This makes me absolutely ill! How could a person who is entrusted to educate and care for a child with any type of special needs do this? I've had run in's with Lex's former daycare teachers that weren't capable to handle his special needs but a teacher who's sole job is to educate children that require extra time, love and effort treating a child like this makes me want to raise hell. Kids are mean enough to each other, especially at 14 that a teacher is supposed to help protect and foster growth and kindness not act like the school yard jerk.
We have been so blessed since getting Lex out of the daycare that couldn't handle him. Pam, his daycare provider, is a saint. She has 3 boys on the spectrum in her care and I've seen her patience both in person and by the way Lex has grown since starting there. We also have his teachers at school, Miss Carol and Miss Annie, and their aides to thank because I know he can be very trying to deal with but it shows me he's loved when a teacher calls me on the weekend after he injures himself at daycare to make sure he's doing alright and she comes up with special sensory activities to help keep him engaged. Heck his teacher used her private funds to order special "chewies" for him to use because she noticed he's very orally fixated. It meant the world to me when I went to his conference this week and she couldn't help but gush over how great he's doing and how excited she is to try new things with him.
Speaking of his conference she gave me a long list of his successes since starting the school year and here they are:
- Identifies letters in his name. He is also starting to identify other letters in his classmate's names.
- Counts 1 to 12.
- Follows picture schedule book. He is also repeating directions like "circle" and "eat".
- Able to attend circle time for up to 20 minutes. He usually sits with assistance, holds onto a fidget item (chewies, picture) and is trying to sing and/or do the actions.
- He focuses on things he likes. Tracing letters, building trains, copying patterns, computer play (matching colors and letters) and cutting and gluing.
- Willing to try new things. (He doesn't like gooey sensations) Shaving cream, Finger painting and touched pumpkin "guts".
- Manners. At breakfast he says please, thank you and all done. Apologizes: sorry, its ok, nice. Covers his own cough and says hi and bye every day.
- Appropriate protesting. At the beginning of the year he always just screamed now he says "no" and "stop it".
- Identifies and chooses feelings like happy, sad, mad and tired.
- Toileting. They have a routine of "ready, set, go" to get him to sit for a 10 count since he doesn't like to sit on the toilet.
- More willing to help during undesirable times; cleaning up toys, etc (with assistance).
- Beginning to make a choice between 2 objects using pictures versus just wanting to take both objects or pictures.
His occupational therapist was impressed with his improving fine motor skills. One of the goals that was set for this year was to have him string beads onto a shoe lace 3 of 5 attempts. He has mastered it for almost every attempt. Usually she has him sitting in the swing or on a cushion that makes him stabilize himself while he does it but she's so impressed.
His speech therapist plans on sending home a list of words for me to fill out so we can accurately see what he's saying there and here to figure out how many spoken words he's using regularly (which is always changing because now he asks for "Mater" when he wants to watch Mater's Tall Tales and last night he asked for "chock-it nilk").
I'm impressed with my son everyday, it amazes me to think that in two and a half years we went from "mama" to nearing 100 spoken words.
