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^_^ hi and welcome...cp can be difficult ..i know i watch eric and wish he could just run about for hours with his little friends but sadly he cant go for long..then hes up all night screaming in pain =/ if you ever wanna talk you can pm or im me ^_^..ur brothers a cutie 3nodding ~big hugs for both of you~

Ok. As many of you know, my son last fall was diagnosed as autistic spectrum disorder... being only mild.. but, his language skills are greatly impaired. He doesn't really talk much. But, in September, he did start preschool. He is in a school that houses an occupational therapist and a speech therapist. So, he gets occupational therapy once a week and speech twice a week. But, at preschool roundup, these ladies all made lists of goals they wanted to see him reach. Well, he'll be lucky if he even meets half of their goals by the end of the school year. And, when i go to parent teacher conference, they love to lecture me about all this stuff i need to do because of this and that.. and they insinuate how they feel I am not doing a very good job of helping him to develop his langauge skills. man. i tell ya... well, for one, I have began to think to myself that he might not like their speech therapist. really.. cuz i was talking about the whole thing with my prayer guild friends. One girl made the insight of maybe she just either intimidates him or tries to make him do more than he feels he can do.

anyways tho... um, when i was at work last week, I started looking at some of the baby einstein stuff. Found a set of flash cards made for language developement. So, i show him picures and read the names of what they are. and, try to get him to repeat me... well, i had a breakthrough the other night. and he will repeat me some what if i can get him to focus and stop messing around... but, in doing this, I am discovering a lack of attention problem he has... anyways, I also picked up a book called teh blue's big book of words. [blue clues, he likes it] and, two pages will all have an environmental theme. like, one will be school, or another will be the playground or the grocery store. and, aroudn the edge is a bunch of items with the names of what they are... and, i'll read them and he has to fidn what they are in the page... and he'll point to it. So... yeah.. slowly making some progress here at home..

wanted to share the breakthrough's i have had lately with those of you who also have special needs children. Oh yeah. and I am reading to him almost every night... we do about 15-20 pages. like, we did green eggs and ham over a few days. we'd read some pages, take a break, and then pick up the next night. and i'm gonna get a golden book treasury of bedtime stories.

oh, also, i did find out switching him from normal sippy cups to ones with a straw also are good. I understand that the muscles in their mouth they use to suck on a straw help build muscles they use to talk with.. and, I've got quite a collection of thomas the train dvd's now.. those all have at least 2 sing a long songs. and my mom got naaman a veggie tales sing along collection dvd set for christmas. so, I play that a lot. and the sing alongs are helping i think.

Hello Lisa.

-hugs back- How are you? And everyone else for that matter?