Brown Bear, Brown Bear: how Chace and I read it

This is a book idea I picked up from Chace's SLP, Jaime up at Lurie Children's. Chace is doing so well with her right now, and we will surely miss her when we go back home to Manila in September.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  is a book by Bill Martin, Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle. It's a very good book for Chace because the text is repetitive, and he easily caught on to the pattern.

With Jaime, we used plushie toy animals, but since I couldn' find those anywhere, I just used these printables that I got online. I laminated them so they could last longer for our frequent use. When we read the book together, I let him pick out the next animal to stick on our foam board, before I turn the page. So it's simple animal and color recognition as well. :)

It's really a very simple book, but there are so many activities that you can do to teach your child different skills (sorting, coloring, tracing, etc.). It's easy enough to google "brown bear printables/activities" to find the right activity for your child.:)

First attempt at Visual Schedules

This is the first visual schedule I made for Chace. I saw a lot of examples on the Do2Learn website before, but I wasn't sure where to start using it. We have our own routines with Chace but his day isn't absolutely uniform all through out. Like he knows how to pray before meals, he knows how to wash his hands with minimal guidance from me, and we have our own established bedtime routines.

For now, I'm trying to get him used to having a visual schedule just for when we do his speech therapy at home. I'm hoping to use it for other things later on, especially activities where he needs to practise focusing his attention and not get distracted. The idea is we take off the activity card when we're done with that particular activity and we place it in our "All Done" box.

I made this with a trial version of Boardmaker Pro, which is nice because it makes it so easy to look up picture cards, resize them and prepare them for printing. I make my own boards, but they also have templates and premade boards that you can use. You can also find more Boardmaker templates on Boardmaker Share. The downside is that the trial is good only for 30 days, and the paid version is really expensive (around $399). The alternative is you can just take pictures of the actual objects your child uses for his activities and use those on your visual schedule.

Then I just used a foam board and some Velcro dots, bought from our nearest Staples store. The Velcro makes it a little sturdier for frequent use. If you don't have Velcro, you could also use binder clips to fasten the picture cards to the board.

The visual schedule helps kids who have difficulty focusing on the task at hand, and is particularly useful for kids with autism, like Chace, because they easily get distracted. It can be used for any daily activity, to teach your child the proper sequence of activities, and also to prepare your child's expectations of what comes next in his daily schedule.

As I write this, I'm already trying to think of other ways to incorporate this into Chace's day. I'll keep you posted :)

Kid Mode by Zoodles

We have Kid Mode by Zoodles installed on both our phones and on Chace's tablet (yes, we're one of THOSE parents who think getting a tablet for our kid is a good idea). Its most useful feature is that it has a very effective childlock feature, so that we don't have to worry about him tapping on pop-up ads that appear on some of his favorite apps.

Kid Mode has five main tabs: Games, Art, Books, Mail and Favorites. We rarely use the Mail feature though, since Chace isn't conversational just yet.

On the Games tab, we put in all his apps and games, and even a media player for the music videos we downloaded for him. Also on this tab, you can find assorted educational videos that are appropriate for kids. I think the content changes weekly or bi-weekly. I say this because Chace seems to have a favorite video to watch every other week.

He's been using the Art tab a lot lately. He's only recently started drawing faces and a clown. We're crossing our fingers for more :)

The Books tab allows parents to record themselves reading the storybooks for replay later on by your child. Only the first one is accessible with the free version of this app (Three Little Pigs). The others you can get from upgrading to Premium, or you can buy separately for $2.99. I did record my own version on my phone, and it was easy enough. The graphics are just okay, not fantastic.

                                         

The Favorites tab is where all his most played apps and videos appear. Only thing is, he'd get confused sometimes when he tries to access Kid Mode on my phone, and he doesn't see his apps on the Favorites tab. The app lacks syncing capability, which is about the only downside I can think of so far.

                                         

The bonus was the addition of featured videos with songs from such popular shows as Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba, and also some from his favorite YouTube blogger, KidsTV123 :)

All in all, we're really happy with this app. And these are features that are available on the free version. With the premium version, you get more stuff, like being able to promote subjects for certain skills you would like your child to target, and even excluding material with cartoon characters you may feel are not appropriate (at your own discretion). I think the price to upgrade is reasonable ($4.99/month or $39.95/year), though right now I don't see the need for us just yet.

That being said, kudos to the Zoodles team for making a great app!:)

I want to tell you...

...a  little bit more about myself first.

I was in a corporate job until about 2 years ago, when my husband got a working assignment which , in turn, gave me an opportunity to do something I had been contemplating ever since Chace was diagnosed with global developmental delay (GDD). At the time, we were already letting Chace do both occupational and speech therapy, and there was definite progress; there was no doubt of the benefits he was getting from OT and ST. But, in my mind, I always felt that more was needed. He needed someone to focus on getting him to do the therapy at home; more than that, I really felt he needed one parent at home. I just could not entrust his care to a yaya, seeing as he needed so much more than just someone to feed him and prepare him for school.

The decision to take a personal leave from my job was a year-long discussion between myself and my husband. The primary consideration was, of course, financial. We knew it was not practical for a family to live on a single income. In the end, it was about what Chace needed now. We both came to the conclusion that having one parent focus on him would pay off better later on, in ways which money cannot buy.

So here I am, now a committed housewife and hands-on mom, not perfect (but aspiring to be). Some family and friends may applaud our decison, others will wonder what the hell we are doing. I admit that sometimes, I think about whether this was the wrong decision to make, whether I just wasted my education and career experience, to turn around and do something completely different, new and unfamiliar...

...but then my heart whispers to me, "Yep, you're moving in the right direction." <3

Hello!

I haven't blogged in a while, but I wanted to start this journal to chronicle our experience with autism. My son, Chace, was diagnosed with GDD back when he was just turning 2 years old, and recently it was confirmed as ASD by a second doctor. This journal is for us, but hopefully it will also be of help to other parents who are still somewhat new to autism. We've only just begun our journey. Join us :)