How Jax is doing today...

Last August, Jax was enrolled in a preschool for Autistic children. It has been so good for him. His teacher and aids are amazing!! They know exactly what they are doing and work so hard for these little kids. Jax has been progressing in speech therapy and occupational therapy. He is now using a lot more meaningful words and less jargon. He still struggles a lot with attending to activities, but is doing so much better. His goal at the beginning of last August was to be able to attend to an activity for 10 minutes. He is doing that now with the help of his teachers and a weighted blanket to address his sensory needs. He can sometimes attend an activity for 20-25 minutes at a time which is HUGE for him. He is beginning to ask questions to people other than my husband and I. The other day, he noticed my mom wasn't wearing her glasses. He said, "Hi Grandma! Where's your glasses?" It made me smile. It was awesome to see that he noticed she wasn't wearing glasses AND the fact that he asked a question! So cool. He is also greeting people now...on his own. He is trying to initiate communication with people. When walking through the store, he will wave and say "hi!" to people as they pass by. If they don't answer him, he will say it again until they respond. I was telling this to his teacher and she said, "it sounds like the adults who ignore him are the ones who need to learn how to be social and communicate!" Ha! So true. He is trying and he is learning. He still struggles with speech, communication and socially, but he is doing better all the time. He will be enrolling in an Autism Unit for kids k-2nd grade. He is not ready to be mainstreamed, but we know he will be some day. :) We are happy with his progress. We will REALLY miss his current teacher, but I'm sure the new teacher will be wonderful too. It is so hard to know what the future holds for our little boy, but whatever happens, I know he will do great things.