TheWalters4

Joe was diagnosed officially (no surprise there) at the beginning of 2009 with Aspergers Syndrome/High Functioning Autism, amongst other things... Hypermobility, Hypotonia, Sensory Processing disorder and High Visual Perception.  He is in year 2 now at school, was statemented whilst at pre-school and gets 25 hours per week 1:1 help.

We have explained Autism to him and so far he seems to be taking it well.  He even told a lady once that he had *enough Autism to last me a lifetime*. This book has been such a help... http://nasdb2.wrenhill.com/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=797&a=18248 , When My Worries Get Too Big.

So far school is going well; a typical day today was a report of a bit of bullying from other boys (more taking advantage of his vulnerability rather than bullying - a common problem with boys, the girls just love him and mother him) and also news that he flew through his reading tests for year 4 and 5.  He has an incredible talent for reading and loves it almost as much as he loves Lego!

Life is often hard at home with Joe, especially for Mollie as he is her role model.  He is demanding, rigid, loud, questioning, impatient and clumsy, to name a few - but is also a complete delight.  Just look at the picture at the top of this page - it was Joe in his pre-school nativity play - he would only wear the angel costume if he could be a white VW van, one of the first of his many obsessions!!!  We have many photos like this that are treasured memories...it took an awful lot of careful planning and cunning on the part of myself and Kim from the school to get him to this point!

His speech and overall communication skills where typically very slow to develop but with the help of Portage we taught Joe to speak using Makaton http://www.makaton.org/.  What a revelation that was - and proof of what a visual learner he was.  And still is.  Numerous visual schedules and social stories later, he is getting along as well as we could have possibly dreamt of.....and we are so proud of him.

 Some links that are useful and books that I have used

When Joe was first referred to Dr Green (his paediatrician before we moved) he went to the pre-school she recommended in Petersfield called Acorns Opportunity Group.  It was there that we met our now life long friend Kim, and under her care (and that of Gill and the other ladies) Joe blossomed.  It was also then that Kim showed me her big black SN (Special Needs) folder and I first saw the word *statement* (until then I thought it was just something you got from a bank) and also I found this..

http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html - called Welcome to Holland.  Have a read.

Although hard to cling to at times, this sums up exactly how we felt.  Most of my friends were also having babies or were people I met from Antenatal classes - and gradually over the first 2 years since Joe's birth, our lives started travelling a different path.  That was hard to cope with in itself, as friendships fell away, but luckily I have met some amazing people from the numerous ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) support groups I joined and have some of the best friendships you could wish for.

In order to get Joe a Statement of Special Educational Needs, we needed input from many people - most importantly the pre-school, Educational Psychologist (EP), Speech and Language Therapist (SALT), Paediatrician (Paed), Portage, our TOPS lady (Thomas Outreach Project) and our Private Occupational Therapist (OT).  All of this needed to be obtained through several meetings/observations/reports and I soon realised that having a child with Autism was like having a office job on the side.  Even to this day, Mollie only has the small plastic wallet that we were given at her birth, with records of immunisations and a few hospital visits; but for Joe we have several book cases and numerous files taken up with paperwork in regards to his short life.  And it will only grow in time.  One website I found particularly useful at this time was Afasic, with helpful pages like this -

http://www.afasic.org.uk/pdf/Proposed%20Statement.pdf.

I was lucky enough to get involved with a social story workshop and learnt a lot about writing social stories for Joe.  They have been a life line for us - the difference in Joe after he has been visually prepared for something is incredible.  Here is an example of just one, although they take many different formats depending on the topic and his level of understanding; from single sheets like this one to multi paged laminated / bound books!

 I also wrote this for some friends a while ago and so thought I would include it here to describe what social stories are and how they are made.

During 2009, I joined a growing support group in Alton.  It was run from a great pre-school, called Bushy Leaze, in Alton. The staff there were so supportive.  I knew some of the members there, and also met some other mum's.  In July 2009 we launched as the new Alton Branch of the National Autistic Society.  I am now helping out as much as I can and I am currently the Branch Officer. See our website.... http://www.nasalton.com/