Mason's Smiles

Mason's Smiles

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Simple conversations can have so much meaning.

Simple conversations can have so much meaning.



When I picked up Mason from school today, one of his summer therapists chatted with me for a few minutes. She talked about how she has only worked with Mason for five weeks this summer, but she is so impressed with how much his speech has improved. He's vocalizing needs, labeling things, following verbal directions, and just verbalizing so much more since the beginning of the summer. She also mentioned that his behavior is really good. He has very little disregulation unless another student is crying. I told her that during his first at-home speech therapy and OT sessions, he would sometimes scream for 45 minutes of the appointment. She was surprised and impressed at the growth in the last year. She then told me that she looked at his IEP and saw we will be updating it in October. She told me he already meets his goals that were set. Then we talked a little about the next few years. She mentioned that since he has a November birthday, he will have two more years at preschool. She said that with a lot of growth, he may even have the skills to go to his home district for their special education services in the next few years.

It was a great conversation to have. I have a lot of great conversations with his therapists and teachers a lot (and of course hard conversations). As a teacher, I sometimes think nothing of updating a parent on little things. It's great to tell a parent good progress, but I don't always think of the impact it could have. As I was driving away processing the conversation, I was tearing up and trying to figure out why.

One of the harder things for me with Mason's moderate autism diagnosis is the lack of a true prognosis. Even the testing they do doesn't really tell a full, true story. For example, Mason may have measured at a 21 month level of receptive communication the last time he was testing. The issue is that in some ways he is much higher than a 21 month old and in other ways he is much lower. Now while a gap is true of all kids, I believe that kids with autism are going to be much more extreme with this gap. I've come to accept that no cognitive test or ranking is ever really going to be able to tell us what Mason knows. Because the neurological part of autism affects the brain and body's communication, he may not be able to show a lot of his knowledge. Again while this is true of many kids who don't test well (I see it with my students), I think this is even more extreme for nonverbal and low verbal kids with autism. If Mason is asked to point and say numbers, he will probably not be able to show it on command. Let me tell you, I have seen this kiddo say and point to many numbers when his body and mind are in a good place. (More on this large topic/soapbox another day 😊.)

All these thoughts led me to think about Mason's future. I'm a planner and a future thinker, so it's always in the back of my head about what Mason's future holds (like many parents think about). I don't know if he will need to live at home forever, if he will need 24 hour care, if he will need an assisted living situation, or if he will be able to live independently. That's a pretty wide range of possibilities. I obviously hope for him to have an independent life. Hearing from this therapist that he made so much progress in the five weeks that she saw him and that in a year or two maybe he could go to his home district, gave me a little piece for future hope. I don't know why this conversation did that for me today, but it makes me think about the impact of words to others. Whether those are the words I use talking to my students, the parents of my students, my friends, my family, or especially the words I use with my non/low verbal child with autism. What you say is important. It can be mind altering and life changing. 



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