Our gorgeous James has been super spacey and stimmy this week. I haven't seen him this wacky in years and I can't help but find it worrisome. He always stims at some point, usually when he is tired or alone in his room. Lately, he even tries to stim in the middle of an activity. One minute, James is focused and we are doing puzzles. The next, he is throwing the puzzle pieces around, giggling hysterically. I stop him by removing the pieces and asking him to sit nicely. Then I hand the pieces to him one by one. Usually this works and we are back to the puzzle But, a few times, James has tried to stim with the puzzle board, flipping it around. I make him finish the puzzle and we stop. He has also thrown little slappy/kicky tantrums (is it called a tantrum when accompanied by shrieks and happy screams?) in his sensory gym. Once at the end and once at the start. I have gotten him "back" but it is not easy or quick. It's frightening. And no, I do not scream or yell, or react in some way he might find rewarding. What is this? Another messed up autistic thing that we have to learn to live and deal with? Is it because his OT had to leave the country suddenly (her father passed away)? On the less upsetting front, I think we have made major headway on curbing James' obsessive behavior regarding shutting doors and lights. The word "NO" has worked (said it repeatedly, for weeks). It has worked so well, that now, all I have to say is "Daddy says the doors must be open!" Of course, we make him reopen the doors and put the lights back on, too. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to hammer a point home with our poor sweetie.
Another plus is that James has been approved for a speech device. I'll learn the proper language by next week! Of course, being the Board Of Education, you do not get what you or your therapist think you need. They evaluated him on three devices, one of which is no longer available. They also used icons that are not used in NYC education and ones that he was unfamiliar with. They went with what James teacher said over what we or his speech therapist thought. They said that James' progress in school was to be held in higher regard than at home or in a one-on-one situation. Fine. So James was approved for an 8-icon device (as opposed to the 32 icon board he has been training on for 6 months). The device will have 12 programable boards, so we custom make ones for OT, Speech, School, the beach and Brooklyn. And they are easily reprogramable so we can make one for visits to relatives or special trips. That said, this department goes on vacation at the end of the month until September. Great. We waited for this evaluation for six months. Is this process going to take a year? Meanwhile, Dad is going to troll Ebay and see if he can find something to get him started.
