Care4autism

      Minions all the way....  No other character as held Ramam's interest as the minions:)

We watched the movie Everest recently. Ramam gave it a thumbs up and said he enjoyed it. Later at home during one of his talk time sessions , this is what he had to say about Everest.                                                                                       Dirty Everest , it scares everyone. He also added it is close to the moon. :):):)

Another language activity - feeling happy with Ramam's answer.

A story told by Ramam, with some inputs from me. He began the story saying there was a crocodile and something  got stuck in it's teeth. The crocodile wanted to remove it.  I asked him how to go about it and he suggested using a tooth brush. I said neither the crocodile has hands or tooth brush, We  had recently read a passage on invention of tooth brush, where earlier people used animal hair for the brush. So he suggested we use  tiger's hair and the lion could brush the teeth for the crocodile. The story ends with a simple " Thank you" and  "welcome" by the crocodile and lion respectively.

The sentence board has a long story to it. It had its humble beginnings with a carpenter going about the simple task of cutting a piece of plywood at home. However a lot of foresight, planning went into it. Frankly speaking the sentence board was way ahead of its time.   It was my hubby’s idea. Soon the board was ready and therein began the task of deciding what words Ramam would want to use in his everyday life.                      A quick inventory of his favourite food, activities, and objects was taken. This was easy, we were just looking at nouns.  I am a pro at this, having done this inventory taking with various therapists trying to teach him various things such as making choices, language, fine motor skills. Then came the verbs, adjectives, phrases, (I want, I don’t want, please give me). And then a long list of all the helping verbs, prepositions, conjunctions...

Be it art Be it Maths Addition sticks where he is given various permutation and combinations for a numbers say 5 (5+0, 4+1,3+2). He has to put the correct stick  in the  cup.The cups have been labelled with the numbers. Good idea for independent activity. . Language activities I started with 6 talking sticks ,( That's what they have been named) but Ramam wanted to add more variety to it. Had an unexpected holiday yesterday and as both kids were at home, tried this talking sticks idea. I keep this sticks upturned . They pick up one stick, read the instructions and do accordingly.

I stumbled  upon another find , the blog on scholastic.com http://blogs.scholastic.com/top_teaching/2010/09/the-readers-notebook-grades-3-12.html#more  The think then  jot bookmarks is a wonderful idea . I tried this with Ramam on two stories we have read. Right now of course he needs a lot  of prompting. There are some days  I am excited about an idea and wait for Rama to be back from school . I  want to try out  the ideas and see how well they work for him.Yesterday was one such day. Luckily he  got a project book as a return gift in school for a birthday party  and we immediately put it to good use.                                I tried to do an  activity loosely based on this idea, with a hotel visit of his. Asking him what picture did he have in mind when I said ho...

I have been trying to make a transistion for ramam to the early chapter books.  Here a list of some of the books that Ramam has been reading in the process….   Snail and the whale, Stick man, room on the broom, Jack and the flum flum tree all four by Julia Donaldson. The little critter series. Postman Pat series. Amelia Bedelia series. Tikki tikka Tembo . A chair for my mother. Cherries and cherry pits. Those shoes. Step into reading level 3. This series has both stories and nonfiction titles as Christopher Columbus, early inventions. Milly Molly Mandy. Alexander has a terrible no good horrible day. Fatuma’s new cloth. This book gives you an insight into East African culture.                                            These books generally hav...

I came across this sandwich model for para writing in one of the fb groups and it seems to be helping ram. http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/paragraph_hamburger I also add the tags first, then, next and last to do away with the verbal prompts. Do try it out as it seems to be an effective model Happy holidays!!!

This is what Ramam said he would like to carry for lunch. 2 samosas,2 cookies, mango lassi and custard apple. All neatly packed in a red lunch box. It is a far far cry from what I send him!!! And according to him this would be an ideal dinner Grilled chicken, KFC  burger, French fries and coke. Hahahahaha....

                  I was reading a book from the series Amelia Bedelia. The books are about Amelia, whose  intentions are good but is a little foolish. In the story Amelia is asked to stake the bean poles, but she ends up tying steak to the plants. I showed Ramam what staking a bean pole means, and explained steak to be a kind of meat. So in one of the reading sessions when he got the meaning, he chuckled when I read out this passage.                                The other night I was trying to educate my daughter on the names of dishes unique to Kerala Iyers, because it can get embarrassing when we have guests. Somebody tells her to pass a bowl of something and she would give them an "I don't know which one" look. Ramam was listening to this ongoing conversation. I then said Rama's turn and asked him what this is? Although he knew the right name, h...

                                              Visual perception and autism This is my fourth post under the label understanding autism better.  People on the spectrum ,  have difficulty processing visual information . In other words they have visual perceptual difficulties.                     Relating to a personal experience I had with Ramam recently prompted me to choose this topic. I was working on Ramam calling out numbers for a game of tambola/ housie. In a game of tambola the person call out numbers from 1-100. The participants are given tickets and they score out the numbers called out. He would read the number correct but would place it in the wrong place and sometimes vice versa.            As Ramam called out the numbers I realized he was reading the second digit of ...

Ramam wanted to play with blocks , he wanted to pitch a tent to be exact. So I told him we need poles to pitch a tent. He dashed off and came back with 3 wooden sticks. I realized he had picked it up from my husband's tool box along with some screws. Never knew he could think this ahead. So he set up the 4 poles. Put a napkin cloth on the top. Isha  added her bit, tied a small princess to the poles. Soon we had an one eyed monster waiting to gobble her up. The monster slept in the open on his bed. They soon wanted a house for themselves , that subsequently turned into a railway station. The last pic is the train chugging into the station.

It is such a beautiful post on silence....I had to share it. http://musingsofanaspie.com/2013/11/06/silence-ii-variation/#more-1693 " There is simply silence. Unconscious, unobserved, uncomplicated, quiet. Left alone, I could spend days in this silence".                             These are those  moments of silence I enjoy with Ramam, knowing we are there for each other, not a spoken word  just sitting next to each other. These are time I wish the world we live is  a less complicated place ,there are no demands and expectations,and never does the unexpected happen. A utopian world for our kids!!!

Welcoming you all to the first post of 2015 May it be another  year of hope, persevarance and courage for all of us. Before you know 2014 is over and we are into mid January. Time flies and this is one thing one always should bear in mind. In most FB groups there is the concept of sharing the progress one makes with their child in that week.Its called differently by different groups, some call it Friday celebrations, Friday gains.  I think this is a wonderful idea as you set yourself small micro goals that are achievable . Every complex task can be broken into simple steps. This is just an example of how simple the goals can be made.                         One of Ramam's therapist suggested this to me for his social skills. Call home a small group and the only goal you set for Ramam that evening is he opens the door for the guests. So these are small steps one takes for those giant leaps. Every activity requir...