look at ways of supporting Pod during storytime. Unfortunately it was far busier than usual and so that, plus the addition of E at the session was quite disorienting for Pod.

E showed me some ways of helping her participate and not feel as worried around other children - which was good, and she also put me onto some great online resources for picture communication cards.

Today, the laminator arrived, so guess what I'm going to be doing tonight? This is reminding me of my days as an ESL teacher when I would make my own teaching mats. Print, cut, laminate, repeat.

So, here are some flashcard/picture communication card resources that I've found:

Super Simple Learning - E put me on to this resource, the flashcards are really nicely designed and often coupled with songs. However, when I went to download them, each flashcard was A4 sized. For teachers with a classroom full of kids that want to see, this is great, but for a mum just wanting to help her kid, it's a little much.

Kids Pages Flashcards - This is a fabulous page for action flashcards and basically any material for maybe creating a sequence of events to help explain what's going to happen to your child. There are so many different categories and for the most part, I think they're well designed. I also printed a few random 'round the house' type flashcards for a scavenger game idea I had (to check comprehension and vocabulary).

Practical Autism Resources - There are some communication gems in this collection. Many thanks to my friend Susan for the heads up on this one. Flashcards are photos rather than cartoons, which is also nice.

Living Well With Autism - My kid has no diagnosis, but it's really impressive how many resources Autism support groups have put together. I really like this pragmatic language board, I can see it being very useful.

We had another 'win' for the schedule yesterday (some of the above cards are going to also be used for making schedule v2.0). Bath time is an issue for Pod, and so I tried using the schedule to let Pod know what was happening. I went through it with her, and then said/signed "Ok?", and she nodded yes! She was still upset during her bath, I tried to use the emotions card that E gave me to ask her how she felt, but there was none for 'scared' and she was too wrapped up in her feelings anyway. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Speaking of the emotions card, she also indicated to 'calm' (at dinner), and 'tired'.

I'm counting those as 'wins'.