Well, we had Bella’s second six month progress report meeting and I am proud to say, she is doing great! Everyone is quite proud of the advancements she’s made, especially when you consider that less than five months ago we were told that there was a very high possibility that she’d never use words on her own or be able to communicate with us.
To put it in perspective; three months ago, before she began her applied therapies, Bella didn’t use any words on her own. The ones that she did use were usually being repeated. Today, Bella has a vocabulary of about 12 words that she uses on her own and in context.
Her communication towards us, and others have improved so much that there are days when I am literally smiling ear to ear listening to her. Having the ability to ‘tell’ us what she wants has lessened the frequency of meltdowns and has lowered the level of frustration for not just her, but for us too. She still uses signs, but now she can also say ‘thank you’, ‘please’, ‘you’re welcome’, ‘juice’, ‘more’, ‘food’, change’, ‘all done’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’. She can also identify her sister and brothers (almost) by name and point them out when we ask her who it is.
She’s responding to one to two word directions, like ‘get shoes’ or ‘brush teeth’ and we’re even making some leeway on potty training.
Another thing we’ve noticed that is Bella loves music and responds to it greatly. She’s been caught, on more than one occasion, walking around the house, singing! One of her favorites, right now, is “Old McDonald Has a Farm”. She loves making all the different animal sounds. She also knows all the words to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and she can sing the “ABC” song, although I’m not sure if she knows that it’s the alphabet or just a song.
She loves to dance at home, so they thought that she might like to do it at school too, but they only offer Zumba. The loud music and screaming kids isn’t something that she can deal with well with her auditory sensitivity. Instead of Zumba, she spends extra time in the sensory room and seems to be really benefit from that.
Bella has made so much progress in physical therapy that they are going to drop her down to just one class per week. That actually works out well, giving her some open time during the week for another speech class or another music therapy session.
Although Bella still has the overall development of an 18 month old, the progress that she’s making will most likely bump her up to the 24 month old level.
Another thing that has amazed us all is the fact that, even though autistic children are unable to empathize or really identify emotions in others, Bella has been able to learn what an appropriate reaction is to certain emotions. So if one of her classmates is crying, Bella will go over to them and pat them on the back. When she hears her baby brother crying, she’ll try to give him a stuffed animal. She may not know what it means when someone cries, but she understands that trying to make them stop is the right thing to do. I guess it’s just a longer way to learn how to respond when someone is showing a certain emotion and while it may seem to come naturally to most people, all things like that are learned somehow. I guess Bella just has to learn it another way.
As with all progress, there is always some regression or, in our case, a standstill. Bella still tries to run from the classroom, and when we take our walks or let her walk on her own at the store, she still tries to run. I think that running will be an issue that we’ll have to deal with forever, not just because it’s a common issue among autistic individuals, but because it seems to be something that Bella loves to do. Hey, maybe she’ll be a future track star? You never know. Her inability to sense danger or realize that something could hurt her is something that we’re always working on.
All in all, I am very proud of her and so thankful for the hard work her therapist and teachers put in. I am also very grateful that they found a wonderful one-on-one aide to work with our daughter. Bella seems to love going to school and she’s very comfortable around her teachers. And of course, they couldn’t say enough wonderful things about how sweet she is. They all love her to pieces.
We were told that we’re doing a great job with her at home, which, of course, is always nice to hear.
