Still forging ahead...

Mr. Gavin is good. He loves to run. We play at Brennon's school daily when we pick B up. He knows where to go and what to do! He navigates that playground like he built it himself! We've decided that Mechanical or Structural Engineering would be an appropriate job for him. :) He loves to build things.

Speech therapy is going well, we're going to start picking up the pace a little bit with that. The window of opportunity is now, with Gavin, and we want to pack as much as we can. He tends to lose words after a week or so. His bank of regularly used words is full at about 5-6 words. I think he knows 8-9 words, just doesn't use the other few that he has. We're working towards a bank of a dozen used words. The average 2 year old has a bank of 75-100 words. One would be amazed at how the *traditional* teaching of speech doesn't apply to Gavin. Having to worry about overstimulating him while teaching pretty much makes it crazy! From what I've been told, this is very typical of Autistic children. Gavin speaks to us in different ways. He uses his signs pretty regularly and his eye contact is great and once we learned to point, things became a little less frustrating for him. And that makes him easier to teach.

We've created a sensory diet for him. The diet is daily activities and routines that help him get from different portions of the day with less stress. It's quite a bit of work, but so far has been really really worth it. AND speaking of diets, we're learning more about the Gluten and Casein Free diet. We've talked to other parents that have seen great improvements in their autistic kids. Gluten is in EVERYTHING I've found, so we need to figure out how to go about all of it. People have found that a vegetarian diet is good also, unless we buy organic meats, which we do alot of the time anyhow, so we might transfer to allo organic meats, all the time. The hormones in meats these days are horrible. The kids get organic milk already as well. So- we'll see where the food diet gets us.

We're applying to schools next month the fall school year for him. The Joshua School and the Aspen Center for Autism are our first choices. Being how they are the only programs appropriate for him, we're hoping to get in! Tuition is about $57-65k per year for full time, and about 20% less for half time, which is going to be the likely choice for him unless we get some good scholorships. The schools will help us with financial aid, it's not like anyone has an extra $4-6k laying around, MONTHLY! I think that even with a perfect situation, most families can't afford that and the schools admit that. There are some state funded scholorships for children like Gavin. We'll apply for those as well as scholorships through the school and we're thinking of holding a fundraiser too, which we were told quite a few of the parents do for their kids. Aside from helpful, it sounds like fun! We can also volunteer at the school and help with events, ect. We're fortunate that we can take care of this for Gavin... Where there is a will, there is a way!!!

We've done some research and the people at the ARC have been so helpful. Nearly half of teens that were diagnosed less than 10 years ago are headed for full time residential facilities or need full time caretakers. Great advancements have been made in the last 10 years, but those numbers are expected to go down only by a bit. We beat the odds with Gavin's survival, and I don't want that to be our one free pass. They are finding that children that get very intensive therapy (like these programs and schools we're looking into) from ages 2-5 are doing really well. Over 80% of those kids are able to join their peers in mainstream schooling (not special ed) by 2nd and 3rd grade. After talking to an advocacy group, it's clear that if we wait to rely on the school district, he'll fall through the cracks. Before, kids were sent off to special schools, it's just been in the last 10 years that they've started incorporating the appropriate teachers and therapists in the schools for kids like this. SO, it's still work in progress, and not the ideal situation for our very special little man! Every parent just wants what is best for their child, and in this case, it's no different! Gavin just gets his college education at 2 AND 18!

That is how far we've got in the last few weeks. There is more out there, we're sure of it. :) There are some classes that we're going to take soon, and are hoping those will open up some doors for us as well!