Good Sensory Learning

[Jennifer-72]

Just sharing this site I found a while back.  I thought it had some engaging executive functioning materials for my ds.  I don’t believe I have seen it mentioned here before.  I haven’t used anything from there but thought others may be interested in it as well.?

https://goodsensorylearning.com/

[PeterPan]

Thanks for sharing! I love it when you come back.   So what were you using in the EF section there? She has SO much stuff on that site, it's just all a jumble in my mind. 

I signed up for the email and got a link for some demos, but I haven't gone through them yet. Actually what I think is interesting is just what you are finding is still necessary, even though he's getting older and in school. We had a psych locally imply putting ds in a local school for autism would SOLVE EVERYTHING. I guess I'd be interested to rabbit trail there and ask what it *has* solved and maybe what it has left maybe less solved. My ds is socially motivated and responds well to high support and structure, so in some ways school makes sense. Right now his behaviorist though is all over homeschooling for him, because she says his need for intense intervention is better met at home. And we ARE making progress, definitely, definitely. Ironically though, after fighting so hard for the highest disability scholarship (which we finally got), I'm losing my speech therapy (Sept, sigh) and just kinda wondering where I need to prioritize and put the money.

Always challenges, lol.

[Jennifer-72]

I haven’t used any,  but was thinking the working memory/attention games looked great.  Ds would find them tricky but be very motivated - he is all about a good game.  I liked how she has them keeping track of their progress as the go along with some of the working memory samples I saw.  I also thought the ThinkBuildLive Success series looked great for high school. 

School has been great for ds, but that is largely because his school is awesome.  It is very much a team effort between the school, myself and dh.  In many ways we do nearly as much as we did when he was homeschooled. Main difference is now dh and I can just laser focus on just two or three big goals and know that he is still getting lots of support from school for all the other areas.  I love it since I feel like he is getting the best education we can provide for him.  Sigh, silly “experts” thinking school solves everything!  The trick for us has been to keep building on each and every success ds has and pull in whatever outside resources are necessary to continue that success to the next level. That is what we have done from the start of his dx and don’t plan to change now ?

[PeterPan]

What you're saying makes sense, and you're sort of dispelling my theories or bubbles here or whatever. I had thought if we enrolled him for the $30k a year, that would be poof, it. But if it's just as much work and needing lots of continued interaction, then I might as well not. The schools here aren't THAT amazing (even though there are a lot of them), and we're being told he's hard to serve well anywhere because he's such a mix. The school with the highest functioning kids and inclusion settings restrains heavily, which would be just a horrifically bad choice with ds. The school with the most individual attention and concern has the lowest functioning kids. The school right in the middle is flexible academically but has lots of funky behaviors (allowed, fine, culture, move on) and no peer models. 

I think maybe ds is just several years behind your ds in function. Like I remember you telling me about Pickles to Penguins, and that took SO much work to get him to where he can do that. Now he can, and when I think about it it makes me sick that we didn't know to do these things earlier. Reality is he didn't have the ability to do them earlier. The apraxia was in the way but also this genetically driven behavior (that wasn't responding well to ABA) was getting in the way. Now he's actually pretty fun to play and work with. The bummer in my mind is this constant kind of on his own plan-ness. It seems to be softening with our intense work and growth and more understanding. Like it's coming, but he's still a real pistol. And I see the kids that go to school and they seem so like they're with the plan, lol. I know it's not truly how it works, but still. The RDI person is telling us working on nonverbals builds compliance, that things were glitched there that built the foundation for compliance. It at least makes some sense to me (more than any OTHER explanation I've heard), so that's my plan. When I become Wonder Woman and implement all my great ideas, lol.

Working memory is use it or lose it. So you can build it up, but if it's not getting applied and slurped up and used through other things in his day (spelling, whatever whatever) it will drop back down pretty quickly. Now if you take up his working memory and then use it to do something that gets you an EF bump like VT work or high school geometry, then BOOM you've got a permanent gain. But the WM itself will drop again. 

I'll try to go look at what you were looking at.