I think no, not right now. Sure, keep up her couple of known words. Give her chances to read them when you come across them. I think that is fine, b/c she is excited! I don't think that is counterproductive. But I would not do a bit more than that! B/c it is really such a waste of time at this point. But I just would not cut off the couple she knows, if she is excited. But don't give her opportunities to make a mistake when there are other words starting with the same letter. Don't do anything at all tricky, b/c she may not really know the words when there is not a known number of words it might be -- aka she might be going by first letters or something like that. I would definitely not do it too much or anything, and not work on new ones. And if she quit seeming excited, I would drop it. + Ime sight words were not easy, but they were *possible* when we got to them. B/c when we got to them, he understood about sounding out (which is possible to some extent with sight words), he understood about sounds matching with words. When he did not understand those two things, sight words were *impossible.* I was really happy to drop them, and my son was, too. It was better when we started having sight words included as we covered them in his reading program (as we covered the pattern the individual words used!). Then there were just a few that were not really covered that way, or that he had a really hard time with, and had to work on fairly individually. But even then -- seeing how parts of the word worked with phonics, is a much better situation than just trying to memorize a bunch of letters.

It is great to hear you are on the right track! I hope you get some good information, too! I hope the non-verbal IQ test is able to be accurate for her -- I think that will help a lot!

I am more on the side of getting started :) I think it is up to you. I don't think there is a clear right or wrong answer. Are you dying to get started? Or do you want to get started knowing that you are going in the right direction? If you are dying to get started -- I think "go for it." To me the biggest drawback is the possibility of wasting the child's time and frustrating the child with a poor fit. That is truly a possible drawback. But you are wasting the child's time by just waiting, too. But either way -- it sounds like you are taking steps and getting ready!

If you feel a temptation to rush -- think about all the good things your son is bringing to the table. He already does know a lot. And, it sounds like he is willing to work hard, too. Those two things are going to go a long way for him. But I think just recognizing the temptation is the biggest step! And you are already there! Good luck :)

Geodob -- of course that is how it is for a mature reader. But how is that helpful to say to a child who is not yet reading at that level? Who is having a problem at the decoding level and has not moved on to fluency? (Or worked on decoding and fluency at the same time.) This sounds like decoding (and fluency -- but primarily decoding) to me. He does not have a good system for applying different sounds as he reads a word. He does not have any fluency with any one sound that can help him move a little faster. There are kids where it is better to introduce one sound for a phonogram at a time. It sounds like he is one of those kids. I think you should look for a program where one sound at a time is introduced and kids get solid with that one sound. Then later another sound is added and there is explicit practice in switching between the two sounds. My son was that way, too. It was way too confusing for him. It made him be lost, very very lost. So ---- does mean that he is a solid reader of words that have a short vowel sound? Words like: map, cup, ten, sip, tap, cot.... Can he read those words easily? Can he *reliably* sound those words out? If he is reading these kinds of words and using a wrong vowel sound, I think you need to just go back to all short vowels for a while. Get a picture cue for him to show what sound he will be using for the vowel, or a key word if he has a key word. (Aka -- either a picture of an apple, or the word "hat" with the a underlined, if he is really, really solid with the word hat.) Have that out for him to refer to. Tell him there will be no surprises -- for now he only needs to worry about one sound. Okay -- so that is easy enough, right? But moving on after that -- I think you need a program where they are going to introduce the phonics moving on in a way that is known to be less confusing to kids who are going to struggle with multiple sounds for a phonogram. That means -- where they have spaced them through units in a certain way. I will be honest -- it is harder than you would think to space them yourself. I would go with a program. I used Abecedarian for this, it is a program where they only introduce one sound at a time. Then after two units of practicing with one sound, they add the next sound. There are word sorts where you look at words with the same phonogram and sort them by sound. There is a thing where you read through words and practice applying one or the other spelling. I liked that about Abecedarian. But then ---- did I use Abecedarian for syllable division? Not so much. I used something else for syllable division. Which is fine and I like what I used. It is not what I used for common prefixes and suffixes, either. I don't think it is a one-stop shop. But if you are really just looking for an option besides Barton to work on reading words -- I can say that I liked it :) It is very plain and not busy ----- this is something that appealed to me, too. My son was easily overwhelmed if things "looked hard" and Abecedarian didn't look hard to him. It was easier to feel like we had gotten a lot done. Honestly -- I did not use Barton that far, but I think you are going to need something really known for syllable division, too. You are using a program that is teaching syllable division, so that means -- he needs more than just being taught it (like kids where they have never been taught it at all), you need one where they are taught it really, really good. As far as I know, Barton is great for syllable division, but I did not use it. I used Abecedarian some (it has a method it teaches that is nice, but not enough for my son). http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Phonics-Study-Intermediate-Grades/dp/0439163528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1433766138&sr=8-2&keywords=wiley+blevins+phonics Then I used this book. It is not a curriculum. It is like -- a book that tells you how to make some lessons. I thought it had a very good section on syllable division and prefixes and suffixes. Was it easy to use? Not really. Something about Barton, as far as I know, it introduces syllable division while kids are only having to worry about a small number of sounds. I think this would make it easier to learn syllable division. Otherwise -- if you are trying to become fluent with all the sounds, it is going to be hard to recognize and then become fluent with syllables. (B/c you do want to become fluent at recognizing syllable chunks -- it is part of reading).) But what is the best way for that process to happen? Honestly it is to not be confused and stuck at the level of decoding and trying to figure out which sound to use. Either b/c the number of sounds is limited for you, or b/c you have spent so much time you have really gotten fluent before moving on to syllable division. Now with an older child -- I do think it makes sense to work on syllable division first, and get that down, then add more sounds. For a younger child -- I think saying "well, we will just spend another year on one syllable words and getting solid and fluent with those, b/c look, it is taking forever for him to develop fluency" is fine (this was our situation). There is no rushing fluency. It just takes time. But for fluency to develop, there is a need for *accurate practice.* Inaccurate practice does not develop fluency. som my opinion is -- go back to simpler things, keep it simple, look for accurate decoding. Look for fluency with his accurate decoding. Maybe not crazy good fluency, but at least a significant improvement. My son would get frustrated if we spent too much time without moving on, so I had ways to review while still moving on. But at a certain point -- if it is not fluent and there is a lot of inaccuracy, just go back, and take away the place the mistakes are happening, and only add those in slowly and with specific practice. Look at what his errors are, keep a note of them, and see if you see a consistent error, and if you do, make a point to work on it. If you never do this, he keeps on with inaccurate decoding and this means he is not going to be getting a "stable representation" in his mind, and that is what is needed for fluency to develop. It is great news that his phonemic awareness is good, though. Yay!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!! But honestly I think you are going to have to take a big step back to doing one sound at a time. But also in good news -- he has all his phonograms memorized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think he has got a lot going for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do think Barton would be a good program for him based on what you say. If you are looking for: very good syllable division, and very good introducing one sound at a time. As far as I know since I didn't use it, lol. Since my son struggled also with phonemic awareness, I make a big deal about that. But don't think, just because your son doesn't struggle with that, then Barton is out. B/c after phonemic awareness there is decoding, and it sounds like your son is struggling with decoding. So you can't skip decoding and go to fluency. He has got to have accurate decoding and if he is seeing stuck at not knowing which sound to use for a phonogram and this is keeping him from quickly and accurately decoding a word -- then that is where you have to go. If he can quickly and accurately decode a word, but it just falls apart in his reading, then that is where you might go straight to fluency materials and working on just fluency. It also sounds like he has been taught a rule for syllable division but has not had the practice in applying it, or maybe he didn't have the foundation he needed. Ime with syllable division, if the child is still struggling with decoding at the letter-to-letter level (aka has not developed fluency at that little level) then it is just really hard. That was my experience, and it meant we waited and kept practicing with one-syllable words until he had time to develop fluency with them. There is just too much going on at one time, if the smaller pieces are not more fluent, and things fall apart. But I think it would be a benefit of Barton to go into syllable division without having to worry about so many sounds, I think it makes sense. So -- that is my opinion. I think it is better to listen to the people you talk to in person than someone on the Internet! But I have definitely been there with being confused by multiple sounds, and syllable division, so I can share my experience on that.

https://www.bartonreading.com/scope.html#scope This is the scope and sequence. Between this and other common sequences ----- Barton does syllable division rules much earlier. They do "6 reasons for a silent e" much later. There are other things here and there, but those are two big ones. A lot of programs throw in all the one-syllable word stuff first, and Barton spreads that out more. So this is where I felt like I would try for the sequence that my son's school was going to follow. My son is reading well now! I am not sure I did the right thing by not using Barton, though. I don't really look back and think what I did was better. I don't look back and think it was worse, either, though. Mostly I did think it was only one thing (with his speech and phonemic awareness, I thought once he got past that, everything would fall into place for him) and he would catch up and be fine, but that never really happened. He caught up, in a way, but he did not suddenly become a kid who picked up reading skills easily. But now he is a good reader so I think the end point is the same.

I bought Barton Level 1 and I found the videos helpful. I never really used it, though. I thought that at my son's level there was no need to worry about him guessing and I also thought he needed to still get the letter/letter sound connection ----- so I did not think it made sense to not use letters (vs the colored counters representing letter sounds). I just used letter tiles for him. I also wanted to practice his skills with basic words instead of nonsense words. He did not have any kind of sight word base, and he did not have a guessing habit. Is your son solid with sounding out? Do you know how his phonemic awareness is? If his phonemic awareness is weak, you have got to work on it. Barton is known as an excellent way to work on phonemic awareness, but there are also other options. If you have been possibly skipping phonemic awareness, or you have moved on but maybe his foundation is weak there, then that is something to work on. If you think his phonemic awareness is good and he has basic decoding skills, then there are things out there for fluency for recognizing words. A lot of times fluency is about reading passages smoothly -- but it can also mean just reading words smoothly. I did not know about this program when I was working with my son, but I think it looks goodhttp://www.oxtonhouse.com/decoding_automaticity_and_reading_fluency.html. Or this http://www.oxtonhouse.com/reading_speed_drills.html. I used another program (I used Abecedarian reading program for a while) and it included speed drills, and I saw them help, and then I could make my own. There are a lot of options to make speed drills have a shorter or longer amount of words, one pattern or two patterns, etc. It is basically a glorified "read a list of words" thing. It is not enough to do this, if there is not phonemic awareness and basic decoding. But if there is and he is not moving forward -- then you may be looking for fluency. Another program targeting fluency that I have read about ishttp://ganderpublishing.com/product/seeing-stars-kit.asp. I managed to see a video of this program once. It did not grab me for my son, but it is an option for fluency if you think it would be targeting his weak area. http://www.readingrockets.org/helping/target This is a website -- if you are not familiar with phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency as terms -- might be worth reading through. If you have not worked on phonemic awareness -- then it is important to know, this is a really, really common problem. A lot of non-dyslexia reading programs do not cover it adequately. They cover it adequately for children who do not have any weakness in phonemic awareness, but they don't cover it enough for a child who does have a weakness. When you use a program like Barton -- you are going to cover phonemic awareness very well. Sometimes when a child has other good skills (that it sounds like your child has) then covering phonemic awareness lets them pull those other skills together and they make fast progress or a big jump, b/c that is what they need to pull all their other skills together. If you have already been through phonemic awareness in a fairly intense way, and decoding, -- then I think you can look at fluency options. Overall -- fluency is included in Barton. If you think maybe he needs phonemic awareness, then Barton is a good choice. Especially as you do have an older child -- and a lot of phonemic awareness materials are aimed at pre-school. And the pre-school stuff is not even necessarily going to be helpful. I tried a lot of the pre-school stuff and my son just could not do it -- so he did not get anything out of it. He had a really hard time with phonemic awareness, though. But do not get discouraged with any materials saying "oh, just read your child a rhyming book." That does not apply to a lot of kids. It is great for the kids where it is helpful, but it is just an out people use sometimes "child struggling? the parent must not have read him enough rhyming books!" Like -- let's just blame the parent and child. So do not get sucked into anything like that (like I was, oops). I think Barton is a really good option, though. Another con for me was I wanted my son to be able to "join his class" and so I did want him to be doing things like "silent e" earlier. I also did not need him doing multi-syllable words so early. It is more efficient for an older child to learn in the Barton order, I believe, I believe that is why that order is used. But I wanted my son to be in public school reading, and that means learning one-syllable words first including "silent e" type stuff, and not doing multi-syllable words as soon. That was a negative *to me* of Barton, but I do not think it is an actual negative. I just thought it was not what I wanted. But my son was 5-6 when I was looking and I ordered Barton 1 during the end of his Kindergarten. We got a dire report from his Kindergarten teacher and I realized how he really was behind in some skills that I did not think were a big deal before. I was hoping for a quick boost for him and then being able to go into regular reading at school. He did get into a regular classroom reading group half-way through 1st grade :) But it was not as simple as I had hoped, he still needed a lot of help. Edit: Level 1 looked way out of my child's league when it came. That is honestly the main reason I had to modify it instead of using it exact. My son was in speech therapy at the same time and he just had a lot of trouble with phonemic awareness. He was in speech therapy partly for "phonological processes" so he had trouble even at the level of identifying just a sound, not even the point of hearing sounds within words. I was also trying to coordinate what I was doing with what he was doing in speech -- I did not work on sounds he had not covered in speech. But I could do a lot with him using the sounds he was good at. Edit: And my big overall -- I made a patchwork program for my son in a lot of ways. It was never quite as easy as I thought it would be for him to read, there was always "one more thing" that was hard for him and needed to be worked on. So it was never like "oh, I can just do this one thing, problem solved." But I think with Barton -- you do get that. So I am a big supporter of Barton in that way. But also since my son was getting reading instruction in school, too, I wanted to be able to pick things to work with that. For Barton -- it is not going to go along with what is happening in a school reading program. My son was still in that age group and he could benefit from school instruction once he got to a certain point. I did not want to pull him from school, as there were a lot of positives to school, and I was extremely busy/overwhelmed with my younger kids, too. I did a lot with him during summers and on weekends, and tried for 30 minutes total on school nights (broken up). So this also becomes a negative of Barton *to me* but I don't think it is an actual flaw in Barton.

Psst, OhE, I don't think this explanation is meant critically. The name of the thread is "RDI at Home" and she is sharing what she is doing with her kids! I am interested, too. It is not personal if it is not the direction I am going in, it is still interesting and can give good ideas for me. Or make me think through why I am doing things in a certain way, if my reasoning does make sense for my situation.

Separately -- you may not really know all about the practice and use of the visual schedule at the autism charter. They may have more intentionality with it than what you can see in one day and without specifically asking them about how they use it. Maybe they don't -- but it is possible they do. And then back to -- maybe you know it is "group OT." But then the kids get to group OT, and get to choose which OT activities they want to do. So is that rigid or not? It is structured but it is not rigid, is how I would answer. At school they probably need to have a time that kids go to speech and OT and stuff, plus a time to go to music, and all those things that operate on someone else's schedule within the school. Those could be things you could switch around at home if you were doing similar activities at home. But you might have fixed items on your schedule, too, if you have outside therapies or outside activities that are not flexible in their start times. (And I minimize our hard-start-time activities vs. our "we can go on our own schedule" things, b/c they can really be a source of added stress.) There are a lot of gradations in there. I hope that the school's schedule is not "rigid" in the sense that the kids are marched around in lockstep and with no flexibility or opportunity to make a choice or anything like that. That would make me sad.

So -- to change your schedule -- you just pull your little boardmaker icons off of your little velcro strips, and you say "okay, you want to do this instead now? well, that is fine with me." Or you go "oh, you want to do this instead now? Well, we have to finish what we are doing now, it will take 5 minutes, and look, we are putting it next on the schedule, and moving this other thing." Or you go -- "well, you say you are not hungry now? well let's take off snack and you tell me when you want your snack and we will add it in." That is why we are using *velcro.* Not that it has to be velcro. It is just very easy to do with velcro. To me it is not rigid to go: okay, we are going to have 3 things we do, then snack, then two things we do, then lunch, then after lunch is always tv time, then after tv time it is a favorite thing so transition from tv will be easy, then from there do snack, then another 2 activities, then it is time for us to to go to the library for story time. At school -- velcro can support things like "it is raining, so I am going to take off our recess velcro and put up the movie velcro" or "everyone, you can pick iPad or computer or movie, b/c it is raining, so we will not play outside." Now - in practice this is done on an iPad and not with velcro strips at my son's school for his overall daily schedule? And I do not know what program they use? But they have got pictures taken with the iPad, and so he can see the exact thing -- better than a Boardmaker icon in some ways. But it is the same principle as far as I know. You end up having your stationary, unmovable things. Then you have your flexible things. For your flexible things -- you can give him choices, you can set up what he can choose from. Maybe some things, by their very nature, you need to know ahead of time. Like - -he wants to make cookies --- you say, okay this afternoon, but we gotta go to the store htis morning to get chocolate chips. Then he doesn't want to maek them -- either say "well, we already planned it," or say "okay, we can do it another day." It is up to you. All of this is totally supported by a visual schedule for one child and one adult. You can start your schedule just with what you are doing anyway. Maybe you will see that you do have some pattern to your day. You start with your fixed things - -traditionally this is meals and snacks, waking up, and going to bed. Then all the other times that are blank -- you are doing something. That is all the visual schedule is. It is what you are doing. It just gives an easy way to show "this is what is happening" and "do this thing you don't like as much, the fun thing is up next" and "we need to finish this before we do the next thing." It is not inherently any more rigid than not having it. School would not be more or less rigid with or without a visual schedule. Your home life doesn't have to be either. Now -- my son is not rigid and does not mind schedule changes as long as we are not taking away something he really wanted to do. So in our case -- he is fine with changing things around. He is more of a "I want to be done now" kid at times, and then it is a way to say "almost done" and then when he is done he likes to take the velcro off. He is also a kid where it is really helpful to say "2 more things and then snack" and let him see it on the schedule. That is more the benefit I see. Edit: you can also have your schedule have 3 blank spots on it, and you choose as you come to them, and have an option to choose to extend the activity to take up 2 blank spots. You do not have to have everything filled in ahead of time. You can write "choice" on that part, it is a choice when you get to it. (And the choices can be totally free, or from options you give him.) (Or it could say "reading" but you have 5 choices he could make.) Edit: My son is really not a rigid kid as far as these things go, so I don't think about it too much. But I have heard - other than your things like meals -- make a point to change the order, and occassionally change something during the day, too.

Also, to me a structure where he picked the activities and the order ---- that is a lot less perfunctory than going to school, to me. I mean, it is a tiny bit perfunctory. But compared to school ----- much fewer blanks are filled in with "now it is the time when everybody does this." Lots more choices can be his. I do not know how to get anything done at all if there is *no* structure. To me this means -- kids wondering around, moving from one thing to the next at a whim. Or -- as soon as something gets a tiny bit hard, throw it down and do something else. Then how are you going to improve? If he quit his classes at the Y and just walked out and you let him ---- that is what to me is "no structure" ---- if it was that way for everything he did. So I do not think you have "no structure" even now the way I see it. You have things you get ready for and go to and he is expected to finish. I would say ----- have everything on the schedule be things he really likes and wants to do. You are just doing them on a schedule. Don't have it be like "here are 5 things he doesn't want to do but I want him to do." Think more like -- rotating toys for a little kid ----- they like all the toys, but they can focus on one toy or play theme at a time without the distractions.

You might also look at PRT Pivotal Response something? I think it is play-based? I have skimmed some stuff about it, but nothing jumped out at me as being different from VB/ABA as implemented by my son's therapist.

Is there any chance you are looking for the terms "joint attention" or "social referencing?" Joint attention is when you notice things together and notice each other's response to the thing you are looking at together. Social referencing is when you look to others for clues to what you should be doing, and when you check in to see another person's response to what you are doing or saying, to see if they are giving cues (to include non-verbal communication cues) that they like it or don't like it. I don't think I know of any resource that lays it all out, though. It is surprising but some of these autism-related things have only gotten age-norms research done on them in the past couple of years. So there are things where it is really kind-of unknown -- what is the usual age and order of things. Some of this stuff is definitely included in Social Thinking which has its own website and materials. There is also the stuff where kids learn about how close to stand to people, and bubbles of personal space. Here I think of that as something speech therapists do who are working on pragmatic speech. I hear it is good. It is the kind of thing I have seen in a presentation, but it is not something my son has done. He is not a big talker, so he does not currently need instruction on watching for visual cues that he is talking too much about one topic, starting to bore someone, saying something offensive, taking offense at something that is meant in a good-natured way, not noticing he is being teased, or standing too close or too far away. (The kind-of stereotypical things that can be problems for kids who do speak very well.) Those are all more advanced things and they are things that in my town I would say -- consider going to one of the couple of speech therapists who is known to be really good for this. And then probably the social skills program where they watch and discuss movies and talk about what they are seeing as far as body language and whether it matches what is being said, and things like that. This is all more aimed at older-elementary and middle school kids, in my town, I think. It is also aimed at kids who have solid to excellent/advanced language skills, so I do not know a lot about it. But I have been to some presentations where it is mentioned, and I am told that this kind of thing may be appropriate for my son when he gets older. (For those who may not know -- I live in a town of about 50,000 and we have the only Target and Wal-Mart for a one-hour drive in either direction ------ so we have what we have, and there are things we just do not have. Then we have therapists who have decided to attend workshops in things that are obviously good but maybe not traditionally covered by their primary specialty, just b/c otherwise it would not be available to children in our area, and they want it to be available. So we have things that speech therapists do, that maybe are done by somebody else in a different place. Also the autism therapist community is pretty small and they all like each other and want to work together in a way that will help their mutual kids.)

http://www.amazon.com/Early-Start-Your-Child-Autism/dp/160918470X I think this is a good book. It is for little kids but still might have some good information. It is available in our library. It has a Chapter 7 "Talking Bodies: The Importance of Non-verbal Communication."

We are in early days of an official dysgraphia diagnosis for my 10-year-old son. I have scribed for him a lot, it is the only way for him not to get upset and discouraged when the writing is just too much. The person we saw recommended that he type -- she said it is the thing that will be like real life -- she said that typing will be doing it himself in a way that he can continue into the long-term. But she also said she would like him to write for things that are not very long, but she would like him to type for things that are a paragraph or longer. But we are still early on this, I don't know exactly what we will do. But I have scribed.... a lot of times it is like a choice between weeping on his part, or scribing on my part. Scribing is an easy choice then. But he has gotten to where he would rather type b/c he can do it on his own. But -- he is not a good typer yet, so that something to work on. But scribing worked better when he was younger, more recently he wishes he was more independent like he can be typing. I have had typing presented to me as "more functional" at this point, compared to speech-to-text. But I don't know if that would be the case if my son didn't seem up for typing. He does seem pretty up for typing at this point, so it seems like the way to go at this point. If typing didn't seem like a good option for him, I think we would have a different recommendation for him.

That does make sense to me. ABA is supposed to be more than behavior modification, it is supposed to be more than "a bag of tricks" that is used. The things I have mentioned are definitely more along the "bag of tricks" line, though.

I use the principles of ABA with all of my kids and with my husband, too. I think it has helped me in a way to move away from nagging my husband as much. It is not that it is the only thing I like, but there is some good stuff. I also wish I had known more about errorless teaching and discrete trials when I was helping my older son with his reading. It is a discrete trial format in a lot of ways, and I think I could have been a more effective tutor for him. But I do not sum ABA up as a "discrete trial lifestyle." I sum it up as "encourage positive behavior through positive reinforcement, ignore unwanted behavior as much as possible and reasonable." I think focusing on the good things my kids and husband do is a great way to enrich our relationship and have some fun together. I also like shaping. So my husband did not do it just the way I wanted him to? I should be satisfied with him anyway, and think that will bring me closer to him doing it more the way I want the next time, vs. being dissatisfied with him and critical of his effort. I have probably always known on some level to do that anyway with my kids, but I did not think of it as something for my husband as well.

My son would have no friends or social interaction (outside of school) if he was not in school. He does not have enough support and buy-in to have friends or social interaction in any other way. The gap is too big, even to overcome effort and willingness, in any other way. He has got his sister and brother in a huge way. But his brother is older and has an older-younger relationship with him, it is not an equal terms relationship. My daughter is great, but she needs to do more than play with my son and hang around with my son. She plays with neighbor kids who are nice kids, but my son can't go and play with them much at all. A tiny bit if I go, too. If I kept her home with him, I would need to provide her with social things, and they would all be things where my son was not really getting anything out of it and not going to have a friend or probably interact with anybody. For how I was as a child -- I had a wonderful family, but I was extremely isolated in school and apart from my family. I was extremely isolated and lonely in all of my outside activities and in church. Except for one-on-one adult activities like piano lessons -- I loved piano lessons. I am sickened when I see my son not able to keep up with kids socially, when that means he is not able to play or interact. This is how it usually is. He can sometimes do things like ride on a merry-go-round with other kids at the park, or go up and down the slide along with a pack of kids. When he is doing that -- he likes it a lot. He is not able to do too much more than that without help from his siblings (which he does get a lot of the time). He is not able to join a group to play very well. He is borderline on even accepting an invitation to play from a child who is not familiar to him and is not inviting him in a way that he knows to recognize. Something he has gotten at pre-school and at school that is huge for him ---- there is a lot of encouragement and education about "keep asking kids to play, even if they did not respond before, it doesn't mean they don't ever want to play." That is something school can do that I cannot do myself, and I have tried and not really succeeded in church and some other informal things. The gap is too big right now, it takes a lot to make it happen. At school, too, the paras are desirable people and if they are kind-of helping to set up a bit of play, by 2nd or 3rd grade other kids do know that is what is happening. But -- the paras are still desirable people. It is not the same as having somebody's mom out trying to do the same thing. And the paras get training on how to do it from the special education teacher and from trainings they do. It is more than just a, say, parent volunteer or teen at church who is making a big effort to be helpful but not getting the result b/c of the lack of time and training. There are several kids in his grade right now, who are nice to him and try to play with him and play with him. They are encouraged by teachers, paras, school structures, etc, in this ---- and it is very nice. It is nice of them, and it is helpful to my son. But I think of his friends as the other kids in autism resource, that he is having group OT with, and doing morning routine with (when he does morning routine in resource), and who he sits with at lunch (he sits with his para at a table with other kids who have paras), etc. I think those are his friends. Even though a lot of things are on the rote side. Some things are just going to be on the rote side for a sub-set of kids, that is where they are, until their skills improve and they ideally get less rote over time and have more opportunities to generalize. B/c there is an awareness of doing good prompt-fading techniques and things like that -- but it is not magic. That is more "why I like the school program." But I also do not want to be with my kids all day every day, and try to get things done while they are around. I can only spend so much concentrated time, then I am looking for things for them to do. I do not think the things I find for them to do are without value ----- but they are not "better" than school, to the point I think "they should do this and not do school at all." It is just not what I see with what I provide and my stamina. My stamina is really not my strength. I have got good stamina for weekends and 4 or 5 hours a day (the time from when I pick them up to bed-time). I am able to have good time with my kids in 4 or 5 hours a day, I do not schedule them for any activities that get out later than 5:00 or 5:30 right now, and I can use the 3:45 to 5:00 time period, when it was going well for my younger son to be scheduled every day ------ to do something with just my other two kids, or with just one of them, and sometimes they really need that, and they do look forward to it. That is not something I like to do at all, if I don't think my younger son is doing something good. I don't like leaving him home at all, if I am going out with one or two other kids. It needs to happen but I need to feel good about it and not like I am leaving him out. Another factor is that my son does need a greater language environment than I can provide. Do I think this is true for 95% of kids? No. Do I think my older son or my daughter are better off reading with me and having a discussion with me, as far as their language development, than being around other kids in a school setting? Yes! They are getting more language development from being with me. It is not the case with my son. He needs to hear a lot of basic language and basic back-and-forth, still. He also benefits, imo, b/c at times he is in a group where the language level is targeted to him. At home -- when I am talking to him, I target my language to him. When it is me talking to my other kids ----- if we are not making a point to talk slowly and look at him for understanding etc, he is probably not understanding enough to be benefiting. I think our level is high enough we are not bridging it for him the way it would happen if he was around all lower-language-level kids who set the level ------ he is getting language targeted to him, and that is something he benefits from a lot. But do I think that there are very many kids who would get more language benefit from being in Kindergarten and in a resource room? No. Most kids would get way more out of conversing with an adult or having long, open-ended conversations and play-times with siblings and outside friends. But I think the language environment is really good for him right now. He has had an increase in his language in the past year, without much focus on language (he still has speech therapy, he still has direct instruction in language, but it is comparatively a lot less). I am really happy about it and I do think it has come from being in school. But his language is still low. But part of having his language be low -- he gets a lot out of hanging around with other kids whose language is low. He can be friends with them. It is just such a barrier so much of the time, I want him to have a time and place where it is not a barrier. I am good at home, but I think that place for him is the resource room more than it is at home. At home his siblings are talking all the time, and he does not always follow what they are saying. I have to remind them to make sure they see if he my son wants to do what they are doing -- they do not always give him the chance to think of what he is going to say and then listen to him (they are both very able to advocate for how they want to do something, and they are children, and they want to do what they want to do). He can really play together with my daughter a lot now, but he can also be at a disadvantage b/c of his language. It is hard to explain, and I think it is a huge benefit for him to play with my daughter and be around her language. I think it is something that a lot of kids miss out on, b/c they do not have a child with good language who hangs out with them and plays with them every day after school. My son has that. But it is not all he needs. It is hard to explain -- but these are reasons I like school. A lot of it is the visceral feeling -- my kids are happy here, my kids have friends. My daughter would be fine without school. I think both my sons are at risk of not having friends unless there is a lot of structure in place to help them. My daughter will never be left out when kids pair off strictly by their own choice and their own desire to be with certain other kids. She is great at that. Both my sons are missing something there, and it is hard to explain, but they like to have friends, but they do not necessarily know how to go about it the way my daughter does. It is something I really see as "this is how I was" and I never want them to have that feeling of "well, there go all the other kids" that I would have at church and at social gatherings where kids were supposed to entertain themselves and play. I mean -- to have that feeling sometimes is fine, but it should not be all the time. The counterpoint for me is how happy I was on those few times when I was part of a group of kids and things were going well. I loved that feeling. I want that for my kids. Edit: Also things changed for me when I was in orchestra in middle school and mid-high and high school. It was really good for me -- the structure was there for me. So I have this feeling like -- it is possible. It is not a guarantee, but it is possible.

I will also say -- that "woven in social skills." It can get very rote. My son has generalized some of it. Some of it is very rote and restricted to places where he has been kind-of taught to do it. Now -- I am happy with that. But that is a mis-representation if you go in one day, and you do not know how rote it may be. You may not know that those kids are saying hi to the 3 kids they were prompted to say hi to for the first 6 months of the school year and now it is just something they do. Now -- I am not saying "it is no good." I am not saying that, it is good. But -- it may not be as much as it looks like to a visitor. It may be on the rote side. If you saw it every day for a week, you might recognize some kids as very rote. If you had seen some kids for the first 6 months of the year, you might realize how targeted it was instead of this smooth-looking product. I am not putting it down. I am just saying -- there is a context for it.

OhE -- Also getting very real here..... you visited a school at the tail end of the school year. Please do not think it was going so smooth on the first day of school for kids in their first year at the school. It was not. I promise. Kids who are in their 2nd or 3rd year at the school may come back from a break and pick back up, or they may have a difficult transition period. But you cannot compare a classroom that has been working on implementing a routine for 7-8 months and compare it to what was happening on a first day or even in the first or second or third month. That is just reality. And then you get into -- another real thing -- is it more important to learn to follow a classroom routine, or to learn an academic skill. Do you want to let academic skills go (in comparison, not totally let them go, but in comparison) so that you can work on following a routine, and have following the routine be the top goal? I am like -- sure, this is an investment, and it is a reasonable goal for my son (who is so delayed in academics) and something he can succeed with and feel good about. But there are plenty of people who say "no, that is not what makes sense." And that is fine and I think they have a good point. I think it would fit with you if that was your opinion -- it is an opinion I respect.

Hey, OhE, you know I am very satisfied with my son's school program. A boy we know was pulled to homeschool. Guess what? I ran into his dad at the grocery store, and homeschool is going great. I ran into another kid from his program at the pool (granted this kid seems to have some anxiety issues as well) and the mom told me the kid is so happy, relaxed, and getting along better with siblings, than she has seen since school started. She said to me "I don't know what I am going to do." (I think considering homeschooling this kid.) So I am super-into the school program my son has, it is good for us. I am truly not interested in homeschooling him or teaching myself to become a special education teacher. I want to be mom and do environmental and experiential learning experiences that are so valuable. I do not want to do drills or deal with meltdowns when he does not want to do work. I am happy to deal with meltdowns when he does not like what is for supper or does not want to go to bed yet -- that is the role I want, that is the role I am good at. But please do not feel like everything is shiny and wonderful, please do not feel like the grass is greener. Everybody is making trade-offs. The kids at school are getting what they are getting, but they are not getting other things. It is just how it is. I don't think it is okay to totally let go of an area that is weak and just cover it up..... but everybody is making trade-offs, nobody can do everything at the same time. There is always some area (or domain, lol, to get into the ABLLS lingo) that is getting neglected, sometimes for as long as a year, sometimes for longer than a year. That is reality. I hate it, but I have got to let it go and not let it drive me crazy. I am also not willing to sacrifice my son's childhood. He must have a childhood. It is non-negotiable. This is different from with my older son. I have some teeny tiny regrets I never think of...... but I could have slowed down, and let him take a little longer to learn to read, instead of being in such a hurry. But I read things saying "you have got to make catch-up progress" and I was like "okay, I will make him make catch-up progress." So he did a lot of reading for a while. And then he caught up and didn't have to do it anymore. With my younger son ----- there is no "catch-up progress." It is not a matter of "go crazy for a year or two and he will catch up." This is not his prognosis. This is not his reality. So therefore -- he is going to have a good childhood, it would be sacrificing for nothing. His hard work and therapy are worthwhile, but not out of balance. And, if he is not ready for something, he can work on something he is ready for. Congratulations on your scholarship money win! But it does not mean you are no longer qualified and have to go with public school. It does not really change anything except to give you more options. It is no referendum. If you want to do the school program later, when he is older, it will still be there.

I do think you have been using quality programs, LaughingCat. You have totally been using quality programs, and I also think you and your daughter have been putting in the work over time. My younger kids are twins, and my daughter is mostly way, way ahead of my son. Once in a while he may shine in comparison to her in some obvious way. Mostly, he does not. He is still a great kid and has a lot going for him. It just does not work to compare him to my daughter. Here is what I find when talking to people ------ I get these little cuts all the time, they are frequent but mostly they are not too bad. For people who are not around other kids so much, or other peers of their kids so much, or a younger child, etc, they do not see these things very often, but when they see them they are comparatively large and crushing. It is not a total "one way or the other," but I think that having a younger child does mean you are going to be put in positions often to notice. I am just trying to look on the bright side to say -- at least maybe you will not have so many of those serious gut-punch moments that I hear about more from people who do not have as many times to notice. I am really hopeful that my son will have a happy and fulfilling life, too. Long-term thinking vs. short-term thinking can help, too, b/c if things seem hopeful long-term that can make current things seem like "maybe this is short-term" even though they are difficult things at the moment.

I hope you can find a new one and someone who will see both your kids! I have a very loved therapist for my little son -- it would be very hard to lose her.... she has been with him from a young age (though he is still young) and she has a great rapport with him, and that just does not happen overnight.

I have ordered Type to Learn 4 for him, and the disc just came in the mail a couple of days ago. I have not gotten it installed yet. It looks like something up his alley. We were planning to go to Texas this week but that is not happening now with the flooding, so I hope to get that done by the end of the week. Fingers crossed!

He didn't come back with dyslexia. I tried and gave up on typing last summer. Last summer was math facts, though. This summer is going to be typing. He is motivated now because he wants to type messages to people in Minecraft. Last summer he did not really care. Probably this is maturity -- but I do think he is getting (after much explanation on my part) that it is worth typing using all fingers. Last summer (and fall) he was wanting to just use his two pointer fingers, and didn't want to suffer through trying to use his other fingers. He asked for the testing, too (or at least assented when I brought it up). Before he was not interested, he was very into being "done" with speech and OT. There were logistical challenges for us, too. He has had really nice teachers the past two years, they did not hassle him about his handwriting or his slow speed. So he is in a decent/good place with his self-esteem. (His self-esteem about his reading is very good, and his self-esteem about his class participation ---- so this adds up to some very good areas for him.) He does see for himself it takes him longer than it should, and he cares now that he can't go back and read what he has written a lot of the time. Last year he had little investment in typing etc, it was just something I was making him do. It is so nice to know he is not the only one in this boat! I do not know anyone else locally. I think of you guys' kids as smart and on-the-ball kids, too, so that helps ;)