The fall flew by fast! In October, we made the difficult decision to pull Lochlan out of his church preschool classroom so that he can attend his ABA program 12-14 hours each week. I'm really sad because we really love this church preschool but I know that Lochlan wasn't really able to participate the way that other children in his class could. Left to his own devices, he was opening and shutting cabinet doors in the classroom and refused to sit for circle time. There were also reports of him pinching other students and trying to bite his teachers. Clearly, he was getting frustrated and was not able to communicate as he should.
None of that is surprising, given the results of his recent speech evaluation. His speech eval indicates that his receptive language skills are equivalent to about a 15-18 month old and his expressive language skills are somewhat equivalent to a 9-12 month old.
Lochlan is two and a half years old.
I could go in depth and tell you how this makes me feel but I will save that for another post. For now, suffice to say, we are hoping ABA helps him. Since starting ABA over the summer, we have seen at least some increase in his ability to concentrate and focus and some increase in his imitation skills. This is key because all of those are necessary prerequisites to natural, social learning.
And life marches on.
In November, we took a family trip down to San Antonio. My parents joined us, as well as my brother from New York. We drove down and stayed in a rental house that was spacious enough for Lochlan to stretch his legs.
The house had an awesome backyard with a heated pool. Sadly, we were unable to enjoy those features because it was an absurdly cold stretch of days in Texas, with temperatures in the 30s and 40s and so.so.windy!!
Nevertheless, we did what all first time visitors to San Antonio must do and visited the Alamo. With our noses running and our hair whipping about in the relentless wind. We bundled up Lochlan as much as we could but he could still barely tolerate it.
While in San Antonio, we also visited the San Antonio Children's Museum. I am a serious children's museum junkie. They are such fun places and it's great to have something to do on a vacation that is specifically geared towards Lochlan. I like taking him to children's museums because even if he can't participate in all the activities for kids his age, we are always able to find at least something in them that he is able to enjoy and that is at his speed.
The San Antonio Children's Museum was a decent place to spend an afternoon. We stopped at the tots area for children under 3. Lochlan played with some cool light pegs and was interested in some bubbles.
I also checked out his height against David Robinson. How is anyone that tall??
There was a cute farm area where Lochlan got friendly with this plastic cow.
But the real highlight was the kid-size HEB grocery store. There were two things that made me excited about Lochlan's activity in this area:
1. He wanted one of the little grocery carts and actually pushed it around a little bit by himself. I have never seen him push a cart before so this was huge to me!!
2. He actually took some cans off the shelf on his own and when we said, "Put it in!" he did put them in the cart by himself. He even dropped a can by accident, noticed that he dropped it, and then stooped to pick it up and put it in the cart with the others. Earlier this year, he would not have had enough focus to complete that simple act.
He only played with the cart and cans for 3 minutes at most, but to see him engage in any kind of age-appropriate, "normal" play was tremendously exciting for me and Sachin. To parents with typical children, what he did doesn't sound like anything to write home about, but for us, it really was! We are keenly aware of every small accomplishment he makes and we let that satisfaction resonate deeply within us.
There are so many uncertainties facing us but I will gladly stop to revel in these ever so tiny marks of progress.
None of that is surprising, given the results of his recent speech evaluation. His speech eval indicates that his receptive language skills are equivalent to about a 15-18 month old and his expressive language skills are somewhat equivalent to a 9-12 month old.
Lochlan is two and a half years old.
I could go in depth and tell you how this makes me feel but I will save that for another post. For now, suffice to say, we are hoping ABA helps him. Since starting ABA over the summer, we have seen at least some increase in his ability to concentrate and focus and some increase in his imitation skills. This is key because all of those are necessary prerequisites to natural, social learning.
And life marches on.
In November, we took a family trip down to San Antonio. My parents joined us, as well as my brother from New York. We drove down and stayed in a rental house that was spacious enough for Lochlan to stretch his legs.
The house had an awesome backyard with a heated pool. Sadly, we were unable to enjoy those features because it was an absurdly cold stretch of days in Texas, with temperatures in the 30s and 40s and so.so.windy!!
Nevertheless, we did what all first time visitors to San Antonio must do and visited the Alamo. With our noses running and our hair whipping about in the relentless wind. We bundled up Lochlan as much as we could but he could still barely tolerate it.
While in San Antonio, we also visited the San Antonio Children's Museum. I am a serious children's museum junkie. They are such fun places and it's great to have something to do on a vacation that is specifically geared towards Lochlan. I like taking him to children's museums because even if he can't participate in all the activities for kids his age, we are always able to find at least something in them that he is able to enjoy and that is at his speed.
The San Antonio Children's Museum was a decent place to spend an afternoon. We stopped at the tots area for children under 3. Lochlan played with some cool light pegs and was interested in some bubbles.
I also checked out his height against David Robinson. How is anyone that tall??
There was a cute farm area where Lochlan got friendly with this plastic cow.
But the real highlight was the kid-size HEB grocery store. There were two things that made me excited about Lochlan's activity in this area:
1. He wanted one of the little grocery carts and actually pushed it around a little bit by himself. I have never seen him push a cart before so this was huge to me!!
2. He actually took some cans off the shelf on his own and when we said, "Put it in!" he did put them in the cart by himself. He even dropped a can by accident, noticed that he dropped it, and then stooped to pick it up and put it in the cart with the others. Earlier this year, he would not have had enough focus to complete that simple act.
He only played with the cart and cans for 3 minutes at most, but to see him engage in any kind of age-appropriate, "normal" play was tremendously exciting for me and Sachin. To parents with typical children, what he did doesn't sound like anything to write home about, but for us, it really was! We are keenly aware of every small accomplishment he makes and we let that satisfaction resonate deeply within us.
There are so many uncertainties facing us but I will gladly stop to revel in these ever so tiny marks of progress.
