Dear Noah....after TEN years you have finally finished speech therapy!

WOW...this day has been a LONG time coming. You have come so very far with your speech, speaking, reading, talking, expressing yourself, etc. You still have a ways to go. We often look back at old videos and are amazed at how far you have come in talking. Even you cannot understand some of your old videos where you were talking.

I think speech therapy would still be continuing on had I allowed them to continue with social skills questions and scenarios for you...because you never quite met those goals....according to them, but I felt that was not really speech therapy's job..it was my job...or your dad's job..to teach you about social scenarios and what is an appropriate response and how to react. I never agreed with allowing speech therapists to try to teach you those things, but for some reason all your former teachers and schools tried to always have it "included" as part of speech therapy's job. I know it was because of cost. They had NO social skills classes or teachers or instructors for social skills or anyone qualified, so they figured they could save time and money and let speech therapists handle it all. They actually told me this at your former school.

SORRY...I do not agree...because this then also takes "time away" from speech therapy, AND on most IEPs like yours...you only get so many minutes a MONTH for speech therapy...and if too much of that precious time is spent on social scenarios instead of speech...your therapy can go on forever.

NOT to mention the fact that you may always struggle with social scenarios. People tend to forget that autism is not something you will outgrow. YES you CAN LEARN and YES you CAN IMPROVE and YES you CAN practice responses and situations....until YOU learn a way to COPE better for you in those particular instances and situations and learn how to respond. Does this mean you are no longer autistic or have outgrown it? NO...because it is a neurological disorder...your brain processes things differently than others and likely always will. What comes as second nature to us.....you will likely still always have to search your brain for prior similar instances or scenarios for the appropriate response or reaction. It will not come as a knee-jerk reaction to you....but slightly delayed after a little thought. BUT those synapses in exposure to a situation to your response CAN get faster with time.

So...after I had speech therapy END the social skills aspect on your goals....as I felt socially you were fine and had nothing on their list left to accomplish....they focused more on the speech therapy part...and voila...you have finally MET your goals.

So Noah, after 10 years...you have finished your speech therapy! CONGRATULATIONS!

I love you!

Mom
XOXOXOX

Dear Noah...you still have a unique way to sit on chairs to eat

you sit perched like a bird. I remember when you were smaller..you always sat on the toilet like this...and to this day...you sit like this to eat whenever you can....it seems difficult for you to sit and eat fully seated....at least here at home. You have to sit perched or stand up. Sitting perched in your room in front of your computer...you always stretch out your T-shirt to fit OVER your perched legs...so many of your shirts have holes ripped under the armpits now....we will have to buy larger sizes to avoid that if you keep sitting like this and stretching the shirts out over your legs.

You are growing up fast...getting tall and skinny! Very lean....your mustache is showing up more all the time...and you are officially taller than I am now I think. Last night you slept on the loveseat since I was on the sofa...and when I looked over this morning...you were on your back but had your legs up around your chest crossed over in Indian style fashion...you do that a lot. Not sure how you can sleep like that..but you do.



This is how you were sleeping if you imagine you lying on your back and eyes shut..but in this position with your legs up on your chest!



Here you were also reading..



See that T-shirt stretched out over your legs?


I love you....more later!

mom
xoxox