The way it works here is that my eldest is mostly in a specialized center (institut médico-éducatif) which has a whole panel of specialists, from psychologists to occupational therapists. They do the bulk of his behavioral therapy and he has an aid for "regular" school. Depending on how he does (mostly from a behavioral point of view, so he doesn't disrupt class), they decide how much "regular" school time he gets.
That makes sense. It's similar at my son's school but it's all the same school. There is a different school nearby with a specialized program for more severe symptoms but some of the kids in the special class are more disruptive and spend most of their time in that class instead of mainstream.
You had made it sound like they just send him home to you the rest of the time!
Also, all it takes is for one key person to retire or quit and the whole program can go downhill instantly. I've heard of this happening in at least two places. It's scary.
We've gotten lucky I think with school but we saw this with early intervention. Really good therapist left and the next one was worse than nothing.
Thankfully, no, he's not home the rest of the time, although that was how it started out, before we managed to get a spot in a specialized center (took about a year). I work full time, I've always insisted on it, despite my ex husband's demands.
Is there any kind of Respite Worker program? Ours is managed through Child and Family Services - you might have some success going through them (speech therapy, occupational therapy, respite...), our case worker even coordinates with the school for EA (educational assistant - teachers’ aides) funding. It’s a god-send.
We’re in Canada, though - land of socialist Medicare, so ymmv.
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere in the 35 pages so forgive me from asking again. I have a 5 and a half year old diagnosed on the spectrum. Any video games recommendations for this age?
He likes Katamari on the iPad (the 3D one not the newer Touch Katamari version) but doesn't understand the goals. He just likes rolling things up. He does great on the controls, I could never play it on the iPad like he does. He also somewhat likes temple run, fruit ninja, and matching games. He also gets a pretty good beat going on a drum app.
I've shown him a handful of console games but grasps them less than the iPad games, especially the controls. He likes watching Rocket League but given the chance to play he just makes the car go forward and refuses to steer without any interest in hitting the ball or anything. He can do this for 10-20 minutes without getting bored. Same deal with Burnout Paradise. I also tried New Super Mario Brothers WiiU similarly wasn't interested in more than running forward but unlike the car games was done in like 2 minutes.
So I think some of this is he's completely trained on iPad controls and some is he's not ready for games. I don't think it's an attention span thing as he can focus on preferred tasks for fairly long periods. I think the next thing I'll try is Katamari Forever on PS3 (which I have to dig out from a box somewhere). It's a game he knows but with non-iPad controls. There's no Katamari for PS4 right?
Try any of the LEGO games that you think he'd be interested in. My kids love hopping onto them and running around in the open world. I help them through the story, but I normally just download a 100% unlocked save game instead of bothering with going through all the other unlocks. So far we've gone through Super Heroes 1 and 2, Batman, Batman 2, The Avengers, and The Incredibles. I have Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean on the Wii but haven't done much with them. They're super kid friendly with negligible penalties for dying, and they mostly hold your hand through most of the game.
My 6 year old loves just running around in Goat Simulator on iPad. It doesn't really have any point so no pesky rules to understand...
My 6 year old absolutely adores Monument Valley and he’s really good at it. Aside from that, Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, mostly.
Does anyone have a good resource for making a Pecs book? Everything I am seeing is pretty all over the place in terms of that they have. I kinda just want a whole list of clip art than I can print and laminate.
I'm not sure. We're using the PECS app on the apple store, which works really, really well. I have some supplies for a "meatspace" book, though, if you want them, I can ship them to you.
How does PECS work on an iPad? Do you keep the iPad, or do they just bring it to you? Typically, PECS works as an exchange of a picture for something in return; it's thought to be more concrete that way. (Personally, I'm not a huge fan of PECS as it's normally designed, because it seems to have a built-in cap on vocabulary and usability. However, an electronic implementation might help expand that a bit.)
I'm not sure. We're using the PECS app on the apple store, which works really, really well. I have some supplies for a "meatspace" book, though, if you want them, I can ship them to you.
You know, I never really thought about an iPad app. I'll take a look around and see which one can be good for my son. We are a few months in prompt speech therapy so I don't really want to rely on him using Pecs all the time. I just know he gets frustrated when we can't understand what he wants.
The way it’s implemented for us, he brings and shows us the iPad. Got an iPad mini, it does the job well enough. The app isn’t cheap though, 50€ iirc. He’s using less and less as his speech gets more intelligible, but still. It’s there should he need it.
Offer stands, Tempest.
**TW: child harm and death** Skip the spoilers for my question.
So this came up in one of the adventure game club threads:
Spoiler:Honestly, I'm not a fan. Child death is already a theme I struggle with, being a parent, and having kids that are different and more at risk (just this week, another non verbal ASD kid "escaped" from his carers at his specialized center, here in Paris, and he's been missing for ten days. We're all fearing the worst).
Spoiler:I'm really sorry to hear about that kid, Eleima. Has there been any news since?
Totally unrelated to the game and very unpleasant stuff in response to the above post:
Spoiler:No, no news as of yet. Apparently, he’s been spotted several times in the Parisian metro, but nothing solid and he hasn’t been reunited with his family. It’s very concerning. Some reports have him hanging out with a young man who is “of interest” to the police. I fear he is being preyed on in the worst possible ways.
News just came back to day and the poor boy was found in the Seine river. My heart just breaks for him and his family...
Has anyone considered a GPS tracking device or some similar mode to track your kid's whereabouts? At this stage, I'll admit to being a heartbeat away from implanting a chip in him. Maybe even both, even though my second kid is verbal...
That is heartbreaking!
Mine is verbal (and catching up thankfully!) but I still live in mortal fear of this...
My son's meltdowns have become an every day occurrence recently. Usually several times a day. We have no idea why or what we can do to help him out. We tried all the obvious things: give him food, drink, put tylenol or advil in his juice, quiet dark room, movement, pressure, car rides, talking to him, singing to him, giving him a different toy to distract him, TV... nothing seems to work really.
We had that from about age 2 to 3, I couldn't imagine those at this point. I was hesitant putting my kids on any medication but eventually succumbed, and we got really lucky there too (both kids are on the same medication and dose for ADHD, and both have responded really well). Personally I'd probably try the CBD oil first, and the antipsychotic later, just on the factor of (and I may be very wrong here) the potential side effects are less worrisome with CBD. Then again, I have almost no experience in medicine, so take that with a massive grain of salt.
On my front... We just moved back to MD from VA, and the school had to take their VA IEPs and basically translate them into MD services. Apparently VA has a bit stricter guidelines on how much services they can get per week. Sabastian, for instance, was only 5 minutes a week away from having to be pulled into a special needs class per VA. That policy doesn't exist in MD.
Anyway, I had to meet with the school psychologist the other day to go over a form that basically took all of Tristan's autistic traits, spit out a number, and put him on a scale. He fell just in the range of mild/moderate autistic traits, which may or may not impact his education. One of his teachers reported no observable traits, while another reported moderate, and the variance is mainly due to the difference in environment and curriculum. Not anything surprising.
He still qualifies for services on several other factors, but his being autistic is mostly just a side-note in his file at this point.
I’ll apologize up front if this comes out the wrong way or is problematic in my ignorance. My knowlege and experience with autism is fairly limited to a nephew who I only see a few times a year. But from what little I know I’ve started to wonder if I’m on the spectrum myself. Where can I go for some solid resources/information that would be more reliable than just a google search?
The son (15) got sent home from school today. He had a violent outburst where he jumped on a desk and kicked another student in the chest “to show that he was serious.” I just.....
He hasn’t had an episode like this in a long time; I thought he might have been past this. I feel he’s too “paranoid” - he always thinks peers are making fun of him, or authority figures are persecuting him. There are a few kids (the bullies and ‘bully-adjacent’) that love to push his (and I’m sure other kids’) buttons, and then he stops thinking and lashes out. We’re going to see what kinds of resources are available, that aren’t going to break the bank. I’m sure this is not an uncommon trait. We explain it to him, but I feel like he just tunes us out when we point out that this is highly unacceptable behaviour... behaviour that will/can get him arrested. He feels that his apology (to the student, et al), and his promise to us that “I understand, and it won’t happen again” makes it all go away, and we should forget allllll about it.
I’m just very worried about him, all the time, and it’s getting worse with the bigger he gets.
I’ll apologize up front if this comes out the wrong way or is problematic in my ignorance. My knowlege and experience with autism is fairly limited to a nephew who I only see a few times a year. But from what little I know I’ve started to wonder if I’m on the spectrum myself. Where can I go for some solid resources/information that would be more reliable than just a google search?
We have an Autistic Adults thread that's a bit dormant right now, but read through that and feel free to post any questions or musings you have about things. It's going on five years old now, and several of us have gone on a journey in that timespan, so you might find that part interesting too.
Ah, didn’t know about that one. Thanks, I’ll head over there.
Seen a story in the Times that might be of interest, found a link to a Metro article on it...
https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/22/autis...
Disturbing the way such snake oil salesmen proliferate.
How do you get him to take meds orally? Mine will just spit them up whether we pin him or not.
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