Stephen is 10 years old

it has been a long time since we wrote.

for this year there are some changes to his "life style"

he goes to school in the morning from 10-30 to 12-30pm and he takes the school bus. and because i have changed my work i am not able to bring him to school and do much intervention with him. thank God my father is up here at my place to help and we have worked out a schedule for him to follow.

basically his daily schedule looks like this

morning - watch Chinese VCD " han zi gong"
which is a series of 77DVD touching about 4000 chinese words. we realise he love it and he is able to identify the word and matching it to things. in fact the "xi ri shi ma kuang" is from another series and he has memorise all and could do "re-matching" of the sentence together. this is part of his cognitive learning.

in the afternoon after school and lunch, he will have flash card, toy play, puzzle, play ground, etc
basically to focus on social play .

at night - some computer play and craft

of course on plan this looks ok but it really depend on him to see if the plan can be carried out.

in the last 1 year we do see that he is more aware and is responding more positively. he is also more willing to repeat sentence with us. at the same time, kind of more violent too as he do beat pp when he don't get his way.

not forgetting he is putting on weight too.

continue to pray with us as God work out his purpose.
if anyone have time and you want to play with him, you are welcome to let us know. i guess only brethren who have tried playing with him appreciate what we potential go thru. we can only seizes the moment when the window into his world opens.

this week Stephen added on some new phases which we hear him use.

hold my hand - that when we walk together and he want his hand to be held
put me down - after i carry him up on air, he love me but he is getting heavier and i am beginning to "struggle" to carry him up.

he still like to use single "noun" or "verb" so now we will slow down to respond when single word is given and faster when the phase is said. i think he is figuring out that our responses to him works this way.

btw i think he can say Mandarin better. not too sure is it bec of the way the sound is made. now i will also say the phase in English than in Chinese and ofter he will repeat and the chinese sound comes out much clearer. interesting. i also realised we much speak slower and clearer to him. first that helps him to process what he heard also bec he look at the lip, so i think he can see the movement clearer and help him to copy it in the vocal movement thus producing the correct sound.

he is also beginning to respond correctly to word request these days.

open the door - for car and house
wear your sandals
come with me
good bye

it has really been along time and now it is almost coming to 2 yrs since Stephen was diagnosed to have autism. How our life, life style has really been adjusted and still being adjusted.

our prayer is continue before God that He can heal when he choose to, when it is the best in His good pleasure.Guest this prayer should only stop when we die or he goes back to the lord. Just like when king David pray for his son until he died. All praise to God alone.

Having said, it is really not easy in daily life. Bec of the lack of communication, lot of frustration are built up on Stephen as well as us who care for him. while he can't get his message across, we can't get ours across. especially when we are out, we have eyes of amazement looking at our unique family interaction style.

some update on Stephen progress

what's happening in sch - to be honest, i really don't know. although we have the written aim from school i have no complete idea of what is really been done. based on my understanding from last yr, alot are focus on building his cognitive. guess that good. well i learn by vision best but the school cannot allow us to video the happening in class.

at home we are still focus on the "Son Rise" method, which is interactive. and we have been getting him to speak in sentence. Was going to use some "PECS - picture exchange" when he started to comminicate in proper context so we held back.

some of the sentence he uses with us:

1. carry me up
2. come with me
3. i want to shi shi or shi shi (urine)
4. i want to watch
5. water, i want water
6. i want to eat
7. one more time
8. lets go...

our aim - to expend his number of words per sentence as well as create more situation to form new sentence.

we really confirm that music does alot of good to him and he love it. He even has some songs that he like and will ask angel to play again (one more time). the other day when angel play song from CEF, he actually sang with Deborah. the words are not clear but we know that he is following. when he hears these songs, he will jump his bouncer and smile alot.

so anyone who can play piano, you are well come to do music therapy with him.

this is interesting! finally i can login again to blog. never understand technology. well persistance pay off.

Hi

I'm really excited that i can access Stephen's blog again. Thanks to Hui Ping's advice.

Yesterday in Sunday School is an achievement for Stephen and me. Stephen was able to stay in the classroom throughout 9.30 to 10.15. To both of us, it's a celebration. You cannot imagine the joy I feel.

I really want to thank Karen for her kind understanding in accomodating Stephen. Sarah's songs and the walkabout with the "go" and the "stop" signs are very much like the music therapy that the school is doing, i.e. helping the children to learn to wait, turn-taking and so on. Zhi Heng was very patient with Stephen as in slowly letting him doodle the way he choose to. One observation made during Stephen's colouring is that he would doodle on one figure before moving systemically onto the next.

I thank God for the people who helped to make yesterday's Sunday School class such a wonderful time for Stephen and me. My objective was simple. It was to stay 10 minutes in the classroom yet we were blessed with 45 minutes.

These days that Stephen was ill made me want to spend more time with him. Although at times he still insists in his own ways and I don't understand what he wants, he has also learnt to do a few things more independently such as walking. Now walking on his own has been a prime issue over the past months. But these days sometimes with a little persuasion and coaxing, he's able to do it. Sometimes he does it with Deborah hand-in-hand.

Another celebration: Stephen has been verbalising "mama" more on demand. Sure it warms my heart more than my ears. When I'm have Stephen as my boy, I really appreciate and treasure each little things he does especially when those things that seem difficult for him to comprehend. It can be frustrating too. The other day he saw a discarded McDonald's cup in the carpark and he wanted to pick it up and then drink it. Of course I didn't let him do that and the reaction is strong retaliation on his part. That's what I mean by he's triggered by what he see.

More updates coming when I can sign-in again.

Our dear Stephen woke up in the middle of the night and only fell asleep at about 6++ in the morning. Naturally he woke up very late and ended up late on his first day of school. Could he be too excited?

These days like what Daniel wrote, I mean the days after he got well, have been good as Stephen initiate more things such as wanting to bond with us, singing, playing with us, going to the toilet, handing my hand to help him open a locked door, walking up the stairs tho' at times it's still a struggle. Overall, things have been moving more positively. Thank God for things big and small. Always like the ending - The Lord God made them all, how true!

I've been trying to pace my workload, mainly my marking and preparation in the daytime so that I've got some pockets of time at night or in the evening to play with the children. Through all these, I feel happy that both Deborah & Stephen are my kids. They've been forgiving to their mommy who had been busy during term time. This year, I resolve to play more with them . just on Tuesday, the children, Vengie & I took MRT to Hougang Mall. 3 cheers for us!!! That was the first time that Stephen travelled by MRT. Thru'out the journey, whenever we mentioned that we were travelling in a train, he would touch the print "Thomas & his friends' which is on his pants (my mom bought that to fan his entusiasm). Very sweet, right? And in context... ever hope for a day to bring him to England where we could take the Britrail for that's where Thomas & his Friends were conceived out of a man's childhood fascination with trains. But first, he's got to get used to moving around in Spore on public transport. For him and for us.

this few days has been beautiful for me as i fellowship with stephen. from our usual "distant" togetherness we had been having cheerful and peaceful moments.

monday was great as we play together on his bed, sing songs and having him fill up the last word. we had much fun and as i leave for work, he willingly say "good bye" and kisses with lots of smile on his face.

tuesday we were able to continue the trend. when we were doing pillow throwing, he was able to say "up", "down", "throw" without promting at all. that's communicating intentionally i believe. there were also occassion that he asked me to "come", asked for "water", using these words it is context.

when he was in the car the other day, he was listening to the song "march in the infrantry" and he actually said "yes sir" at the right part of the song although there wasn't this part in our CD, then he also sang some parts of the song. of course, if we are not listening to the song, we proberly won't catch it bec his words are not too clear. i realised that when he follow CDs to sing, his words are usually not too clear compare to when he repeat our words.

going to school has been a breeze for me. starting this year he has been ok to leave home with me, esp these few weeks. when we reach school he is ok to walk . so he no longer need to be driven to the school pouch to be alighted. i use to think he is like the "big boss" when he reach sch his teacher got to open his car door and welcome him., then he go in without making "noise". hope days light this is over.

yesterday was interesting. when he came back from school, he came into the house took off his socks put his shoes into the shoes cupboard, all by himself without being asked to. then we told deborah to learn from his brother. came to think about it, a special child will also do special things at the most unexpected moments. so they have special need, likewise they can also give special treats.

stephen seem also to be better to his new teacher now, more cheerfullness on his face as he reach sch and after sch.

tomorrow he will been going with deborah to her sch. we have arrange for him to try out interacting with children of his age. really thank God for the opp as not many sch would have allowed him to try at all. deborah is all excited.

now abideth love, hope and faith. the greatest is love. we are discovering the depth of these words in our special situation.