We have continued the same patterns of pulling Ashley out early from school to have Tracy doing 2 sessions a week, my mom 1 session a week, private speech therapy and me doing joint sessions with Noah & Ashley. He is not napping anymore and thankfully they are playing pretty well with each other. It has been a little bit of an adjustment in the Playroom having Noah also. Ashley is increasing her social skills with Noah and me but her words have decreased during our sessions since Noah talks a lot. These last 2 weeks I have also been potty training Noah so that has taken a lot of work but Ashley is adjusting and seems to be watching it all!
She is doing really well at school and she has new goals so she is being challenged more! She is saying about 4-7 words a day at school and starting to mimic her teachers' words (echoic). I love her teachers!
We are praying about the summer schedule for Ashley and what is best for her. I had her evaluated for a morning social skills camp but she is not quite ready for that. It was overwhelming and very distracting environment for her. I am thankful that God made it very clear with closed doors that it is not the path we should take. We have also been praying about me returning for more training since December and now God has opened the door for me to return to MA. for Advanced Training for Son-Rise Program so that we can advance Ashley's program! I am very excited so that I can learn more to help Ashley, assess where Ashley is on their developmental model and create clearer goals for her Program! She has made so much progress that we would love to know how to advance her program with flexibility, attention span, increase words, and running sessions with a peer to start play dates!
Here are some updates below over the last month and most were Facebook posts. However, I wanted to document on Ashley's journey.
Saturday, March 26th - Payton Family Pictures
We had our family pictures taken by Markum Photography. They are good friends of ours and also have a son with autism so they understand how hard it can be. It was a surprise that morning when Ashley let me curl her hair with curling iron and she stood still the entire time! She seemed to love her pink dress, the bow and wearing my James Avery necklace and bracelet from High School! It was hard just to select a few to include below!
Bubble Machine was popular with our kids!
Once we sat down for different scenery, Ashley was done wearing her shoes! :)
I love this picture of the kids hugging for a second and shows Ashley's hand around him!
Sunday March 27th - Easter Celebration
After church, we all met for Easter gathering with my parents and brother's family at local school playground was so enjoyable. It was the best family gathering we have had in a long time and lasted more than 2 hours! Ashley initiated interaction with Chloe and wanted to swing with her several time. She loved the confetti eggs and she also seemed to really understand the Egg Hunt! When we had cupcakes we gave her talk before that everyone ONLY got 1 cupcake. She seemed to comprehend and accept this because after she ate her cupcake (Noah and cousin still eating) she walked off to play with no fuss!
First game of season today on the Angels with Miracle League which is free baseball league for special needs! We took a year off since Ashley did not show interest. However, today she held the bat all by herself and tapped ball off the stand! She did not like waiting on bases to run home so hopefully she will get lots of homeruns from now on so there is no stopping
April 6th - Let's play homemade Candy Land!!!
Tracy, Becky and I have been brainstorming on how we could simplify this game since Ashley's shown big interest in Playroom. However, the game board is very overwhelming to start off with and she is not grasping concept of being 1 gingerbread marker piece to move places. Maybe her picture taped to it will help? We are excited to try with her and work on taking turns and learning rules of game! Please share if you have any suggestions or tips!!!
April 9th - First Crush!
Ashley apparently has her first crush that we know about! In sessions with Tracy and me this week, she has been fixated on a specific page of her Rapuzel book showing Flynn Rider. She would put the book up to her face like she was giving him a kiss! Today I put the movie on and she got super close to the tv when he came on so I snapped a picture
April 15th - Chaos with Toys!
Happy Friday! This week Ashely has entered a new phase with her grouping of Petshop/finger puppets/Olaf/My Little Pony toys! Normally she just lines up Petshop into 1 long line or multiple rows so it is a little shocking seeing all this chaos. She works really hard on last few pieces to make sure balanced and does not fall off! I wish I knew her thinking process
