Sunday, April 10, 2011

Week 2 - Blog #4 - Free Choice

Personal Connection to My AR Project

My son, Paul, who is 9 pushing his cousin, Lionel, who is 3.
February, 2011

My son was diagnosed with Asperger's when he was four years old.  Asperger's is on the high end of the autistic spectrum.  People with Asperger's are very intelligent and vocal, but have difficulty understanding the complex social world we live in.  Shortly after diagnosis, my family and I launched an all out intensive therapy treatment for Paul.  We read everything we could get our hands on and tried everything that we thought might work.  Paul has received speech therapy, occupational therapy and seen a psychologist at school since kindergarten.  We have taken him to our own psychologist as well, who has offered lots of resources for Paul and for us.  As parents of a special needs child it is difficult to know which consequences Paul will understand and will be effective.  Dr. Wells has been extremely helpful to Steve and I and Paul loves going because they have play therapy.  Paul also attended a karate school forty-five minutes from our house once a week for over two years.  The school was recommended by his occupational therapist.  The director of the karate school is a psychology professor from Fresno State. Most of the instructors at the school are his master's or doctorate students who are well versed in different disabilities.  One of the greatest things that the school offered is that the students had a wide range of issues and some were considered "normal".

I decided on my action research topic because my son disliked reading the traditional social stories that were sent from the psychologist at school.  However, he loved to do anything on the computer.  He could google Earth and find the ranch where we live at age three. (My father spent hours with him studying geography on the computer.)  So I decided that it would be a great idea to link these two things together.  At the time, I had no idea if it had been done before.  As it turns out several studies have been done on this and the practice has been found effective.

An update on Paul  - Paul is now in the third grade in a regular education class at our local school district.  His teachers are amazed at his intellect and vocabulary.  At our last IEP, about two weeks ago, his teacher, the speech therapist and his occupational therapist all voiced how well Paul is progressing.  He no longer has adaptations on his work schedule or on testing.  He no longer has a BIP, behavior intervention plan, and he now has a best friend.  He plays on the playground with a group of students and has actually formed a great relationship with a student in his class that lives just down the road from us.  The kids play together very well and need little or no intervention during play dates at home or when playing at school.  Wow. . . have we come a long way!!  Paul will always have a few issues that will be difficult to him, especially when his schedule is far from his daily routine.  However, the progress we have made in the last five years is amazing and I am very grateful for it.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing and caring. As a former classroom teacher I've recognized how important parental involvement is and how it changes everything. Some teachers express aggravation over parents being "too involved. I guess that's possible, but I know that the number one ingredient to student success is parental involvement. Thanks.

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