First Day of School….Here We Come!
I remember when Yester was first diagnosed. I wondered, what kind of school placement I’d see him in. Would he be in a special day class? Was he destin to always be with lower functioning Autistic children? Towards the end of his last school placement I became more and more concerned. The thought of no summer school placement scared the hell out of me! I will absolutely be ready for next years IEP on summer school placement. We walked into a bright and lively classroom but still full of students Yester had never met. He had left all of his other friends behind when he moved on. He noticed the alphabet carpet right away and chose the letter “C” to sit on. As each kid came in he waited with anticipation to see which letter they were going to sit on. He made sure he yelled out to all the other kids. “Look mom, she sat on letter F.” I am truly convinced that I might be witnessing some form of hyperlexia. We’ve shown Yester the alphabet but, we’ve never shown him how to draw it or build them. I thought you readers might enjoy a picture of what I’m talking about up top.All the kids filtered in and the teacher began to go around the circle and ask the kids their names. She got to Yester, “Hello, what’s your name?” With conviction and as we had practiced in our ABA therapy many times, “My name is Yester.” I stood back, grinning, with the bigger side of my smile on the inside. I was so proud of how far we’ve come since December of 2005. She gave Yester a name tag and pinned it to his shirt. He looked down at it and said, “Awesome!” All the other parents laughed and looked at him with that, “Ahhh…he’s so cute!”
Transitioning was difficult the first day….to be expected. A little bit of stimmy behavior had been reported….also to be expected. Overall, I think Yester had a great first day. He even helped the teacher finish the story about the “Hungry Catapillar”. His teacher has already started joking with him saying, “Yester are you ready for kindergarten? Do I need to walk you over there right now? You already know all this stuff!” I could be concerned about the curriculum, knowing Yester has already spent a year in pre-K vs. the kids in his class now who most likely, have never been in pre-K but, I’m not. I love that the curriculm will be an alternative focus at best.
Tod and I have had many discussions about Yester’s academic skills; something we’re not worried about. However, the social skills are this years educational focus. Social thinking and guessing, oberservation, eye contact, and reading facial ques. Sequencing, relationship categories, and moving into more thoughtful concepts. All of these things will give Yester the social building blocks he needs to deal with these typical children. The other special needs children included a child with some sort of Down Syndrome or Fragile X and a child with a helmet. The rest were mixed into the group and I couldn’t have told you who they were. It’s a great placement and really great step forward towards mainstreaming.
I will FOREVER preach that Yester is my “POSTER CHILD” for early intervention!
Woo hoo for hyperlexia! LOl. Just kidding. Sort of. Actually I feel like being advanced academically has been a huge benefit to Reed socially. Because the academics come so naturally to him, he is able to focus more of his school-time energy and attention on observing and mimicking the interactions of his classmates. He had a HUGE leap in social skills last year, and I’m optimistic about this year too. I have nothing but confidence that Yester will do just as brilliantly. I’m so glad to hear that this placement is holding up to your expectations so far. I know that was a concern for you initially. Great job, Mom. As usual, you always know what’s best for him. Now if we could just convince the schools and insurance companies of it, lol.