Some of you may know that Karl has been struggling this school year.
Part of his struggle comes from the fact that he was in a very small
class last year, there were only 7 kids with 3 teachers. As I said "he
was in a bubble" which was very structure so his teacher and others did
not see his 'Autism Behaviors.' With the school not seeing his 'Autism
Behaviors' many things were not put in place for Karl to be mainstreamed
in a large class. This year he is in a class of 20 with only 1
teacher. The other part of his struggle comes from being traumatized
over the Summer with the Peritonsillar Abscess, sleep study and then
tonsillectomy. He has regressed in many social behaviors and he has a
great deal of fears now. This has been very upsetting because he had
made so much progress through the years but I have been trying to be
positive that this to shall pass. At the start of school I informed
everyone at school about his trauma and talked with his teacher in depth
about my fears of him not being prepared for mainstreaming. We are very
lucky that Karl's is very enthusiastic about working with me to help
Karl. Her & I have had many strategy talks to help Karl and most
things have helped him a great deal but he is still having trouble and
he is getting stressed.
At the meeting we all agreed that Karl's
acting out is from his trauma, Karl trying to fit in, major growth spurt
and that Karl is trying to figure out who he is. Some of his behaviors
are typical (Yeah!!!) but he doesn't filter things the same as typical
kids. At the meeting we talked about bringing a strict schedule back to
give him some stable comfort. They will make up a picture rule board to
help him to give him a better visual of the rules. They are going to
work with his friends and try to make recess more structured since he
can not handle free play as it is overstimulating for him. If Karl
breaks the rules he will need to see his school case manager so she can
explain what he did wrong and he will be told immediately that he has
lost computer for the day. If we waited until he came home it would be
late for him to understand the punishment goes to the crime. They will
start using my color code system to get him back on track for
assignments and tasks.** His teacher asked if she might me expecting
too much of him with writing, sitting still for long periods of time and
other tasks that typical kids do. I think I surprised her a bit when I
said how I always set the boys expectations higher. I explained that
giving him the comfort of a picture schedule will help him process the
higher expectations better. Kind of a give and take technique, we give
him the structure and he does the harder tasks. It was so nice to be at a
meeting where everyone is in agreement:)
The best part of the day: Karl
joined us at the end of the meeting as school let out. We talked with
him about consequences will be the same as school & home. We
explained that if he breaks the rules he will lose the computer for the
day. We also explained that if he does really well at school he can earn
extra time on the computer. I told him that he could earn and extra 15
minutes on the computer. He tilted his head, looked at us with his
bright blue eyes and said "How about 20 minutes?" We all busted started
laughing and marveled over how cute he is and of course we agreed to 20
minutes :)
**Color Code System - I carry cards with me that
are green, yellow, orange and red. When the boys start to act up they
get a warning, if they continue the color code with go from green to
yellow. If the bad behavior continues they will go to orange then red.
Now if by chance they started behaving better they could always move
back a color. I use the colors in different forms - If we are on an
outing and they reach red, we leave and go home right away. If we are in
a store and they do not reach red they get a reward at the register,
usually candy.
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