Matthew Starts Back at WKU

Yesterday was Matthew's first day back at WKU for both speech and KAP. I was a bit apprehensive due to the fact that each semester he gets a new speech clinician. The new clinician always has to get used to Matthew and learn his abilities and Matthew has to become acclimated to them as well. It has also been a very long break from the ending of the fall semester until now. That, coupled with the fact that it was only Matthew's second day back to school since the two week power outage, and that he has a broken arm...do you kind of get the picture...I was just plain ole worried! It was in large part, much ado about nothing. Other than when I initially picked him up (he asked very sweetly to go to Grandma's twice, but I told him we were going to college, which is how I term going to the CEC so he knows the difference in regular school and WKU, and he actually tried to say college. Of course, he may have tried to say cracker because he knows he gets to eat them there, but it sounded more like college to me! :) Anyway, he was very content to get out and go into the CEC building. Since I'm sure most of you are unaware of the building layout, I park on one end of the building that actually houses the KAP wing and the doors there are where we enter and exit the KAP facility. We walk around front and enter the main lobby of the CEC (Clinical Education Complex) and this is where is speech clinician meets us. We then proceed through the building to the speech clinic area where Matthew goes into a room with his speech clinician and then I get to observe in a smaller room with a one-way mirror. In the past, Matthew has has speech in a therapy room in the KAP wing, and that seemed to cause him (and me and his clinician) a lot of stress last semester, and they actually ended up moving him to the KAP therapy room for the remainder of his sessions. When I saw that we were headed to the original room he started out in last semester, I cringed a bit because I was afraid another chasing day would ensue. Can you believe that little rascal seemed perfectly content in that room?! And it's a wonderful thing because they will not let Matthew use a therapy room in KAP this time anyway. I'm so thankful yesterday went well...now if only he will continue on this track! It is also wonderful that I know his new clinician! She is from our county and I really think she will be wonderful with Matthew. She seems very confident, is more out-going and assertive, and it was thrilling to me that she seemed so eager to continue with Matthew by the way she was talking with me afterward. She really seems excited to see what she can get out of him!

After his session, we have a 10 minute time frame to wait until we can go to KAP. So, I took Matthew back to the lobby and he was very contented to sit and look at magazines. He loves Parenting and Family Fun because they usually have Sesame Street and food ads in them. He found a S.S. one yesterday and I was able to get him to point and say some of the characters names, so his lessons continued on :o) When it was time, I walked him out the front door and around the building to KAP so that maybe he will see they are 2 separate programs. He has been used to going from one area to another inside and his clinic supervisor thought this might make it easier for him to distinguish the two separate programs. He was very happy to go to KAP and was greeted with some familiar and happy faces. (We still miss Tara though!) He went straight on back to his classroom like he hadn't missed a day! They told me when I picked him up he had enjoyed the white room swing :) When he saw me through the door he got up and came smiling right for me, saying "momma", and gave me big hugs and kisses!! That is worth it all!!!!!

Okay, I know there was a lot of explaining in that post, but I also know some of my readers will appreciate the explanations and some will understand exactly what I'm talking about...yes, you know who you are! When dealing with autism, there are a lot of routines that need to be established that help the student flow from one thing to another. For instance, when Matthew realizes we go back out the lobby doors, speech is over. Then when we enter the KAP doors, it's time for KAP. That will make it easier for him to know what to expect. I have always said, I am no expert in autism! Truthfully, I personally feel there is no such person. Individuals with autism are so vastly unique, it makes it impossible for one person to know all there is about what will help each autistic individual. I am, however, the one person that knows Matthew better than any other, and I know different individuals on the spectrum, so if I can share some of my knowledge to help someone else to better understand the world of autism, then I want to do so. Hopefully this has helped at least on of you :o)