AmandaOh man, I thought January was a rough month for us, however February has proven to be a doozy as well! First, Zion had to go to the hospital with a mild asthma attack. It is never a good feeling when the school nurse calls to tell you she can’t hear air moving through your son’s lung.
After several treatments and meds, Zion was discharged and placed on a preventative inhaler that he is still taking 2x a day. This med will hopefully prevent him from having to use his regular inhaler so much. I think so far it is working because the coughing at night has diminished and his lungs are sounding great.
Then we move from Zion to myself. I had tonsillitis in my left tonsil, and then a viral infection in my right one. I fought a horrible sore throat and just yucky feeling for almost 3 weeks. However, the month is ending and we are all feeling great again! Looking forward to a much better spring.
There is good news though. Zion went on a field trip to the rodeo and he had a great time. For those of you not from San Antonio, we have a rodeo every year with all kinds of shows, livestock, carnival, and of course food. My parents went on the field trip with him and he got to see the animals and did lots of fun things. He came home and proceeded to tell us that he now wants a farm with lots of animals.
Zion is doing pretty amazing in school. As I mentioned before, he now attends math and reading in a 1st grade classroom. He is doing great and actually enjoys doing homework. He reads a book to us every night. I am excited to see where he ends the year as far as his reading level. He had a week when we had a hard time adjusting to the 1st grade specials schedule, and actually refused to go to class. But since then he’s been adjusting well. The kids in his kinder class love him, and they listen to him while he reads books to them. This such a different year from his experience last year and I am so grateful for his amazing kinder teacher, inclusion teacher, and any other teacher that is involved with his success.
I recently started going back to school and one of the courses I am currently taking is a Research Design course. I basically had to create a study and write about how I would conduct the research. The topic I picked dealt with Social Development in Children with Autism.
This is a topic near and dear to my heart because of Zion. Speech wise he’s made HUGE gains (he knew 5 words at age 2), and even academically I don’t worry in any way. Where I worry is with his social development. His lack of eye contact, his lack of need to make meaningful friendships, his lack of peer initiation of communication or play. These are all things I wonder about, and wonder if he will ever make more gains. This is why I focused my research on this topic. I did it not only to gain more insight for my class and as a teacher, but as a mother of a child with Autism. Anyone out there have any good ideas about Social Development? Tips, advice, best practices? Send them my way because I am always all ears! Thank you so much for reading!
