Safety of H1N1 vaccine?

As both a mom and someone who works with the autistic population, I am asked a lot what I think about vaccinations. This is coming up even more than usual right now, what with people debating whether to give their kids the H1N1 vaccine (if they are able to get it at all).

First of all, I’m not one to tell anyone what to do.  I know and respect quite a few people who choose not to vaccinate their kids (both with and without special needs), although I will admit that I get concerned about the effects on the greater population when a large number of people choose not to.  However, we all have to do what’s right for our families and I tend to give parents the benefit of the doubt – in other words, I believe people are making the most informed choice they can with the information they’ve got.  Parents have reasons for either not vaccinating or for spreading out the shots, and believe me, I am not here to argue with anyone.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this topic – and seeking out seminars on the topic – on both sides of the argument, ever since my first child was born 9 years ago, and my personal decision has always been to go ahead and vaccinate my own children in the end.  I’m not here to debate the autism question, I’ll leave that to the experts, but I wanted to share this link to my friend Emily Willingham’s very useful post about the facts related to the safety of the H1N1 vaccine.  Emily has a PhD in Biology and her career includes university-level teaching, science writing and editing.  She has a sharp, quick mind, and an eye for the facts, and she is my go-to person when it’s time to separate fact from fiction.  I should also say that she is the mom of 3 wonderful boys who have their share of special needs; one of them has a diagnosis of Asperger’s Disorder, so she has also delved deeply into the autism/vaccination question (just click on the “vaccines” category in her sidebar).  Her blog, A Life Less Ordinary?, is a great place to spend some time if you are interested in these topics.

But for today, if you or someone you know is grappling with questions about the safety and wisdom of the H1N1 vaccine and you want some additional facts to make your decision, please head on over and read this post before you decide.

Bad Fit

Lyle recently expressed an interest in playing the violin.  Having played violin and viola myself growing up, I was absolutely thrilled.  I signed him up for some private lessons and rented violins for both of us.  For a few weeks, I’ve been relearning to play some simple pieces of music and he has loved listening and learning the little things I can teach him while we waited for our class to begin.

His first lesson was last Monday, at a reputable folksy music school here in Chicago.  I sat in and observed.  His teacher moved fast.  She was intense. She wasn’t “mean”, but there was no small talk, no friendly chatter.  She moved right into work on posture  – holding the instrument properly – and told me that he wouldn’t pick up the bow for at least 2-3 weeks.  She spent the full thirty minutes on a sequence of movements required to move from “concert rest position” to “playing position”.  Each time Lyle moved his arm into a correct position he moved one of his feet a step and had to start over from the beginning.  It was hard to watch but I was so impressed that he stuck with it and cooperated so beautifully.

However, the instant she told him he was finished, he rushed across the room, fell into my arms, and sobbed.  She didn’t address this, simply let the next student into the room and pushed us quickly out the door, Lyle still crying.  He cried all the way to the car, raging at me, saying he never wanted to take another lesson, never wanted to go back.  He asked if he could keep his violin, but I told him we couldn’t keep the rental instrument if he didn’t take lessons.  I assured him that we could find another teacher, however, if he wanted.  Much to my shock, by the time we got home he told me determinedly that he would go back.

All week I grappled with this.  Was the teacher too harsh? – or is this the way you teach a young child a challenging instrument like the violin? I don’t remember starting out that way, but perhaps I’ve forgotten.  Shouldn’t she have established some sort of rapport with him first, made a connection with the child? – or was I applying what a good therapist does to a different situation, one that doesn’t require it?  She was teaching him skills and he was capable of learning them with repetition, I saw that.  But was it meaningful to him? No.   Was he motivated to learn from her? No.  So how could it be that different from a negative therapeutic situation, then?

In fact, although he was determined to continue so that he could keep his beloved tiny violin, I watched my son struggle more and more as the week went on.  His anxiety grew more with each day, and his behavior became extremely controlling and defiant.  He wanted to be in charge of every conversation and everything anyone asked him to do.  The closer we got to the second lesson, the less tolerable his behavior.  On Saturday morning, we had to leave a Halloween festival we’d invited friends to because he was acting downright nasty.

I could see it quite clearly.  He was turning the tables on us, acting out exactly what he felt the teacher had done to him.  She had controlled every move he made for thirty minutes straight.  He’d never seen an adult act like that with a child.  Each time I tried to discuss it with him, he waffled painfully; on one hand, he never wanted to go back to that teacher again. “I HATE violin,” he shouted angrily, many times.  On the other hand, he was asking to go back to her rather than another, unknown, teacher.  He didn’t want to give up that violin.

And I still wondered: Can he do it?  Should he do it?  Is this how he needs to learn?  Will he just get used to her style?  Should he?  After all, we need to be able to learn from different kinds of teachers, don’t we? Do we pull the plug this fast, or give him one more week, especially since he says he’ll go back?

But I watched my kid and saw how incredibly dysregulated he was becoming, and decided to cancel the lessons.   I realized suddenly that this is exactly the kind of thing I talk about at work all the time with families.  The violin teacher did all of the things I warn against in therapy:  she sat a brand new child down and started drilling discrete skills (e.g., posture and movement sequences) without establishing any rapport whatsoever, without placing those skills into a meaningful context (e.g., music), moving too fast, and talking too loudly (not adjusting pace and volume to a child’s developmental level and temperament).  There wasn’t a word of praise. When he had a negative reaction to the session, she did not address or acknowledge it even for a moment.  And, thanks to these missteps, my child’s behavior took a huge turn for the worse in a matter of only 5 days, even with me processing it with him every day.  (Imagine a child with a classroom teacher or aide who behaves this way towards him all day?  Think about the “naughty” behavior we’d be seeing!  What if a parent didn’t see it, and so didn’t know what accounted for his behavior at home?)

Maybe that is considered to be an optimal way to begin this particular instrument and some kids can learn that way, but my kid clearly isn’t one of them – and I can’t feel bad about that.  A good teacher or therapist of any kind doing a private lesson is going to assess a student long enough to figure out who this child is and meet him right where he is developmentally in order to move forward.  I don’t think that would’ve taken more than five minutes in this case.  This is exactly why I always do a free initial session with a new client to make sure that both the child and the adult are comfortable with each other.  No therapist or teacher is going to be a good fit for every child.

Now that Lyle knows he’ll never see that teacher again, he has started to relax.  I have a couple other violin teachers for us to meet with this week and he’s happy about that.  Maybe one of them will be a better match and we’ll continue on this road, and maybe not.  In the end, it doesn’t matter.  But one thing is for sure: we are not going to suffer through 8 weeks of lessons with the wrong teacher.  Lyle showed us very clearly how he felt about that.

This parenting stuff?  It’s just not easy.

Caweew Day

A couple days ago I was asked by a fellow parent at my boys’ school if I could fill a last-minute hole in the Career Day schedule at school.  In the interest of full disclosure here, I will admit that I tend to skulk around on the sidelines wearing dark hooded cloaks and huge Hollywood sunglasses when those notices and emails come out about the school’s annual Career Day.  Why is that?  I love my job and I don’t mind talking to people, especially kids, so I couldn’t tell you.  Believe it or not, I have a fundamental shyness that sometimes takes over, and this is one of those times.

But I like this mom who’s organizing it and I didn’t have anything going on that I couldn’t rearrange, so I said yes, sure, I’d talk about my job for 20 minutes to a second grade class.

Every few hours over the past couple of days I suggested to myself, You should really think about what you’re going to talk about on Thursday morning, and then promptly didn’t.  Seriously, I had no idea.  No notes, no particular structure to what I wanted to tell them.  I had more questions than answers: Do I stop and talk about autism, or is that my whole 20 minutes and not really the point of this? What do I do?  How do I put that into words for little kids? And so I truly walked in there with a head full of questions and absolutely no plan this morning.

I realize now that I probably did this because I knew on some level that I didn’t need a plan.  After all, I am comfortable performing, I regularly spend many hours a day talking to large groups of adults, and I am extremely comfortable around groups of children.  It’s what I do all day.  I might be reticent about signing myself up for this, but when asked, it’s not actually a challenge.

So I walked in with all sorts of bubbly enthusiasm and asked them if they knew why I was visiting.  The first boy to raise his hand told me, “Because it’s Caweew Day!” (No lie. Sign him up!)  Next, I told them what I do for a living.  Half a dozen kids yelled, “Ooooh!!” and  jumped out of their seats waving their hands at me, like they had been in a secret club for years and I was their long-lost leader finally come to claim them.  Those were the kids who go to speech therapy.  I knew that before they told me, and so I let them tell the rest of the class what I do for a living.  They did a pretty good job, describing work on /r/ and /l/ sounds, writing, letter sounds, and sign language.  I talked to them about all the names for my job: speech-language pathologist, speech therapist, speech teacher. And then I told them that I prefer to be called something different.  A hand shot up. “Mom?” asked one of the boys confidently, sure he had it right (I had told them that I have two children in their school).  Delighted, I ran over and gave him a high-five, telling him that yes, absolutely, I love to be called “Mom” at home, and then told them that I prefer to be called a Communication Therapist at work.

I explained to them what communication is all about and the importance of non-verbal communication.  I invited my little “Caweew Day” pal to come up for a role play. I had him ask me to play with him on the playground and I demonstrated how I could answer him in various ways without words, and the fact that he was watching me and understanding my facial expressions and gestures without my having to instruct him to do so.  I explained how important that is, and that I teach kids to do that and to pay more attention to it.  We talked about play groups and AAC devices and good toys for therapy.  I let the kids who go to speech be the superstars and tell their friends their favorite speech games.

There were some wonderful questions.  One girl up front raised her hand and asked me if the job is “Fun — or scary?”.  I asked her what she thought might be scary, and she suggested that when a new kid comes in I might feel a little scared sometimes because I wouldn’t know what they’re like.  What an astute question.  I suppose it was a window into how the kids feel when they walk in to the clinic for the first time.  I explained that I don’t feel scared about any kids but that if I ever feel nervous around a new student it would only be because I might wonder if I’ll be able to help them enough (although I pointed out that the longer you do the job the less you worry about this).

Next, a boy raised his hand and asked the apparently all-important second grade question: “Who’s the boss at your work?”  When I answered, “I’m the boss there,” 25 heads snapped to attention and 25 pairs of eyes stared at me in wonder.  Another boy shared, “My dad’s the boss at his work.  You have to get there first to be the boss,” followed by a rambling explanation of his father’s career history.  Okay, moving right along, then!  Then another worldly wise boy asked, “So did you buy the shop?” which prompted me to describe the clinic where I work and explain the whole space rental and share set-up.  (See, it’s really good that I didn’t plan anything, because how could you plan for this?)  I must’ve described the environment and tone of our clinic really well because suddenly a sweet boy who’d been bouncing up and down on a slanted foam cushion the whole time made a strong association – he raised his hand and told me he goes to my favorite local OT clinic and and who his therapist was, and I told him to tell her “hello” for me.  We had a moment, he and I.  I loved that these kids were all proudly sharing their therapies with each other and I can tell you for sure that the kids who’ve never gone to a therapist for anything were dying of jealousy.  I might’ve emphasized how awesome it is just a little bit here and there.

Before I left I asked how many of them thought they might want to be speech therapists when they grew up and at least 90% of their hands shot up.  I’m guessing the response was going to be 100% if asked by the guests who came in after me – musicians with props – but given the fact that I didn’t know about speech pathology as a career option until my senior year in college, I figured this was pretty good.

Something tells me I’ll put away the dark cloak and sunglasses and volunteer to spend the whole morning doing these talks next year.

Thanks for Asking!

There is so much to say about this first week of school.  I could talk about Lyle’s transition from anxiety to ambivalence to an attitude of embracing kindergarten – right down to today’s unbridled joy over actually getting his first homework assignment.  I would also love to tell you about Baxter’s giddiness about being back in the classroom, the fine motor skills he’s been plugging away at starting to improve enough to give him some real confidence about his writing and drawing.  The super cool work they’ve started to bring home that I’m dying to scan and post here.  It’s been a pretty incredible week to be their mother, that’s the truth.  They may not be the only ones with the perma-grins.

But here’s the thing: it’s my turn.  So let’s pretend for a moment you all came here to find out what I was up to this week.  Because, really, aren’t you kind of wondering what the hell I’m doing with myself now that I’ve cut back dramatically on the kind of direct work I’ve been doing for years? I thought so.  Thanks for asking!

First of all, it’s been awesome.

Second of all, it’s been awesome.

Seriously.  I’ve got just a small number of regular work hours scheduled this fall and the rest is flexible time.  And remember that I now have two kids in full-day school – I still can’t believe my luck.  Right now I’m filling many of those hours with a strange combination of errands, appointments, hours at my desk on billing and insurance for my practice, and returning calls.  But I am loving what feels like carefree independence, being out and about in the city, getting things done without anyone sharing minute details about Pokemon with me in the backseat; when I get through the things I pushed into September (knowing I’d be kid-free), my days will be a bit more open.

For the past few years when I’ve been working like crazy with highly scheduled days,  I was aware of these little flickers of professional opportunity – I had a vague sense that they were out there but was too busy to focus on what they actually were and grab hold of them.  I decided – for all sorts of reasons – that this was going to be the year I would open up my schedule and really see what’s out there.

For one thing, I am continuing to run workshops with school districts that are implementing the SCERTS Model, something I love to do and believe strongly in.  In fact, I’m leading a 2-day training this coming week for a local district.  But I couldn’t have done too many of these this year if I had a schedule booked with lots of regular clients again.  I wasn’t sure what else was out there but I felt strongly that it was worth the risk to make the time available.

Sure enough, things are already getting interesting.  Families looking for SCERTS help in the home, a new start-up focusing on autism home care and educational programming seeking input and advice, a new Music Together class I’ve initiated for kids with special needs and their siblings.  I have time to meet people over coffee, find out what they need, network, and figure out how I can help.  That seems so basic, but it’s been years since I’ve had the kind of time available to do things like that during the day.

I don’t know which possibilities will turn into reality yet, but I don’t mind.  I feel confident after just one week that I’m going to be perfectly fine – that the bills will get paid and I’m going to have all sorts of interesting new work.  Bring it on!

Mandated Reporting: Please Read

I have a new post up tonight on the Communication Therapy Blog that I’d like everyone to take a look at.  It’s called Mandated Reporting and the Special Needs Child, and is packed with information related to suspected child abuse and neglect that really ought to be common knowledge but does not seem to be discussed nearly often enough.  Please note that this law applies to all families, not just those with a child with special needs.

Thank you for taking a minute to read it and then passing it along to other parents.

Repost: Surviving the Holidays with Sensitive Kids

About a year ago, I wrote a post here called “Surviving the Holidays with Sensitive Kids” and it was a popular one.  I heard from readers throughout the year that they were going back and reading those particular suggestions often.  So I thought I’d put it up again – a little late, as there are only a couple of days before Christmas, after which the excitement starts to abate, but maybe it’ll help anyway.

I will note that, a year later, many of these strategies are not as necessary for Lyle to get through the holiday season, but I do complete a calendar for him during any periods with lots of celebrations, days off, and transitions (e.g., November, December, and June, when school ends). He uses this tool a lot, going to the refrigerator to check the date and announcing what is going on today, tomorrow, and next week.  I have noted an interesting side effect, which is that he has a better understanding of time concepts because of it, as well.  The calendar is very regulating for him, and I keep it posted on the fridge at 4-year old eye level.

Here’s the piece, originally posted here on December 14, 2007:

Both of my boys are sensitive guys. I believe that, in the long-term, this is a good quality in the males of our species, I really do. In the short-term it can be a bit tough, however. Among other things, it means that Baxter cries easily and was afraid of segments on Sesame Street until he was about 6 years old. I mean, truly, there is never any doubt about how that boy is feeling and it’s been relatively easy to help him learn to manage his emotions.

But Lyle, though probably even more sensitive and finely-tuned than his big brother, has been much harder to read. Rather than crying when he’s scared or his feelings have been hurt, he is likely to feel confused and hide behind what I think of as his “wacky” behaviors: moodiness, hitting, sudden shrieking, twirling in circles, and jumping on top of his brother.

I see children through an uncommon lens, because of my training. I’m sure this has pros and cons for my family. In my book, children’s behavior is highly meaningful – they are communicating something with their actions, and our job is to watch, listen, and interpret the message in order to respond appropriately.

So when Lyle’s “wacky” behaviors began to escalate in the past week, I took it very seriously and watched carefully. In addition to the usuals – which were significantly heightened – he began to bite his shirt collar or jacket a lot – and a couple of times even bit his own hand earlier this week.

Now, listen up: if you are my child and you want me to go into Full Alert Mode, just start biting your hand. I’m all yours.

I watched. I listened. I talked to Matt. I thought about it a lot.

Let’s see, what’s going on for this shy little guy…Christmas is coming (exciting)…Santa is coming (scary and exciting)…he was invited to his first school friend’s birthday party (scary and exciting)…my work party is this Saturday, complete with a live Santa (scary and exciting)…Mommy was a stress case the last two weeks (scary)…there are new decorations all over the house – and everywhere else, for that matter (exciting but different from the norm)…we’ll be going to California in less than two weeks (exciting). And on and on. No wonder the child is completely dysregulated. That’s a lot for a small boy to handle.

So here’s what I’ve done.

First of all, I quickly gave him a substitute to bite. Because think about it – oral input is the most primitive source of comfort and self-regulation we’ve got. Consider breast-feeding, sucking on a pacifier or a thumb. Many adults use food or cigarettes to satisfy that need. If we say, “Stop biting” but give the child nothing to substitute with, we are probably causing him more discomfort and then what’s going to happen? Probably more biting.

I have a collection of oral motor tools that are safe and durable, and I offered Lyle an assortment. He took to one of them. I encouraged him to get all the oral input he wanted with that – while we read stories, when he watched a video, or when he was starting to experience heightened emotions. It helped. Forty-eight hours later he isn’t biting anything else and isn’t even using the tool much.

Second, I worked extra hard with him to identify what he was feeling. When he began to bite his shirt or shout, I slowed him down and asked, “What are you feeling right now?”, helping him to differentiate between excitement and nervousness so that we could identify other ways to deal with those feelings. This worked very well. Tuesday afternoon I took the boys over to Starbucks for hot cocoa in the afternoon. Lyle was starting to get really wired, and I raised my voice to get his attention before he bumped into someone. He immediately bit his shirt – but then stopped and said to me, “I was surprised because you spoke sharply to me.” He then climbed on my lap and allowed me to comfort him and explain why I spoke sharply. This self-awareness led to an immediate decrease in the undesirable behaviors in that environment.

Third, I slowed down his world as much as I could. I started to speak slower and more quietly to him, and kept our schedule as calm as possible. I made an extra effort to sit down and focus on pretend playing with him more often, which always gives us more opportunities to connect emotionally and play out difficult situations.

Fourth, I made life more predictable. I drew a calendar of the next few weeks for the kids. On each day, I drew simple pictures to identify Lyle’s school days, days with the nanny, when exactly the parties are, when we go to California, etc. When life is busy and routines change all of a sudden, many kids (and probably adults) need some extra predictability and external organization. Both of the boys are checking their calendar multiple times a day; it’s posted on the refrigerator.

This is an exciting time of year. That’s as it should be. It’s fun to dance in the kitchen to Frosty the Snowman, treat the kids to some holiday fun, and enjoy the season.

But for kids who are not so sure yet about how to express their feelings, ’tis also the season for some extra support.

Do All the Good You Can

As I helped my last client of the day recreate the blanket fort he built in therapy last week, it dawned on me that I mentioned this the last time I posted here, which can only mean it’s been a full week since I wrote.

There are so many post fragments floating in and out of my consciousness, with no time to sit and write any of them down.  I find myself both working intensively on things that need to be done right now and simultaneously trying to play a massive game of catch-up.  On Saturday night I stayed up late and finally responded to emails that I had flagged as “important” back in late July/early August.  I have reports that I meant to write in July that remain unfinished, and because no one is asking for them (they aren’t initial reports, just testing done on kids I still see) they have not moved up in the queue.  Yesterday I spent five straight hours calculating my income and expenses from May through the present and estimating income for me and my new full-time employee, in order to meet with my accountant today.  The to do list is long and self-perpetuating, and everything on it is rather critical.

And so the posts just continue to gather dust in my mind as I tend to these other things right now, but as you know I am still trying to read and comment on what you all have to say.  Tonight I read a very nice post by Mari, a great writer on my blogroll from Australia.  I enjoyed the whole post, but my favorite part was this quote by John Wesley, which serves to remind me of exactly why I am so busy right now and makes me feel a little bit better about it:

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

Lovely, no?

Intro: New Preschool Class

Some of you have requested more information about the new SCERTS-based preschool class that my colleague and I just launched this week.  I will be happy to provide that, with ongoing updates.  Tonight I’ll give you the basic overview.

We have developed a small, highly individualized class called L.E.E.P. into Communication, and it is designed for a group of children ages 4-6 with social communication and emotional regulation challenges.  We meet five mornings a week for three hours a day.  My colleague is there all five mornings, I am there three days a week, and we have three Assistant Teachers who are there all five days.  In addition, we currently have a psychology intern from Loyola University and may get an intern from Erikson Institute and a speech/language intern from Northwestern University.  Our ratio rarely drops below 1:1.

In addition to having a Developmental Therapist and an SLP (me!) running the program, we have hired an excellent Occupational Therapist and a Clinical Psychologist to consult to the program once a month.  This means that they will visit, observe, and provide us with any additional suggestions and observations that would benefit the kids.  The OT and psychologist are both DIR/Floortime experts, with one of them being an ICDL Faculty member.  Beginning next month, we will also have a specialist coming to do music/art therapy with the kids once a week.

This being what I refer to as our SCERTS-based, DIR/Floortime-informed program, it is highly focused on both communication and each child’s social-emotional development.  It is also very family-centered.  Our goals incorporate the parents’ priorities and areas of greatest concern.  We present proposed initial goals to the parents and adjust them if necessary.  We spent 6-8 hours completing a full SCERTS Assessment Plan on each of the children, which included a great deal of video review from the clinic and the home (we went to all homes and videotaped the child for an hour in natural routines).  The parents are asked to meet with us every 6-7 weeks to review progress and discuss how things are going at school and at home, so we have a rotating schedule which allows us to meet with one family each week throughout the year.

The program is truly cutting edge in terms of its philosophy and guiding principles.  It is aligned with the most current and appropriate best practices guidelines out there for kids with Autism Spectrum and Related Disorders, and it shows.

From the minute the kids arrived on Monday morning, they were happy and relaxed.  We had the environment set up in a way that enticed each of the children into a regulating activity, whether it was a favorite swing, play doh, or animal puzzles.  We have visual aides everywhere you look, and use music and singing to help with transitions throughout the school day.  Kids take movement breaks in a ball pit, a resistance tunnel, on their choice of swings (e.g., boat swing, bungee swing, huge lycra) when they need to, and then re-engage with the group.  We also spent four days providing intensive training to our staff, which meant that everyone knew the kids’ needs, favorite activities, motivators, and how they expressed dysregulation as individuals (e.g., one child’s toe-walking is another child’s recitation of the alphabet) before they arrived.

Although we worked incredibly hard to prepare an envirnonment and staff perfectly suited to this group of children, we were still shocked at the ease with which the kids moved through these five days.  From Floortime play to Morning Circle to TEACCH stations to lunch or art or cooking projects, the kids transitioned well and without any meltdowns.  Seriously.  No meltdowns.  I didn’t see or hear of one all week.  We took a lot of videos and photos!

Speaking of videos and photos, I’ve created an online group for the parents and staff of the program as one of our lines of communication (in addition to the daily notes we type up and hand them on their way out).  It’s been a great way to make announcements and share information with everyone this week, and tonight I put up a lot of photos for the parents.

I could go on and on (some would argue that I already have!), but these are the basics of what we are offering.  I’ll update you through the year about how it’s all going, but I will say that – judging by the progress we’ve observed just from Monday to Friday this week – we are going to see some kids whose development looks very different in June than it does today.

And remember the best part: without tantrums.

Over the Moon

I know that it can be alarming when this blog sits silent for a full week, especially after such a desperate post, but I am back today and happy to report: I made it.

After treading water for a while there last week, it would be enough for me to say that I’m back on shore now; that I gathered my resources (all of them, internal and external) and gradually swam back to the beach with my strong crawl stroke. But that’s not where I am.  I’m not on the beach, catching my breath and watching the waves, grateful that I made it by the skin of my teeth and relieved to be staying on dry land for a while.

No.  I want to tell you that I am not there on the beach because I am in a far better place.  I am, in actuality, over the moon.

I just spent two full days working with a group of 35-40 teachers, SLPs, OTs, PTs, LPNs, paraprofessionals, and administrators from a school in Central Florida that serves children with special needs, many of whom have autism spectrum disorders. There as a consultant working for one of the SCERTS collaborators, I brought to them a presentation designed to refresh their memories about this fantastic educational model (which their school has already philosophically embraced), and to present a case study.  The case study was on one of their own students, and they had sent videos to us in advance for preparation.  This allowed me to use one of their students to demonstrate behaviors and strategies I was teaching as I went along.  It also gave them a chance to learn the full, detailed assessment process from start to finish, using one of their own, and by the end they walked away with a brand new, full educational plan for this child, including activity goals and concrete suggestions for school and home.  The staff also had the tools and information they needed to use SCERTS with all of their other students over time.  They were ecstatic.

I talked, I joked, I told stories carefully chosen to make it clear that I am one of them: a therapist who makes mistakes she regrets, who is still learning, and who can laugh at herself, all of which is true.  At the same time, it was clear that I have advanced training and a level of expertise that they could learn from.  And they did.

I have never felt so good professionally as during these two days.  It was the perfect culmination of all my years of training, development, and work with children and families, as if everything I’d ever done had led me directly to this, standing in front of these professionals and teaching them a brand new way to think about their students and then what to do with that information.  Never have I felt like such an expert – there was no question I was unable to answer from the SCERTS perspective and then elaborate on, drawing from all sorts of different experiences I’ve had.  Frequently, I jumped in and answered one of their questions and then later thought to myself, Wow, where did all of that come from?  At the first lunch break, one therapist came to me and showed me the multitude of notes she had taken.  “You might think these pages of notes are all from the slides, but they’re not; these are all from your stories,” she told me, excitedly.  That was the first of many highs.

Up until now, I have been able to impact a handful of children and their families at any given time in my school- and clinic-based settings.  This week, in just two days, I was a catalyst for dramatic change that will effect at least 50 children, changes that will begin immediately.  At the end of our second day together, I held back tears on more than one occasion as I listened to the way the participants were talking about their work and the children they serve.  It was beyond uplifting.

For the past year I have held tight to a vision for my work in the coming years – sort of the Next Phase – and it included a lot of this work, SCERTS consulting.  But until I did it, until I experienced it for myself, I couldn’t say if it was going to be a good fit for me.   Now I can say with certainty that my suspicions were right:  I love it.  In the upcoming months, the opportunities to do this here in the Midwest will grow, and this is part of my dream.  I want to be able to do this as much as possible without having to travel far while my boys are young.  I will probably do a couple more workshops during this academic year, with the goal of dedicating a larger portion of my time to it next year, when Lyle starts kindergarten.

And so, no, I’m not catching my breath on the beach here today.  I am over the moon, in a state of euphoria, and feeling blessed to have worked my way to this time and place in my life.

Flowers for Evan

More than a year and a half ago, I came across an excellent online post about non-verbal communication.  I was preparing to give a workshop on that topic at the time and emailed the author (a “Ms. Forman” if you go back to look at that first email) to ask her permission to share it with the parents at the workshop.  She most generously said “yes”.  As it turns out, I also shared “Ms. Forman’s” blog link with Susan Etlinger in San Francisco who had, just a day or two before, created The Family Room blog where I would be guest posting on occasion.  I was happy to discover at the BlogHer panel where they both spoke last weekend that my email is how those good friends first became acquainted, a fact I didn’t know but that explains exactly why this networker send links hither and yon.  Because you just never know.

One of my favorite and most often shared posts of Vicki Forman’s is “The Mother at the Swings“, which was posted at Literary Mama in January 2007.  In it, she discussed an important and difficult topic, which is how to talk to parents of typically developing children about raising a child with special needs, and how she would like to respond to the other mothers who watched her son Evan joyfully swinging at the park with interest and curiosity.  If you have never read the post, I urge you to take a moment to read it now; if you have, read it again.  And then pass it along to everyone you know.  (And along those lines, I strongly recommend reading Vicki’s most recent column, written earlier this month, called “Mothers Like Us: Contemplating My Tribe“, which is just wonderful.)

In honor of Vicki’s beautiful son Evan who tragically and unexpectedly passed away on Thursday, a Flickr group has been created.  Those of you who wish to express your love and sympathy to Vicki and her family but cannot make it to the services for Evan are encouraged to place flowers on a swing near you, take a photo, and upload it to the Flickr set for the family to see.  The photos that are there already tonight are absolutely gorgeous.  Go take a look.

Since I am already in San Francisco this week, I am able to fly down to Los Angeles tomorrow evening to be there for Evan’s funeral service on Tuesday morning.   If anyone doubts the power of a supportive blogging community, I would like that person to see how many of us are going to LA for Evan’s services on short notice and/or finding beautiful, creative ways to support Vicki and her family from afar.  It is truly amazing.

Now, mothers and fathers at the swings, get thee to some flowers.