Tuesday, January 26, 2010


I love this picture. I loved this day. We went on a family hike. . He started off walking with all of us and made it quite a ways. It was heart warming to see him on the trail. We brought the baby pack for him and he was content the rest of the hike on Andy's back. Afterward we played football in a field and here he is free again on his own two feet. Complete bliss.

His pre-school teachers are angels. He has quite a few angels caring for him. Mrs. Loretta, Linda, Ashley and Suzie are some of them. They are so loving. He is so well cared for. When I drop him off he runs right into the arms of Mrs. Loretta. Oh how I love her. She prays for guidance every morning to know how to help him. He smells like her when I pick him up...so I know she has been holding him and helping him.His art work is with help from her hand on his hand. Brings me peace. She is quick to tell me what she has noticed about him during his time there...something new he has done. Today, she told me he was sitting at the table with some of the other children and they were kicking their feet and laughing, then he startedkicking his feet and laughing with them. Happy day.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Thoughts from Therapy

Just wanted to jot down the notes I wrote during therapy. Ersta asked me to bring in a picture of each child in our family so she could make a game for him to point out family members. My thoughts today: The goal:Getting Ammon to look at books one page at a time, even better, have him point to familiar objects and recognize the objects. The idea: home made books with actual photographs of familiar objects and people. Another thought: Use the PERC for music/finger play ideas.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Ammon and a Robot


Lacey--We love you!! Ammon would run into the building looking for Lacey. As soon as he would see her he would run into her arms and she would scoop him up. She worked so hard to help Ammon. She went to GREAT lengths to make therapy a special learning time for Ammon. She was very aware of Ammon's sensitivities to smells and textures, but she wanted to use play dough to strengthen hand muscles and for a table activity. Ammon gags SO BAD when he gets within a mile of it. So, she made some home made dough and added a jello packet to try to make it smell good. OH MY> he gagged like you would not believe. It sounds really mean but...Lacey and I were trying to not bust a gut(after he stopped of course). Go here to read Lacey's presentation about Ammon. She made sugar cookies for him to frost, covered a table with paper with all his favorite letters written on it, made chocolate pudding to help him feed a baby doll, created a wall schedule, brought in a tote of rice and water and was always such a good sport. I loved how excited she would get when Ammon would finally get something we would be working on. Good times were had at the BYU Speech Clinic with her. Ammon and I will both miss her.



Lee Robinson called me today from BYU. She is a one of the directors at the Speech Clinic. She called to ask me if I would be ok with having Ammon be a part of an experiment...an experiment to see how autistic children interact with Robots...in hopes that in the future they might use robots (a little 3 foot robot that is immobile but has facial expressions and talks) to help them communicate. Very interesting. I'm excited to see what Ammon's reaction is...hopefully positive. Since it is a new semester, Ammon has a new graduate student. Her name is Ersta. We met her for the first time last week. A had to endure yet another hearing torture, I MEAN , test. Ersta was extremely compassionate and is very good with Ammon. Hopefully they will have a connection.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

January 4, 2010
Up bright and early to make it into Salt Lake by 8:30. Sam is such a good sport. I woke him up a little before 7 and was whispering CHEERIOS in his ear to get him out of bed. We haven't had cold cereal for a few weeks so it worked. I didn't get on 1-15 until 8 so needless to say I was late. CSHCN-Children with special heath care needs-was our destination. We hadn't been there for almost a year. Dr. Brad Peck (psychologist) was the Doctor of the day. I always kick myself for not writing down my questions so I will remember everything. Oh well. Dr. immediately sat down and began looking over his notes from last year and then observing Ammon. Asked me questions about any progress he had made over the year. To me it was HUGE that he is saying a few words again.

Dr:" I sense in your voice you are worried whether he will talk"
All of a sudden I became EXTREMELY SELF AWARE...if you know what I mean...after all I was sitting there talking to a psychologist.

Then I reminded myself for the millionth time that this was about Ammon not me.

He went on to give me some helpful insights."Kids with PDD (pervasive developmental disorder) like Ammon who lose language will generally begin to regain some language at 3 years and 3 months which will build over the next few years. Their receptive language however does not come until around 7 years old." (Which was really a shock to me.) Dr. Kerr had told me that sometimes when children lose language they never speak again...so I became really hopeful for A. I would give anything to sit and ask him something and have him answer me back.I have pretend conversations with him all the time in my head. Usually about him telling me something about a truck or what he wants to eat. I'm living for that. I've pictured it a million times.

Dr. then tried to test his I.Q. Sounds funny. Ammon just wanted to re-arrange the furniture. So we'll wait on that. Next year.

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