An Email from School.... can be enlightening....

So before spring break, I received a letter from Michael's SLP* saying she wanted to share his computer with the class. To take a moment in their regular classroom, and show the kiddos how hard Michael works to say anything...

It was a nice email... certainly a step in the right direction.

In her email she suggested that we print out all of the pages that Michael has to use in order to say hello, or make a statement.

If I went to school and gave each student a 10 page manual.. I think I would loose them on the first page.

BUT.. if I show them how cool it is to take a spelling test on his computer- maybe they would think it's cool that Michael has a computer to help him.


So tomorrow we're meeting with the principal and his speech therapist to discuss what we could do for the classroom.
I'm going to take the opportunity to show them a few different thoughts that I had.. and hopefully they will run with it!

There are math quizzes that we could make, spelling tests... really the possibilities are endless.
www.adaptedlearning.com

So tomorrow's another big day.. and I hope it's a successful one.

(Bringing Brad with me.. because he's my voice of reason.. I typically want what I want.. and I don't back away from speaking my mind... Brad plays the 'good guy in our good guy/bad guy routine..)

*SLP, Speech/Language Pathologist.

Tomorrow's a BIG Day...

It's a huge day tomorrow.. HUGE..
I will need to give a little back story for you all to understand how BIG this day is for us..

Michael's had his ACD* for three years next month.. and it's taken the school 20 months to understand how important his computer is - not only to him for communication but also from an academic/learning front.

We struggled, we've fought, two lawyers, three advocates, a handful of doctors ranging from neurologists to pediatricians, four speech therapists, oh yeah and two parents that will NOT give up!~ All of these people in a room, with letters, with examples of success stories, and it's still taken 20 months to get the school to use this computer in the classroom everyday.

HOWEVER.. TOMORROW is a new day.. It's a BIG day.. because someone from the school is going to attend an all day training on Michael's computer. They are going to learn the basics and hopefully feel more comfortable with using it at school everyday.

Michael's para** will go to this training and it's a BIG deal. Because this means that the school recognizes how important his ACD is. It shows us that the school is starting to bend.

I can't be too harsh on the school. Looking back on all the struggles, I have to say that I don't think they've ever experienced someone like Michael before.

See, Michael has a process delay, and he's non verbal, but he's super social, and he learns by mimicking his peers. He's not autistic.. so the training that they've had for autistic kids didn't always apply to him. He was different- and then he had this super expensive computer that can do all of these really cool things- but this school that has only been around for five years, has never seen one.

So it's a BIG Day.. It's a Cool day.. I hope the para (Teri) learns a lot tomorrow. I hope she learns not to be scared of the computer.. I hope she takes away from the 6 hour class how helpful his device can be. And how important it is for his communication.

BIG DAY..

*ACD- Alternative Communication device- see previous posts for more info.
**Para- Para professional- It's an adult that has to be with Michael all day during school because Michael is not able to move through the school or learn independently. She basically is there to make sure he doesn't hurt himself- she walks with him to classes and often times is there to apply the lesson the teacher has modified for Michael throughout the school day.