Hello 3rd Graders

Hello Mrs. Jaggie's 3rd grade class.  Since Bobby is joining your class a little more this year and he can't really tell you about himself, I thought that I would jump in and give him a hand.

Oh, by the way, this is Bobby's Mom, Mrs. Smith.  I have met most of you over the past few years when I have helped you pick out books at your Scholastic Book Fairs.  I'm sure that I will see you again in the library this year when Book Fair time rolls around.

                         



This is our house. Thankfully we have a very big yard because Bobby loves to play outside.  Bobby doesn't have any brothers or sisters, but he does have a dog.

Here's a picture of his dog, Zoi, she is a Golden Pyrenees.

Bobby likes to do many of the same things that most kids like to do.  His absolute favorite thing in the world to do is ride our Yamaha Rhino with his Dad.  Sometimes they take the Rhino and go on day trips where they ride for hours.  Other times they just ride around in the woods that surround our house.  Here they are on a riding trip they took to Burning Rock Outdoor Park in southern West Virginia.

Yes, they both got extremely dirty, but I didn't mind washing their clothes because they had such a great time.

Bobby's second favorite thing to do is go swimming.  We have a pool at our house for Bobby and he spends a lot of time there during the summer.

This summer Bobby learned how to swim, so he spent some time swimming in the deep end of Krepps Pool and even learned how to jump off of the diving board.

We also discovered that Bobby likes the beach, so we took him to Deep Creek Lake beach a few times over the summer.

Next on the list of Bobby's favorite things to do is jumping.  Bobby has an outdoor and an indoor trampoline that he uses often.

He actually jumps on his indoor trampoline so much that he broke the springs and we had to get him a new one.

Bobby and I like to take walks on all of the local rail trails.  Some of our favorite places to walk are the Wharf District Rail Trail...

The walking trails at White Park...

The Decker's Creek trails...

And the walking trail at Prickett's Fort....

Bobby also likes to get out and play at some of the local playgrounds.  The Cheat Lake playground is his favorite because he can look out over the lake while he climbs and slides.

The playground on the Wharf District rail trail is also one of his favorites...

Sometimes Bobby likes to play differently than most other kids.  He really likes to watch things fall in front of his eyes, it's called "Visual Stimulation."  Here Bobby is playing with the garden hose. Instead of spraying himself or someone else, he prefers to spray the water in the air close to his face and watch it fall.

For some reason watching the water like this is very calming to Bobby.  You may have even seen him playing in the mulch on the playground and dropping it in front of his eyes. I wish that I could tell you why Bobby finds these activities calming, but I honestly don't know.  Here he is watching moon sand fall in front of his eyes.

There is also another way that Bobby likes to play that most kids do not, he likes to line things up.  He likes to line up groups of things that are the same.  Here is a picture of some red Solo cups that Bobby lined up along our kitchen counter tops.

He often gathers up some of his toys, brings them to the kitchen and lines them along the counters in a way that the typical person would not even think to do.

Why does Bobby like to play this way?  Why does Bobby only spend a small part of his school day with the rest of his class?  You may already know the answer to these questions, but I'm going to tell you anyway.  Bobby has Autism Spectrum Disorder, generally just called autism.  I am not sure how much you know about autism, but I have added a handout that is full of great information.
http://www.bridges4kids.org/pdf/Growing_Up_Booklet.pdf

You also already know that Bobby doesn't talk like the rest of the kids talk.  His verbal skills are developing much more slowly than most kids.  However, he works very hard everyday on his talking skills.  Bobby also makes some "eeee" sounds, even when it is time to be quiet.  He doesn't do this on purpose or because he is being bad.  We are working with him every day so that he can hopefully learn to control making this sound.  These verbal problems that Bobby has are because of his autism. However, not all people with autism make sounds or have problems talking.

If you have ever wondered where Bobby spends the rest of his school day when he is not with you, well he spends it in Mrs. Wasserman's classroom.  Mrs. Wasserman works with Bobby individually, because it is hard for Bobby to concentrate when there are a lot of people around and because he is working on different types of school work.

Bobby also leaves school early everyday around 2:00.  But don't be jealous that he gets to go home early and play.  Instead of going home, he goes and gets individual tutoring with a specialist who works with people with autism.

I hope that if any of you have ANY questions about Bobby and/or autism that you feel free to ask Mrs. Jaggie, Mrs. Wasserman or Ms. Deb.  I would also be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have, these teachers know how to get in touch with me for my answers.

Thank you for taking some time out of your day to learn a little bit about Bobby.

Thank You Ms. Kim

Friday was Bobby's last day of school, which has caused me to reflect about his 2nd grade school year.

These two pictures are from his first day of 2nd grade.  I love to look at the first day and last day pictures to see how much he has grown over the school year.  However, this year the physical difference isn't my main focus....his educational growth is!!

I went into his classroom to pick him up (he has a modified school day and leaves everyday a little before 2:00) and I had my camera with me to get some pictures in the classroom.  Bobby is definitely used to my picture shenanigans and Ms. Kim has known me long enough that she is used to them too. Even though Bobby wanted to leave as soon as I walked in, Ms. Kim prompted him back to continue what they were doing and even had him sit down and do some work so that I could capture these moments.  They were passing ball when I walked in the room....

I feel compelled to tell you what a beautiful sight this is for me to see.  When Bobby was in the 1st grade, with Ms. Kim as his teacher, I used to walk into the school everyday with a pit in my stomach to pick him up because I was dreading hearing about his day....how many times did he hit today?  how many times did he escape today?  what other disruptive/aggressive behaviors did he demonstrate today?   His bad/aggressive behaviors far outweighed the good days that he had in school.  Over the summer between 1st and 2nd grade he was weaned off of his seizure medication and he started an intensive behavioral therapy program.....fast forward to the 2nd grade.  I have walked into the school everyday without that previous dread.  This year Ms. Kim tells me about the successes that he has had during the day.

Even when Bobby was at his behavioral worst, Ms. Kim did not give up on him.  She never once said to me that his school placement was in jeopardy.  I video taped Bobby working with his behavioral therapist and Ms. Kim watched the video to see how he was working in therapy.  She wasn't put off by someone else coming up with strategies to help him learn, instead she embraced them and implemented some of them in the classroom.  Bobby's other therapist also watched the video and utilized some of the techniques with him so that everyone was working from the same page!

This school year Ms. Kim took Bobby on a field trip to the bowling alley with his regular ed class.  Ms. Kim walked Bobby to the neighboring middle school with the entire school to watch their holiday musical program.  Bobby sat in the gym and watched his school's rehearsal for their holiday program and he even participated in the dress rehearsal.  Bobby participated in the school field day and the Skyview gives back day.  He sat in the gym and watched his school's spring program rehearsal.  Bobby skipped event like these in the past.  

Bobby has learned to say the names of his teachers, aides, therapists, and other school staff and well as some of his classmates.  Bobby learned to say his colors.  Bobby learned to identify his letters, both upper and lower case and Ms. Kim even taught Bobby to say most of his letter sounds.  Bobby is learning his numbers and can verbally identify up to 20 and is learning to count with one to one correspondence.  

Ms. Kim has also been working with Bobby on some other type of skills...walking with her in the hallway without holding her hand and the most important skill....waiting.  She walks him to the library almost everyday and picks out two books for him to bring home that I read to him as his "homework."  He seems to really enjoy this part of his school day and the librarian even sat some empty baskets on an empty shelf in the back of the library for Bobby to play with when he comes into the library.  (FYI...Bobby loves to play with empty baskets, especially the plastic type).  Bobby scans his own books and this process has ended with Bobby actually allowing Ms. Kim to read to him in the classroom.  

Bobby and Ms. Kim at Field Day

 There are a few girls in the school who have been playing with Bobby and his peers this year.  Ms. Kim has really encouraged this friendship and lets the girls come into her classroom for recess on bad weather days when they ask.  She also has taken the boys to 3rd grade recess to let them play.  Ms. Kim even bought the girls Skyview Autism Awareness t-shirts when the staff was selling them as a thank you for being so kind to her students.

I know that Ms. Kim is as excited about Bobby's successes as we are because of the excitement in which she tells me about them.  She has even emailed me a quick story or two when she forgot to tell me a Bobby story when I picked him up from school.

In the craziness of today's world, I want to say thank you to all teachers.  There have been too many stories over this school year in which teachers had to risk their own lives for their students.  Whether it's a man-made or nature-made tragedy our teachers are preparing on how to handle and try to prevent these tragedies from happening.  Getting Bobby to be quiet during a lock down drill is almost impossible.  Just a few weeks ago,  Bobby's school was in lockdown...code yellow (code red in the real, severe danger).  Ms. Kim called me because it would soon be time for me to come and pick up Bobby.  She cares enough about our family that she didn't want me driving to the school and putting myself in danger since she had no info. about the nature of the lockdown.  I also wouldn't be able to get into the school anyway.  She called back when the lockdown was lifted and everything was fine.  It turns out that someone in the same town as the school was suicidal and feared armed, so they locked down the two schools just as a precaution.  

I don't want to give you the impression that everything with Bobby is perfect and that he sits and does all of his work perfectly, because that is just not the truth.  Compared to where he was this time last year...well let me just tell you that I was DREADING summer break last year and this year I am not.  I was looking back at my blog postings from this time last year and they were few and far between...I just had no desire to document what was going on in Bobby's world.  This summer he will continue with 4 times a week of behavioral therapy, 1 time a week occupational therapy and then he will go to summer school for 6 weeks where he will also have speech therapy.  His summer is fully planned out with lots of swimming to fill the down times.

We are all to well familiar with the ebb and flow of Bobby's behavior due to autism in this family, so I want to enjoy this time in his education and publicly say THANK YOU to Ms. Kim, as well as the aides who also help out with Bobby...Ms. Penny, Ms. Deb, Ms. Tammy.  Also thank you to the therapists and other staff who have worked to make Bobby's school year such a success....Denise, Coach Lorri, Breanne, Mrs. Lucas, Mr. McDowell, Ms. Christopher, Miss DeCarlo, Miss Bobbie, Mrs. Custer, the pre-K teachers and aides (Bobby is known to burst into your room without warning), Mrs. Green, Ms. Debbie.  It's funny when I walk down the hall with Bobby because every adult in the building says, "hi Bobby," even the custodian!!

It certainly takes a village in Bobby's World!!  Here's to a great summer to all!!!  See you in August....