One Year Later - Part 2 - Little Man

The past year with Little Man has been a time of great highs and some pretty frustrating lows. When we left Utah, he had just finished 2nd grade at a charter school for high-functioning autistic kiddos. We knew he was having some significant emotional/behavior issues but he seemed to be pretty much on track academically.

He spent the summer soaking up the sunshine and spending fabulous time with Grandma J and Grandpa R. Over the summer his behavior was unremarkable, just doing fabulous. He spent lots of time outside playing - something that was pretty limited back in Utah due to the owners renovating our townhouses. He discovered such fun as the Lego store in Downtown Disney - one of his all time favorite places to be. Imagine every kind of Lego possible, tables with Legos waiting for you to build to your heart's content and even a Lego race ramp where you can build your vehicle and race it against the other kids'.

When school started in mid-August, the special ed team and I decided to start Little Man off for 3rd grade in an inclusion classroom (half special ed/half regular ed with two full time teachers - one regular ed teacher and one special). I was thrilled as I'd always "planned" in my Mommy mind on him being out of special ed by third grade. The first day of school was wonderful. The second day blew up in our faces. Within a few weeks he was moved to the self-contained class for severe to profoundly autistic 3rd-5th graders. Obviously not a good fit as he's very high-functioning but it was the only place we could put him then. Living in a tiny, rural district leaves few options for the special ones among us.

Despite the imperfect fit, Little Man seemed to thrive in the new class. He loved the one on one attention and the teacher found ways to work around his challenges. His reading, despite our prior thoughts, is very delayed so she found a software program called Write OutLoud that reads back each word he types so he has immediate feedback on what he's really writing. He has a very difficult time with his hands so she got occupational therapy involved, got him an AlphaSmart to type his work on, and moved as much work as possible to typed or oral instead of handwritten. She got Little Man to enjoy writing stories and when he came up with a play, the whole class performed it for the other special ed class. Non-verbal kids didn't stop them, the whole class participated.

Moving across the country also meant a new team of behavioral/developmental specialists. I couldn't have imagined what we were about to step into and the tremendous impact this would have on our lives, but especially on Little Man. The new psychiatrist and developmental pediatrician (they work together and see him at the same time, every time) spent a lot of time talking to him and they decided to refer him for neuroacademic testing and things didn't seem to be adding up. He was 9 years old and left a letter out of our last name when they asked him to write it, he could spell simple three letter words but no more than that, and single digit addition and subtraction. For a child who was supposed to be near grade level in academics, this was obviously a problem.

The next several months were spent in various evaluations. IQ testing, academic testing, more tests than I can remember and we got some surprising news. The testing showed that Little Man has a normal IQ but learning disabilities in reading and writing, visual motor sequencing issues, the receptive language level (what he understands) of a 4 year old even though his expressive language (what he can say) is pretty much on level. Various other scores showed he has very splintered development with some skills on track and others severely delayed.

The psychiatrist explained his school behavior issues as this: Imagine you're at work all day and people are constantly telling you to try harder, that's not good enough, you can do this if you just try, pay attention, sit still and you're doing everything you can and just not understanding. She said we too would reach our breaking point and hitting and kicking is the only way he has of coping when he reaches that point. It made a huge impact for me and helps me understand him so much better.

In April, Uncle J came to visit for Easter and bought Little Man one of his dreams - a guitar! Complete with amp and all accessories. He started lessons soon after and, as I shared before, he recently got a scholarship that we are all so proud of him for. He's always loved music and now he's creating music of his own.

It's been a challenging year for Little Man, and a year of acceptance and change of thinking for me, but we'll continue to work through things and with greater understanding comes greater opportunity. I have no doubt that big things are in store for this boy.