Pretty Okay: Few Words, Lots to Translate
Charlie woke up at 5.20am, showered, and came down the stairs exuberantly. It was ‘no’ to a walk and then he went to get his socks. Jim brought up the possibility of a bike ride; I pointed out that it was a bit early. Charlie (now besocked) returned back down the stairs and we asked … Read more
That Was Then, This Is Now
Charlie did good at school, as his teacher emailed me and Jim noted. He took the bus home and then wanted my dad to sit in the front seat of the black car. It was another instance of Charlie having some idea, some image, in mind about how things should be when my dad and … Read more
Backseat Driver
Monday morning I was trying out a new route to drive Charlie to school that, Jim reported, had taken them a mere 34 minutes on Friday. We indeed zipped along for the first 20 minutes then, after getting onto a state highway lined with commercial establishments and chain stores of every possible kind, we sat. … Read more
Working the iPad: Stories2Learn and TapSpeakButton
First, a bus update. Still waiting to hear about a bus to take Charlie home. Yes, contacting the transportation department and the special ed director are on the Wednesday to-do list. On the longer term list has been, as I've from time to time mentioned, trying Charlie on some sort of augmentative communication device. We … Read more
Rhetorical Questions, from Cicero to Charlie
The Twelve Tables, the Roman forum, and the finer points of litigation in ancient Rome are calling me tonight, plus I've got to write some sentences for a quiz on the Ablative Absolute and Indirect Statement for a Latin class. I don't think think I'm wrong to think that you might prefer to read yet another … Read more
Bye Dad Hi Dad
A few thoughts of mine on two new studies regarding the detection of autism in infants over at Care2.com ending with some musings about how, even though it was not exactly easy to learn that our toddler boy had a severe and significant neuro-developmental-psychiatric disability, it was a lot easier to help Charlie through neurological storminess when he was … Read more
Who Knew That Summer Vacation Could Actually Be So Good?
'Kathy!' said Charlie as we were driving out to New Jersey horse country yesterday morning. 'Thea Marilyn Flo!' All with a big smile. Those are the names of two teachers and classroom aides Charlie had some nine (nine, back in 2001), years ago, when we lived in a condo in central Jersey. Miss Kathy's class … Read more
It Is Raining
Charlie picked up the phrase 'raining'—sometimes he says 'it's raining' or (bonanza! a whole sentence) 'it is raining,' with a big accent on the 'rain' part, so the second part almost sounds like a separate word—-from watching a video on YouTube. Or maybe from two videos, one in which children put on raingear and got … Read more
Mapless
We were on our way to Jersey horse country for a bike ride yesterday morning and ended up taking a slightly different route. We knew where we were, but not exactly how to get to the road that leads to the town where the bike path is. Jim said, ‘Let’s look at the map’ and … Read more
Incident, and Progress, Report
On average, 'incident reports' get sent home in Charlie's school communication book about two times per week. These offer a brief account of whatever happened, possible antecedents/reasons for the behavior ('not sure' is an option, and I'd rather that—sometimes we just can't figure out why Charlie does what he does), a description of the response, … Read more
