Friday, October 8, 2010

Steps Forward

1. Claire doesn't cry anymore when people say 'hi' and I tell her to say 'hi' back--she actually says 'hi'! Not much eye-contact yet, and she only attaches the person's name to the hi if the person is an immediate family member or a tutor, and we're still waiting for spontaneous greetings, but we're making progress. (Kinda funny: one morning Jake said, "Good morning, Claire." Claire said, "Good morning, Jake." One of Claire's programs during her sessions is Informational Questions. One of those questions is, "What is your dad's name?" We're so glad she's generalizing that information to her greetings ;-)

2. Claire's tutor Joseph goes to school with her on MWF, and on those days, Claire plays on the playground equipment rather than pacing around it, thanks to his prompts. One day she was holding hands with Emma* and Cecily during recess and went down the slide with them! And she engaged in a conversation about Halloween with fellow classmates!

*Note: Emma was Claire's special friend that week. It really galled me when Claire's teacher told me she was going to assign a girl to be Claire's friend every week. But, Claire doesn't mind, and it seems to be helping. Plus, it is the sweetest thing ever to see little kids put their arms around Claire's shoulders and include her. I love kindergartners. They are God's angels on earth.

5 comments:

LL said...

this made me smile "good morning, Jake" CUTE!!!!
I'm so happy to hear you've found people to help...and I do agree, Kindergarteners are so great!

cat said...

Yay, Claire!! Good work, Team. Wow, this seems like good progress!

LD said...

Woohoo! I want to kiss each and everyone of those kindergartners!

You know Anne was just trying to get her own tutor using some kind of mind game. She's a genius.

Jamie said...

Hi Miss Charlotte - I just caught up on your blog and obviously it has been way too long!! That is so great about Claire's progress and all the sweet kids helping Claire made me gulp and tear up a bit!!

Cindy said...

Have you read "The fabric of Autism"? It was recommended at the conference. I'll go pull up some notes on other good reads, if you want.