Have written new blog post on my website.  Tagged for Autism and Christianity. 

http://www.forthesakeofjoy.com/approaching-expectations/

On a related note - does anyone else find "report card time" to be a bit of a joke? :) Our overall grade, "Approaching Expectations".

 ~Peace

Hi ~ my son began piano lessons 4 weeks ago.  I posted a blog with a video clip of his progress.  Click here to check it out and please leave a comment if you have had any experience with music lessons for your son/daughter.  Any recommended resources, etc. would be appreciated! :)

~Peace

My friend Craig posted a hilarious blog in which he shared pictures of a “book” he wrote when he was 9.  Craig had his first book published by a publisher this month, so it was really neat to journey back in time to view this young literary prodigy at work.  Check it out:  http://craiglancaster.wordpress.com/

My son Cooper loves to illustrate stories.  Because his language is so delayed, I love the insight his books give us into his thoughts.  I have a portfolio of his “books.”  This link: http://www.forthesakeofjoy.com/young-talent/  goes to my  web site where I posted pictues of a story he wrote about how he envisioned Christmas Eve. (I couldn't put that many pics into this site's blog space)  He writes how he talks – leaving out words in the sentence and using many sound effects.  We use story writing in his therapy to work on sentence structure; phonics; reflective thinking; and many other skills.  I will continue to encourage him in his writing ~ maybe one day he too will be a “Craig Lancaster”  : )  Peace!  ~kp

I am watching college football and my Alma mater is losing to the team that was our biggest gymnastics rival when I competed for Penn State.  Yes, JoePa and the Nittany Lions are being outplayed by Ohio State.  (Stupid Buckeyes.)  Although I have nothing to do with the outcome of the game and I have no financial interest in who is the victor, I still want my team to win and the fact that they will lose has made me just a wee bit grumpy.  I know this grumpy feeling will last approximately 64 seconds after the game actually ends, and then it will be gone.  Because even though I wanted them to win, my mood for the day does not depend on it whatsoever.  

Shift gears...   Cooper currently has two favorite songs.  One is titled "The Best Day Ever" and is sung by Spongebob Squarepants.  The other song is "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.  Best Day Ever and Bad Day.  I find it interesting that the extremes of "best" and "bad" are what appeals to him.  It makes some sense though.  He has trouble finding the middle ground.  Usually he is at one or the other end of the emotional spectrum....Completely happy and satisfied or agitated and inconsolable.  When he was younger, if he was having a day living in sad-ville everything would become all about getting us back into happyland.  We would do everything we could to get him out of the funk.

On Wednesday of this week he had a really hard transition from school to home.  By the time we got home he was in such a state that he and I sat on the landing of our stairs for a good 20 minutes.  I just held him while he sobbed.   At some point he said, "I'm sorry mom."  
I said, "You have nothing to be sorry about." (big pause)  Then I said, "I hate to see you cry."  
His response was, "I know.  Me too.  I can't help it."  read more »

Something snuck up on me.  I knew in the back of my mind it would arrive someday, and I am shocked to realize that today is indeed, someday.  When Cooper began kindergarten, all of the kids were little and innocent.  Sweet, shy, some a bit behind in their language capabilities; all still very much like babies as they marched on with their giant backpacks.  The occasional teary outburst from Cooper at school didn’t phase the group, they all still cried a lot.

In grade one and then grade two, changes began to happen.  But at age 6 & 7, the developmental differences between Cooper and the others were still not as drastic in appearance as perhaps they really were.   The kids were still so “little.”  Now, in Grade 3 I have been hit in the face with a realization…  the developmental gap between Cooper and his classmates is widening.  And will likely continue to seem and be wider and wider.  This gap has crept up on us and now stands wider than I remember it seeming last year.

We have worked really hard to help Cooper develop emotionally and socially as well as learn the basics.  I don’t want a little boy who just knows how to “repeat after me” – when we know that our brains are experience-dependent.  He can learn to engage in flexible thought; he can develop more mature relationships than what would have been expected from someone with ASD.  My heart has always been to see him progressing forward – no matter how fast or slow – just forward.  I’m good with that.  read more »

As a kid, it seemed like the "Public Service Announcement" tests came on the television at least once a day. Usually right in the middle of a good "Laverne and Shirley" episode (yes, I used to think there was such a thing!) would come the deep male voice, "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast Network. If this were a real emergency, the next 60 seconds would include important information and blah, blah, blah. Beeeeeeep."

Nowadays those long test beeps are rare. If there was some sort of emergency, these days most people would likely find out about it through a friend's facebook status. Emergencies aside, it is how many of us find out about what is going on in our country and our world. It is a very real fact for thousands of people. How many of you first learned about Farrah Fawcett or Patrick Swayze's deaths through facebook? Who learned of the recent earthquake in the American Samoa from a facebook link?

News travels fast. More than 100 million users log onto facebook every day. No, Austin Powers, that isn't one million, that number is one HUNDRED million. Staggering. I have been on facebook for over 3 years now. I too am guilty of learning about some of the events happening in this world first from my facebook friends, but the simple truth is that I have connected with some terrific people and I am glad that I would rather check what they are up to in my day before turning on the world news. (Which can be, quite frankly, annoying at times)

One of the great people I have connected with via fb is a guy named Craig Lancaster. Craig and I went to high school together. We weren't bff's or anything in high school, but as adults we have realized that we have a lot in common. We probably would have been good friends in high school if we had the opportunity to get to know each other better.  read more »

Recently there has been a picture going around facebook.  It is a grid made of 20 squares.  Each square contains a command such as "tag a person who changed your life " or "tag the person with really nice eyes".  You, the facebooker, are to tag your 'friends' that fit the description in the box. 

Yesterday we went swimming at a friend's house.  The kids had never met my friend before.  As we pulled into the driveway Cooper asked, "Where are we?"  To this I replied, "We are visiting my friend Judy."  Cooper responded with, "Oh. 15015."  You see, 15015 represents the house number on Judy's house.  He will remember this number as being linked to my friend Judy; just as he links KWE 234 with my friend Angela (her license plate) or 718 with my mom (her house number).

As he introduced himself to my friend he made sure that she knew his number (his age) as well as the ages of his little brother and sister, my age and my husband's age (who wasn't even there).  This is one way he describes people in his life.  At this point, if I asked him (about kids in his class), "Who has the best smile?" or "Who is your funniest friend?"  He wouldn't have an answer.  But he could tell you many of their birthdays, or where they fell alphabetically on the class list.

This is one difference between the way he sees people and the way most others (myself included) see people.  We often will classify people by a physical characteristic or by an outward display of their character that appeals / or does not appeal to us in a subjective way.  "Nice eyes", "Big hair", "Smelly kid".  read more »

Hello!  Althought this is my first post on Autism Blogger, I have been writing for over 3 years about our family's journey with autism and learning life's lessons together.  My personal webiste is www.forthesakeofJOY.com.  There, you can read my previous posts and subscribe via RSS feed to my blogs and pods.  I look forward to getting to know my fellow bloggers on this site and learning about your stories as we do this thing together!

~kp