Upon Request

Thing #1 asked that he stop going to OT.  He has been going for a little over a year to help with his speech issues and his sensory issues.  I think he has figured out that this makes him different from his friends and that is one of the reasons why he did not want to go anymore.  We have decided to oblige him in return for his promise to keep working on his biggest challenges; which are doing things with other people even when we are around, using his words when he gets frustrated, and getting himself dressed and undressed.  It has only been a couple of weeks but it has been far more liberating for both us than I expected.  I feel much less scheduled which is great, and Thing #1 has been doing really well.  In fact, he is doing so well that we are going to scale back another teacher by April so that he will only have one speech teacher who comes once a month.

When I type it out like that, I realize now why it is all so exhausting because we have been doing so much intervention.  My gut instinct a year ago was that all of this was very necessary.  Now, my gut instinct is that we don't need any of it but the speech teacher will be useful in order to help me work with him.  For some reason when I ask him to work on sounds, he shuts down but when I tell him that he needs to say it like Miss Gail, he says it perfectly.

I am pretty excited to see how Thing #1 will rise to this next challenge.  He always seems to need a push to get out of a rut, but once he gets that push he goes much farther than any of us expect.  Today he not only included my friend in most of his conversations, he actually let her be a crocodile and a dancing lemur.  Pretty outstanding!