A glimpse of the future?
This week has been much the same with Liam each day. He continues to have his moments of anxiety. Those moments repeat themselves over and over each day. Liam’s speech continues to be a serious problem. Whatever speech therapy he is getting at school is of no help. We Jill and I are going to review his IEP and have a meeting with his teachers. We both feel we haven’t seen any improvement since the beginning of the school year. We need to put more pressure on the school to do more for Liam. Jill and I just don’t feel he is getting what he needs.
Wednesday night we had the Autism Society of Greater Cleveland monthly meeting. A coordinator for the Outreach Services for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism spoke. Jill had met her before when she toured the Clinic. She was really a very good speaker who gave us some ideas. One of the things she talked was IEP’s. It was good to hear her pointers for things to look out for, and things to have in it. She stressed to make sure that goals in the IEP be measurable and observable. Metrics are the only way to measure progress. This has also prompted us to review the IEP to make sure that each of his goals can be measurable. By us attending the meetings we have gotten to know a Cleveland Police Officer who is very intelligent, very book smart. He has the ability to read laws and be able to interpret them in plain English. This has helped him write his sons IEPS and force the Cleveland school district to give his son the help he needs. He knows very well how school systems would much rather do just enough for your child than what is best. He has been kind enough to offer to review Liam’s IEP with us and give us some pointers on it. We are thrilled with his offer. Having another set of eyes look at the IEP will help us ensure we are doing the best for Liam. He is helping us an advocate. There are plenty of companies that offer advocate services, but of course, get ready to pay.
The president and vice president of ASGC and I talked about a few things coming up. ASGC is having its first fund-raiser Monday 2/6 as the vice president (Gus) is being a ‘celebrity bartender” at the Mill Road Grill in Brecksville. The president (Rory) has said he wants to start doing public service announcements for our group to help grow membership. He has a relative that is related to Bernie Kosar formerly of the Cleveland Browns. He would like to have him do the PSA for us and I think that’s great. We will be talking more about it later. Last April there was a rally in Columbus to push the state reps to do more for Autistic children. We are going to find out if this rally will take place again. If it does, we want to charter a bus to take a group from the ASGC there. I think it’s a great idea.
Now for the “glimpse of the future”. There were about 26 people at the meeting Wednesday. It was a great turnout. One thing we noticed was a gentlemen in his early twenties who seemed a bit nervous. After observation it was clear he was Autistic. He asked the speaker a question in the middle of her talk that was out of place. He asked “Are there any other Autistic adults here?” Clearly you can see his social skills were lacking, like all other Autistic kids, and adults. The speaker asked if there was anyone, that there wasn’t, then continued on. I thought she handled it well. After that he seemed very nervous and unsure of himself. A short while later he walked up the speaker and politely said “I have to leave, my aunt is waiting in the car, thank you” Everyone wished him well and he left. Rory was out of the room for a bit and I filled him in on what was going on. He followed the young man out and talked to him. The young man was looking for a social group. That is something we (ASGC) would like to have in the future, social gathering for Autistic adults, teens, and kids. It is imperative that they constantly work on their social skills.
After observing this young man in the room I began to think of Liam in his twenties. I began to wonder how will he progress socially? Will he be that obvious in a group that he is different? Will he even want to be in a group? So many questions and thoughts began racing through my head. It was actually quite upsetting to think about. I honestly began to worry what will happen when Jill and I are gone. Writing this was hard to do thinking about it again. I have to stop myself and keep my focus on helping Liam now. Keep him socially active, teach him what is socially acceptable, and teach him how to handle himself socially. Taking care of all this now will take care of itself later. It’s all about faith.
As a final note, please take a look at something I wrote about last week, it is a website for Dakota Bihn. Her mother is maintaining a diary on their progress. Click on the link on the right side of this page to find out more.
Wednesday night we had the Autism Society of Greater Cleveland monthly meeting. A coordinator for the Outreach Services for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism spoke. Jill had met her before when she toured the Clinic. She was really a very good speaker who gave us some ideas. One of the things she talked was IEP’s. It was good to hear her pointers for things to look out for, and things to have in it. She stressed to make sure that goals in the IEP be measurable and observable. Metrics are the only way to measure progress. This has also prompted us to review the IEP to make sure that each of his goals can be measurable. By us attending the meetings we have gotten to know a Cleveland Police Officer who is very intelligent, very book smart. He has the ability to read laws and be able to interpret them in plain English. This has helped him write his sons IEPS and force the Cleveland school district to give his son the help he needs. He knows very well how school systems would much rather do just enough for your child than what is best. He has been kind enough to offer to review Liam’s IEP with us and give us some pointers on it. We are thrilled with his offer. Having another set of eyes look at the IEP will help us ensure we are doing the best for Liam. He is helping us an advocate. There are plenty of companies that offer advocate services, but of course, get ready to pay.
The president and vice president of ASGC and I talked about a few things coming up. ASGC is having its first fund-raiser Monday 2/6 as the vice president (Gus) is being a ‘celebrity bartender” at the Mill Road Grill in Brecksville. The president (Rory) has said he wants to start doing public service announcements for our group to help grow membership. He has a relative that is related to Bernie Kosar formerly of the Cleveland Browns. He would like to have him do the PSA for us and I think that’s great. We will be talking more about it later. Last April there was a rally in Columbus to push the state reps to do more for Autistic children. We are going to find out if this rally will take place again. If it does, we want to charter a bus to take a group from the ASGC there. I think it’s a great idea.
Now for the “glimpse of the future”. There were about 26 people at the meeting Wednesday. It was a great turnout. One thing we noticed was a gentlemen in his early twenties who seemed a bit nervous. After observation it was clear he was Autistic. He asked the speaker a question in the middle of her talk that was out of place. He asked “Are there any other Autistic adults here?” Clearly you can see his social skills were lacking, like all other Autistic kids, and adults. The speaker asked if there was anyone, that there wasn’t, then continued on. I thought she handled it well. After that he seemed very nervous and unsure of himself. A short while later he walked up the speaker and politely said “I have to leave, my aunt is waiting in the car, thank you” Everyone wished him well and he left. Rory was out of the room for a bit and I filled him in on what was going on. He followed the young man out and talked to him. The young man was looking for a social group. That is something we (ASGC) would like to have in the future, social gathering for Autistic adults, teens, and kids. It is imperative that they constantly work on their social skills.
After observing this young man in the room I began to think of Liam in his twenties. I began to wonder how will he progress socially? Will he be that obvious in a group that he is different? Will he even want to be in a group? So many questions and thoughts began racing through my head. It was actually quite upsetting to think about. I honestly began to worry what will happen when Jill and I are gone. Writing this was hard to do thinking about it again. I have to stop myself and keep my focus on helping Liam now. Keep him socially active, teach him what is socially acceptable, and teach him how to handle himself socially. Taking care of all this now will take care of itself later. It’s all about faith.
As a final note, please take a look at something I wrote about last week, it is a website for Dakota Bihn. Her mother is maintaining a diary on their progress. Click on the link on the right side of this page to find out more.
posted by Jim McIlwee at
9:50 PM
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