Independent Living Skills: The Schedule

 Fall is a good regrouping time for many special needs families - the start of another school year, support services are done with summer and vacation schedules. Goals are one everyone's mind.

With ABA legacy, current school Transitional IEP, and new Behavioral Respite teams on board, it's time to surround James with opportunities and support for honing and growing his independent living skills.

Yesterday, the focus was on washing his own dishes. We have a bottle brush and gloves that help him with that. Today it's removing trash from his room and bathroom. I am still doing the heavy lifting for both activities, but we are building James'' skills. The practice, with reinforcement at school and during respite, will help.

ABA had lovely schedules at first. What ends up working best now? a brief list of Chores and Rewards (incentives). 

I am inspired to get us on a whole house chore chart for daily and weekly chores, especially with 2 more cats and storage boxes in the house. Pinterest and Google are most obliging with ingenious designs.  

Chores were verbally assigned and understood in my home, growing up. Both James and I can benefit from a visual organization. 

Epic Milestone and Celebration

 Christmas Self-Care Miracle

My guy used the bathroom, took a shower, and washed his hair all on his own un under an hour. 

This is a first of epic proportions. Especially in light of regressions that hit their lowest during COVID-19 lockdowns. 

So proud of my guy!

Thank you, all you ABA helpers and family supporters!

Fellow parents, you will never know until you keep trying. I've been there, down and out. Sending you all big hugs. It can get better.

And now I am taking him out for a drive and pizza.

Indepedent Steps

 James made a PB&J this weekend. All on his own. I am excited -
the quiet deep excitement with the word "YES" playing over in my head. 

At was all the more terrific because he did it when he was frustrated. The pizza delivery he'd earned was, shall we say, messed up on the delivery end. He was hungry. I suggested he make himself a snack, something like he'd been practicing in ABA sessions, like a sandwich or quesadilla.

He said "Peanut butter and jelly? um, okay - yes!" Out came the jars. He found the bread and pronounced it "good!" and proceeded to make his sandwich. He needed a little help with cutting it diagonally, but that's it. No prompting, no fussing, just calm and confident sandwich making.

We celebrated by visiting Diagon Alley via the first Harry Potter movie. James faded out soon after that scene. I think the shouty Dursleys were really his favourite part.

It hit me again this morning, as I was doing errands. Driving the van on a clear sunny autumn morning, where the flaming trees showed bold against the blue sky, yet the sunlight felt warm and mellow inside the car. Again, the quiet "Yes!" and then "Thank you". Because we are here again, moving forward. James is using life skills we've been working on.  

Trader Joe's To the Rescue, Again

 Now that James is getting accustomed to bathing more frequently and has started to was his hair himself, I have been looking for ways to make this easier for him. We already enjoyed success with the bathing chair. James picked out a great new hair style that's simplified hair care. Trader Joe's saw us coming:

A few weeks back, I came across this delightful, multi-task enabling soap. It's simplified bathing sessions and reduced time in the shower, which is great in a drought year. James mastered opening the bottle and using it. Thank you, Trader Joe's - another reason to love you.

Bath Wars No Mores

Again I am chilling out in an armchair as James takes a shower and rinses his hair. Start to finish this takes about 2 hours. Thank goodness for well water and a "mute" button on the shower head! Though time-consuming, this is a vast improvement from before.

Before started as a fight and meltdowns, and not a lot of washing. Improvement was a 10-minute to hour-long march by centimeters down the hallway to the shower, 20 minutes to make sure clothes were off and he made it into the shower,  and a lot of shouty meltdowns on both our parts for another 40 minutes to make sure the water actually made its way to James and that some cleaning took place (followed by 30 minutes later on to get him to the sink for the hair washing portion in the kitchen). This has now morphed into a largely James-driven bathing experience. What made the difference? a bench. 

He does not use it, but somehow having it there for the bottles (which used to be in a holder on the wall) and knowing he can sit on it has made all the difference. Whatever works, brother - whatever works! I am very proud of him and his progress.

Self Care Refocus

So, after a period of falling off the self care wagon, I am doing better at psyching myself up and mentally organizing getting James to practice more self care skills.

He's been really good about taking out garbage and getting himself ready for school (as in dressed and lunch made in time to meet the school bus).

Today we were able to hit a double header out of the park: Laundry and a bath. And when James punched the dryer bottom for the bottom dryer with his clothes in the top unit, he was able to come back upstairs to tell me right away and we fixed it together.

The bath water was warmer than usual - I think he needs warmer water to relax more in the bath. He seemed to appreciate it. He even stayed in a few minutes longer than the agreed-to 10 minutes of soaking. l think this bath broke a record for smoothness in operation and start to finish was very close to the 20 minutes I told him it was take (as opposed to a memorable bath that took about an hour just to get him sitting in the water in the tub. Amazing!).

I have secret hopes of hair washing tomorrow.

Autism Awareness - With Us 365

April 2 is International Autism Awareness Day. It's the 9th year of observing the effects autism has for an individual, family, and our communities. The international agenda includes this topic, which is of interest to James and I this year: The Road to Independent Living: From Early Intervention through College. 

At school, home, and the after school program, a gradual shift from therapy and intervention toward life skills and independent living has begun. James is 12, it's only 6 more years until he is 18. I am so used to thinking of him as 6 years old. Time to shift the horizon.

James is getting life skills for living alone, phone etiquette, cooking, and laundry. I've started handing him money and talking through transactions, such as paying for pizza at Little Caesar's or the grocery store. I have started a program of writing letters to family and texting, using my phone.

He is rocking the hygiene chart the O/T helped set up for him. His math program was enhanced and he is now bringing home chapter books to read. He is doing all this new homework independently now. Often all I need to do is double-check what he has done.

 The Boys and Girls Club have started to help support discussions about hobbies and joining socially with others. James is able to complete homework during the time for that. He is using a calculator correctly. He has started to "get" their talks about work he can do and enjoy to support himself when he is older.

I am thankful James has services, and a good team working with us this year. While not much is known for sure about autism, it has been a constant companion to me, 365 days a year, since 2007, starting with uneasiness when James did not hit milestones at age 18 months in 2006. Where we are right now is so much better than I'd feared when we started out. We still have a long way to go.

Homework, New Style

James has started to independently complete his homework! Rather than just leave him to it, I seem to get best results by being nearby, working on things of my own.

Tonight was novel: After finishing math on his own, James read aloud to me for 20 minutes while I dismantled the Christmas tree (still within the one month from Boxing Day: not bad for me). As I slowly cut the tree into pieces and loaded it into the recycling bin, James plowed through The Magic School Bus: The Electric Field Trip, making darned good decoding attempts on topics such as hydroectric power, geothermal plants, and nuclear energy. 

The big word we spent time on? Molecular. James kept at it until he nailed the pronunciation.

As I tackled the tree trunk with first the loppers, then the pruning saw, James wrote 3 sentences, all on his own. Upon review, he needed to swap verbs for the first and third sentences and completely reconstruct the middle sentence. They were simple sentences, but they covered key information about what James read. Yes!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! These books are gifts that keep on giving.