March 11

This week we got a record 11hrs and 10 min!!! I have now increased my goal to being 11 hours and to gradually build up to 15 and then over the summer hit 20-30. With kindergarten on the horizon I really want Sarah to be as ready and as flourishing as she can be. I am scheduled to do the next bit of Son-Rise parent training in Oct (with my mom coming to The Option Institute and Son-Rise center/Autism Treatment Center of America with me to watch Amy and Sonia coming to Pittsburgh to be with Sarah).

I had a consultation with W. last week (again excellent and helpful) and am scheduled for a consultation with another facilitator (M.) this Fri. I'm feeling the internal motivation to ramp up our program and find more volunteers. I am also working on scheduling a time for M. to do an outreach and come to our house and work with Sarah and observe me working and give us suggestions for how to help Sarah the most.

This week Sarah has started pluralizing more of her words (when it is the correct thing to do) and has started to sometimes add "s" to "d" so it is "D-s buh-luh-oh n-oh-z tishu p-k" (D. blows her nose with a tissue, pink). She also says more things that I don't always understand but that sound more like full words. She's been changing the way she says button (usually "buh-t-n") to be more the way we actually say it with the t almost not there ("bu-(t)un").

L. noticed that for the first hour they played together Sarah was really connected, as if totally understanding that L. was there to play with her and wanting to connect. Since Amy wasn't having it for me to go away and do my time with Sarah that day, L. did 2hrs 15 min (a volunteer record) and by the end of that Sarah was not as into being there and not as connected. So as we build up the weekly time I think it is important to do it gradually, for all involved.

Sarah and I worked with assembling a train track a few times this weekend. Sometimes she clearly gets it so easily and understands how to manipulate the pieces and sometimes it is clearly confusing and she has the bump-out piece on top of the hole where it needs to go but the track is lying on top of the piece that it needs to be next to.

Eating hasn't been the greatest this week but Sarah was sick on Fri so who knows how much belly discomfort she has and isn't communicating verbally. and now Carl is sick. I hope all of you are well.

Music class again went pretty well with Sarah alert and focused for 1/4 to 1/3 of the time. I'm not sure if it gets to be overwhelming sometimes and then she disconnects. Maybe. But when she connects she is having a good time and taking it all in.

What I do know for sure is that a great feature of the Son-Rise program is that it gives me a framework for spending more quality time with Sarah and that makes such a huge difference. It keeps me staying with her and trying things when in the past I would have given up in frustration or moved away to deal with dishes or mail or laundry, etc.