Here's a list of her new skills:
- Elise now uses the potty unprompted often. She still has accidents, particularly in the evening when she's tired, but she's learning to take care of herself and go on her own periodically.
- Elise now has an interest in helping with household tasks. She has been helping in the kitchen sometimes and feeding the dog. Of course, this means more work for us because she fills the dog's bowl with obscene amounts of food and protests when you tell her to give less. She also seems to think that the water bowl should be filled with dog food. Big messes with this.
- Elise is regularly seeking toys to play with and playing with toys. She's pulling back from obsessively doing puzzles and expanding her play. We've noticed her using more pretend play now. Her play is definitely maturing. She's also quite accepting of adult's joining her play. Not so accepting of sharing with her brothers and other peers yet, but that will come.
- Elise has been showing enjoyment about engaging in play with her brothers. The boys have to initiate the play, but Elise loves it. She is all smiles and giggles for sometimes as long as 15-20 minutes, all of this without adult assistance.
- Elise got out of bed on her own yesterday morning. I've always found it disturbing that Elise wakes and just stays alone in her room until we come and get her. I've dreamed of the day that she'll run to find us. Well, that day may not be a "dream" for too much longer. Ok, she got out of bed and went to play in our room yesterday, but we weren't there. At least she left her own room. However, last night she stayed up after we put her to bed and played with all sorts of toys in her room. Then, we were shocked when A came out to tell us that Elise was in his room. Apparently her room had become boring or something. When we told her she needed to be in bed, she protested and ran to our bedroom. She tried to turn on the computer. We took her back to bed despite her protests. About 15 minutes later, she came out to find us in the living room. She asked (non-verbally) for her pull-up to be changed as she had wet in it. After I did that, I told her she needed to go to bed. She went to the pantry, took out some canned fruit and told me "I want". Of course, I rewarded her by giving her a bowl of fruit. When she finished, I again told her it was bedtime. She then walked to the kitchen cabinet where we keep her cups and pointed. When I asked if she wanted a drink of juice, she said "Juice". Once I gave her the drink, she happily walked to her bed with me. I was overjoyed to have her engaging in such normal 3 year old behavior of working hard to stay up late. In another week or so, it may be irritating, but right now I'm just really proud of her.
- Elise's verbal and communication abilities are markedly improved. She is remembering to use sounds to express her desires and is attempting new vocabulary. She is working very hard to speak and obviously has a strong desire to communicate.
- Elise is engaging in parallel play in her classroom and is following the other children well. She has been assigned a boy from her class to help her follow in line and other things. It's been done to teach him responsibility and boost his confidence, but it has the side benefit of teaching Elise to interact with a peer and to follow a peer's lead. She seems to be doing great with this.
As you can tell, I am really excited by the progress Elise has made so recently. I don't know if it was coincidence that this has coincided with the start of school, but I suspect it's not. I think that Elise is thrilled to have more going on her life than just home based DTT and she feels great about being part of a "normal" activity of going to school.
Last weekend, we had a playdate with B's best friend and his little sister, who is 2 years, 3 months old. Elise did well and did not get overwhelmed. She was able to play in the same area with the other children with no problems. She actually displayed jealousy of the little girl. Hubby was playing with her. Elise watched this for a bit, then very determinably sat in hubby's lap. Later, the little girl picked up a stuffed animal that Elise virtually ignores all the time. Elise followed her around trying to gently take the stuffed animal from her. Again, not a great trait, but so perfectly "normal". I love it!
Tomorrow we have a meeting at Elise's school with her teacher, our at-home ABA/DTT parent trainer, her one-to-one classroom aide and that aide's program supervisor. It's necessary to ensure that everyone is working together and not confusing Elise with varying techniques and goals. It should be interesting. I attended her back to school night yesterday. We get the read from her teacher that she doesn't feel Elise belongs in her class. I tried to keep an open mind during the back to school night presentation to see her perspective. It was interesting because she discussed what her goals are to teach the children by the end of the school year. Well, Elise will not achieve those goals. I'm not selling her short, she just won't be there in that time frame. From that perspective, I can see why the teacher would question Elise's enrollment. However, we see it from the perspective of what she is gaining by being around typical peers and learning the structure of a school setting. The academic learning for Elise will still come more from her home based program due to her learning difficulties. At least that is how it'll work in the near future. I just hope that they all commit to doing their best for her and that we don't have to fight too hard to keep her in this classroom. I think our best argument, provided she is not a detriment to the other children in her classroom, is that she wouldn't do better or learn more in a more restrictive environment. She would face the same learning challenges and actually lose the opportunity to model typical peers. In addition, the more restrictive classrooms are actually more chaotic and less structured, an environment that is LESS conducive to Elise's learning. Time will tell, but we probably have many school battles remaining in our future. At least until Elise is much more healed.
Well, that is all that I can think to write for now. Things have just been wonderful lately. I'm looking for a bit of a backslide over the next few days because I can see that Elise has probably caught B's cold and is getting constipated again. This always backtracks her behavior. However, she rebounds when she is well and I believe she will rebound back to where she has been this past week.
Oh yes, I forgot to tell the funny and gross development progress for Elise. I should first add the caveat that, as the mother to 3 young children, I have a warped sense of bodily functions not being all that gross and also being worthy of conversation. Hopefully, I'll return to being the kind of person who doesn't discuss poop as part of regular conversation again someday, but I'm not there yet. Elise is scared to poop in the toilet. However, she knows that she is not supposed to poop in her pants and that poop goes in the potty. Her solution has been to poop in her pants and then clean it up all by herself. This cleaning consists of her taking off her pants in the bathroom, picking up the poop that drops out of her pants and onto the floor and then putting it into the potty to flush. Then, she'll run to her bedroom, pick out a new pair of underwear and put it on. Of course, the near pair of underwear is put on without having wiped her bottom and her hands are covered in poop from picking it up. Yes, it's a very charming habit. I'm mystified as to how to solve this problem. It's not only gross, it's really a health hazard. Plus, I'm getting really sick of cleaning up her and the bathroom each day. At least she's trying to do the right thing???
The second funny gross thing is that for some reason she has her evening pee accidents on our bed, but always on hubby's side of the bed and involving his pillows. Works for me, but he's wondering why it's always his side of the bed that she prefers. I have to watch out so that he doesn't start sneaking a pillow exchange with me!
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