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Indian summer

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Posts posted by Indian summer

  1. My 11 yo had quite interesting echolalia. He would use the "correct" sentence, but only that one sentence for a long time. So it wasn't the classic quoting from the movies or quoting back the question, but his speech was very limited. He'd say, "I want to sit at the lunch counter" if he was hungry. Or, after school I'd say "tell me two kids you talked to" or "two things that you did." After a while, I'd realize he'd tell me the same two things every day, same phrases. Until he started having more novel language, I really didn't realize how limited his speech was, because what he said sounded "normal" just restricted.

     

    Interestingly enough, most of his novel language started after he learned to write. In grade 1, he'd come home with these stories that I could not believe he had written, because he never could have told me any of that stuff. Then, he just started talking more and more and more, and he obsessively wrote stories for 2-3 years, with lots of pictures. We have shelves of his books from that era. I will never forget the day when I thought "I wish S would just be quiet." After years and years of silence and very limited language, it was something I never thought would ever cross my mind. 

     

    Anyway, his language tests very well now (receptive high 80s and expressive in the high 90s), though he still has problems with generalizing to people outside the family. I think he mostly reads as shy, though he can come across as disinterested if he's tired or stressed. He can seem very distant after a concert, for example.  With him, it seems that symbolic language made much more sense than aural language. He seemed to get most of his receptive language from reading, and his expressive language from writing. It's all backwards, but it worked for him. In general for most of his development, he has done everything eventually; he just did it all in the "wrong" order. 

     

    He also really likes grammar; it seems to appeal to his logical mind. I realized around age 6 that music made so much more sense to him than English, it was like it was his native language. He now absolutely loves music, and spends most of his free time listening to music, composing or studying scores. He started studying scores about 2 years ago, and he never played them, so I wasn't sure what he saw. Then he discovered you-tube, and found all these scores with the music playing in the background. By about a year ago, he told me he could hear the music in his head just by looking at the score, which is really cool, and he has perfect pitch. His compositions initially didn't sound great, but now are really beautiful and musical.  Anyway, I never can figure out how his brain works, but most of the time, it works pretty well, just not like anyone else's. 

     

    Sorry for the ramble, but it's a fascinating subject. 

     

     

    Sounds like these kids with echolalia have a lot in common. I feel like I could have written most of your post about my own dd. She's also a born musician. Went through a story writing phase. Though she was an early talker, she never seemed to really be communicating - like a parrot. She said the words perfectly but there was a disconnect. But now, she's fine and thriving. :)

     

    Ps - nice to see another maritimer here - I'm in NB. 

    • Like 1
  2. Until I read this post, it had sort of slipped my mind that dd used to have echolalia. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of kids that used to be very quirky but are just normal teens now. I credit being home all those years with their development into pretty regular kids. Not saying it's any magical thing I did - they just had time to develop on their own without a lot of intervention and diagnoses. Sounds like she's doing great.

  3. My french spelling is rusty. Forgive me.

     

    1) Tu aides l’environnement avec tes actions ? Parfois, mais la plupart du temps, non. (but she might want to reverse the first two words to make it a question. Aides-tu?)
    2) Quand oui, comment ? Je débranch mes routeurs et mes téléphones chaque soir.
    3) Tu veux aider plus l’environnement ? Oui. (again, this is a statement with a question mark - reverse and hyphenate the first two words to make it a question)
    4) Tu sais que tablettes, ordinateurs et téléphones mobile a un grande rejets de co2 ? Non, je ne savais pas ça.
    5) Maintenant que tu sais, tu vas utiliser ces appareils moins ? (vas-tu...?) Probablement pas. 
    6) Tu sais que produits surgelées rejets beaucoup de gaz de effets de serre ? Non, je ne savais pas ça.
    7) Maintenant que tu sais, tu vas utiliser ces produits moins ? Probablement pas.
    8) Tu penses que éoliennes sont une solution pour aider l’environnement ? Je pense que oui, ou il y a beaucoup de vent.
    9) Doivent les humains servi le terre ou doit le terre servi nous ? Les deux ensembles sont le plus réalist.
    10) Quelle grandes projets peux sauver le terre ? Je pense que la terre na pas besoin d'être sauver. 

    • Like 1
  4. Where I live, typically the only women who are SAHMs are either homeschooling or have preschoolers. There's almost a taboo about being any other kind of SAHer. It's viewed as unfair to the spouse as he would have to carry the financial burden single handedly and decrease his lifestyle.  But the homeschool group is growing exponentially and these women are influencing others to re-think the double income lifestyle and replace it with something simpler whether or not they homeschool so I'm hopeful change is coming. I know that I was a very lonely SAHM for a while there - it seemed nobody else I knew was doing it. Would love to see an upsurge in it again. My kids are all in school now and I'm still mostly at home, though dh and I have a small business so I fill in here and there, but prefer my life at home - so much to do here.

  5. I learned a lot of helpful weight loss tips from the program. I lost 15 lbs in 6 weeks(most of that in the first 3 weeks) and kept it off for months until I stopped the program. I didn't follow it to a T though. I do a whole foods version - I don't use artificial sweeteners but honey, maple sugar or syrup and coconut sugar and I don't use any weird processed ingredients like collagen, whey protein powder etc. It can be done with regular foods too. And it's not too complicated. Pick you protein then decide if you'll have veggies with it or high fat stuff. That's really the most important part of it and if that's all you know, that's enough. There are tons of THM-like recipes online adapted to a whole foods lifestyle so that makes it easier too.

    • Like 1
  6. I've always been struck by the difference between the Ingall's farms and that of Almonzo's parents. And I think Caroline came from a successful family too, didn't she? Maybe he wanted a life like that and needed to find a better place to make it happen, which he never did.

     

  7. I know it's a very common thing around the world to place more value on boys, but among the families that I know, I find there's a trend where more people want girls. I feel like here teachers prefer teaching girls, parents talk about finding girls easier to raise, not as hyper, not as prone to LDs (not sure if that's fact or just perception) but I hear it a lot. And people like dressing up their princesses etc. The trend is definitely shifting where I live. 

    • Like 1
  8. Up until this past year, we have been an unschooling family. This forum made me nervous too when I would see what other families were up to. I always worried that we just weren't keeping up to certain standards. All three of my kids chose to go to school in the past year. They're in grades 9,8 and 4 and all are thriving precisely because of all the child led learning and free time they had over the years. I'm convinced that I would have ruined their love of learning had I approached things any other way with these particular kids. 

     

    If your kids are generally happy and moving in a positive direction and learning a little something most days, then they're probably where they should be. Advice like this used to make me question the advisor, but now I see it's so, so very true. 

     

    There were times while homeschooling when I thought my kids were average to less than average in intelligence. 2 of them have pretty significant LDs. The simplest things, at times, they could not grasp. They appeared very behind at times. Turns out all three are gifted which has me floored. And all of them are leaders at their new schools. I'm blown away. 

     

    Hang in there. In your heart, I suspect you totally see their individual genius, it just may not show a lot right now. It will. 

    • Like 3
  9. Ours got a ton of use. I would say between the three kids (mostly the 2 girls) it got used regularly for 8 or 10 years. Ds hardly used it, dd, whom I bought it for her second birthday used it a lot until she was about 6 and then youngest (who wasn't born when we got it) used it pretty regularly until she was 7 or 8 and still at 9 isn't ready to give it away. 

     

    Having said that, youngest dd is just that kind of kid who loves to play make believe more so than her siblings and for much longer. 

  10. It doesn't sound like anyone did anything illegal but I would not be leaving my child in an environment lead by such a wingnut as that principal. Sounds like something he pulled out of his butt to manipulate the mom.

    • Like 7
  11. Wet hands but also condensation, I think. Bill Bryson has a very funny section in Notes from a Small Island about British terror of electrocution. No sockets allowed in bathrooms either, except for shaver sockets, which are isolated in some way, I think.

     

    L

    Here in Canada our bathroom electrical outlets are not as powerful as the one in the rest in the house - there's usually a sticker or engraving which reads 'for razors only' but curling irons work too. And they have a safety switch which frequently needs resetting to turn on.

     

    Another reason might be to avoid electrical appliances being dropped into your bath.

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