When we met with Dr. E. last week she said something that really resonated with me. She drew a picture of steps and said "While most children can go from one step to the next, Thomas may need several baby steps to get to the next step.
As I mentioned before Thomas wasn't standing for the pledge. In my meeting with the child study team last week, we were discussing whether it was behavioral or sensory. I honestly don't know what is going on in his little mind, but I truly believe it is sensory related in some form. I explained the "baby steps to get to the next step approach," to them and it clicked with them too. Instead of going from not standing for the pledge to completely doing it, we needed to break it down. I suggested if the teacher held his hand this might help and they suggested that maybe he could stand for a few seconds and then sit down, slowly building to standing the whole time.
I had a talk with Thomas about seeing if he could stand for a few seconds just holding his teacher's hand and he smiled. He liked the idea of holding her hand and the next day he stood for a few seconds. BOOM!
Another one of our goals is for him to raise his hand during class. So far he is practicing in the speech therapists office and we'll go from there.
Every baby step is truly building his confidence. Such a simple concept with very powerful results!
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