Brief Overview of the Year 2009

2009

By January 2009, Alan was attending a full day program at school and doing 20-25 hours of ABA a week after school.  Alan is now eating almost all snack foods presented to him, freeze dried fruits, grapes, juice, cereals, tater tots and a little bacon inside of chex cereal.  He would drink his milk from a cup with Tara and bottle with me.  He currently signs about 60 items.  Knows his entire upper and lowercase alphabet, knows his numbers 1-10, knows and signs all colors, receptive language is awesome.  It was a very slow process but I feel as if we are moving along and making great strides towards Alan's recovery.  In March 2009, Alan no longer needed the bottle and was attempting to eat table foods.  He started mostly with snack foods, yogurt, puddings, etc.

• Alan can receptively ID over 800 items.
• Alan can sign over 100 words.
• Alan can say bubble, girl, go, papa, bye bye, cookie which everyone who works with him can understand him clearly.
• Alan can do up to 48 piece puzzles with no help.
• Alan can now swing like a big boy (not pumping legs yet) and ride a trike with minimal help.
• Alan can now jump.
• Alan can now blow bubbles and easy whistles. 
• Alan loves playing with his sister, giving her hugs, and blowing her kisses.

In April 2009, we started a new biomedical treatment called HBOT (see entry on HBOT for more information).  By May 2009, Alan was eating some table foods such as chicken nuggets, French Fries, chips, cookies, bacon, pudding, fruits, and many varieties of snack foods.  Over the summer of 2009 Alan attended Camp Good Times for 3 weeks and attended ESY (Extended School Year).  Camp Good Times is for children who have disabilities that require more one-on-one attention.

By July 2009:

• We no longer need OT - YAH!  Alan is where he is suppose to be except for Potty Training.
• Alan has a vocabulary of 25 words (3rd party can understand it)
• Alan has about 150 Vocal approximations.  He will try really hard to repeat the word you say but the Apraxia hinders him.
• Signs over 130 words.
• Alan can do up to 100 piece puzzle with minimal help on newly introduced puzzles.
• Alan can now ride his tricycle up to 1/4 mile.  We are introducing a Big Boy Bike for his birthday.
• Alan can write his First Name and Last Name (with guide) and all the Alphabet Letters and Numbers 1-10. 
• Alan can sight read up to 200 words.  Alan is also reading Beginner Reading books.
• He can draw a stick man and Smiley Face
• He can draw all his shapes/lines - Square, rectangle, circle, X, +, vertical and horizontal lines, triangle
• He recognizes numbers up to 30
• Cutting Individually
• Peels Stickers, Cuts and Pastes
• Coloring has improved a lot.  He stays within the picture region
• Knows his parts & features, adjectives, actions, emotions,
• Understands hurt and sorry
• Recognizes crying 

Alan started back at school full day in the Autism class.  Within 2 weeks we had an IEP meeting to push Alan into a regular education class.  The school agreed to push him in for 3 hours in the morning.  At this time Alan was not fully potty trained.  We gradually increased his time in Regular education class.  By the end of August 2009, Alan was talking in one word utterances.  We just completed his 2nd session of HBOT on August 22, 2009.  The first week in October, Alan was fully potty trained.  Alan was moved into all day regular education class except until 12pm.  His special education teacher worked on rest time with Alan so that he could attend all day in regular education.  After about 3 weeks Alan was ready to attend all day.  Alan showed remarkable progress in his regular education class.