progress reports

Bill and I have noticed a strange phenomenon, thanks to the birth order of our children: because our autistic child was born first, we delighted in his development. We were pretty much serenely oblivious to Henry's developmental delays. (It helped that the pediatrician kept saying that he was fine.) But now, as we watch our NT toddler grow, we are completely enchanted by his development.

I think that, for many families, when their second child has an ASD, they are likely to be noticing all the things that infant/toddler is not doing: not using imaginary play, not participating in reciprocal conversations, not expressing his wants and needs verbally, not showing interest in other children.

For us, the opposite is true. Lately we find ourselves laughing at Thomas' antics and amazed by his verbal abilities. It's like, rather than thinking that Henry had a disability at the time, now we think that Thomas has some kind of uber-ability!

Here are some of the fun things he has been doing lately:

-He is enjoying his toddler gymnastics class. He acts pretty shy and quiet during class, but then one night at home he started rolling all over the floor and couch, saying "I doing dymnastics! Hey, guys, watch me- I doing dymnastics. Guys, guys, tan you tlap? Tan you tlap when I do my gymnastics?" Wanting us to applaud after each stunt.

-One day we were waiting out front for a friend. Tommy noticed the neighbor across the street and said "there's Frank."

I said "yes, there's Frank. It looks like he's cutting up a branch. Hmmm, it looks like his tree is... well, no, maybe it's just late to bud." (I was just thinking out loud, at first I thought one of his trees was dead, but then decided not.)

Tommy looked at me and said "mommy, what you talking about?!" As if I was just a babbling idiot.

-He likes to pretend that he is a baby, and pretends to talk baby talk. He'll say "I the baby and you the mom and daddy the dad." OK Tom, that's not a real stretch for us. He will pretend that the ketchup bottle from the play food is his baby bottle.

-One day, out of the blue, he said "I Swiper." He grabbed my slipper and threw it and said "you'll never find your slipper now!" (For readers who aren't familiar with Dora the Explorer, that's what the bad guy Swiper does.)

That's just normal kid stuff. But Henry never did things like that. So when Tommy pretends to be Swiper? That totally blows my mind.

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Last week we had Henry's IEP meeting for next year. He will continue to work on goals that will allow him to succeed in the inclusion classroom. Aggression was our big focus this year. Now that it has been managed pretty well, they are concentrating on a couple specific things: Henry's reactions when other children are being redirected (i.e. disciplined), and learning to interact with his peers- initiating play and taking turns with less teacher involvement.

A couple exciting bits of news:

1. Henry's IEP doesn't have any specific academic goals because he is at or above grade level and will continue with the 1st grade curriculum next year.

2. They hope to increase his inclusion to up to 80% of his day next year. I actually half-joked during the meeting that this news made my stomach upset. Inclusion is not much of a goal for me right now, and I don't want to get my hopes up that Henry will attend the regular class next year and be "just like the rest of the kids." I mean, I know he may never be. But it seems like as long as he's in a "special" class, then that's easier to remember.

But if he's really part of the first grade class next year, I'm afraid I'll be disappointed if he doesn't make some friends and start getting invited to birthday parties, etc. etc. Or if it doesn't work out well and we have to start scaling back, then I'll be disappointed.

I just need to not have any expectations, and see what happens.