Little bits of this and that

I have been neglecting my blog. Lots of things have happened, including my taking a short consulting gig that took me out of town several weeks (not all in a row).

David has started going to a new school, New Vista, in south county. He is doing mostly very well. The school is private, and it focuses on high-functioning autistic kids. These are the ones who can do well academically; but, without social intervention, would not be able to hold a job. In addition to academics (the English teacher informed us on our pre-sign-up visit, that she teaches all twelve tenses; to which I responded, "Pluperfect, huh," just to let her know ... :-), they have a heavy focus on socialization. This summer, David will be going to summer school that is focused, with some local employers, on job experience. I am anxious to see how he will do.

Michael continues to be Michael. He has made some progress in school - speaking of tenses, he now occasionally uses past tense, and seems to understand it, at least a little - and he (drum roll, please!) won Student of the Year at his school. I sat in at his last IEP. Our biggest issue with Michael is his need for one-on-one supervision, for the safety of himself and others. If he cannot get past this - and it does not look promising, although we continue to work at it - he will always live a confined life.

Michael is going back to camp this year. He has been talking about camp for the last couple of months - since May I think. He writes about it frequently in his diary. We are working on the social story that goes with it, emphasizing the wait in the airport once we clear security. He does pretty well though security. But last year, we were almost not allowed on the plane, because he got so anxious he threw a temper tantrum when the place was not there. And he is 6'3" and almost 200 lbs. This year, in addition to the prep, I am planning on giving him chlonidine - one on the way, and one once we are there. It will make him very sleepy, but that is much better than risking not getting on the plane.

So ... those are the quick updates.

 Last year, Marc and David accompanied Michael and me on our trip - we rented a home in nearby Georgetown. David had a great time, hiking with us and getting out on his own in town. He even - according to him - advised the owner of the local bookstore on why he had out was effectively miscategorized, and should be "over there" with a different set of material. 

... that's the benefit of autism
you can have your own little world, without feeling lonely in it.
At least, that's what David told me today.

Shakespeare in the Hood

So, David and I started reading Hamlet today. We first each took two of the four characters (that speak; the Ghost does APPEAR), and read the parts. I stopped him periodically to discuss the meaning of words and phrases. I told him that he would be given an exercise wherein he would analyze a set of quotes, and "translate" them into modern English. He has decided, on his own, to translate them into "Ghetto." Bernardo is now Bernie, et.al. "Whaz Up" has replaced a more Shakespearean greeting.

I have created a monster, or the genius has created himself.

Stay tuned.

Poetic ...

I have taken over some more of David's education. In addition to his College Algebra (yes! the 16-year-old is working in College Algebra), I am working with him on Programming and English, and have found some decent online science courseware (although I am more monitoring than teaching).

I decided to include some poetry at this point. So we read some famous poems that include references to trees; and, after discussing them, He was surprisingly - at least to me - very receptive. I asked David to "compare and contrast" two of them. This is how his paper started:

Poetry, I must admit, is a great art. You can write about many things in many certain styles. 

Bright young man. Very bright.

"It's Michael"

That's what we say when he does something that *obviously* has a rationale - we just can't figure out what the rationale is.

To reach our house from our where the boys live, you can either take the freeways roughly West and South or other freeways South then West. (Think of it as a big rectangle, with no diagonal freeway.) Alternatively, you can "step" down the surface streets.

My daughter-in-law normally takes the freeways. Lately, Michael has been requesting that she take the 22 freeway as part of the trip.

"It's Michael."

Hello after a long hiatus!


Here's a little something that tickled me to bits:

So I was talking to David today and he informed me that he was making 320 mix tapes. 

"My goodness!" I said, "That's a lot of music. What are you going to do with all that?"

"Listen to it," David replied, matter-of-factly.

"Well, how many hours of music is it?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Well, can you figure out an average?"

David thought for a moment and told me there were 60-70 minutes of music per tape. 

"Wow, " I said, "Assuming 8 hours / day, how many days of music is that?"

/ pause for math / 

"Forty," David said, then he continued, "Noah could have used it for his mix tape. "

Now, where did he hear that?

When David gets upset and acts out, Mikey gets aggitated. At a minimum, he starts saying things that, I think,  are his way of explaining/coping with David's behavior.

Yesterday, David got upset about something, and fussed - which upset Mikey. Mikey started muttering his usual coping things, "David is sad. David is a crier." Then he said, "David is On the Rag."  !!!!!!!!!