My Family's Experience with Autism: Pre-K Graduation

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Pre-K Graduation

Yesterday was the last day of school for all 3 of my kids. For Big Brother and Ballerina, it went pretty much unnoticed -- just a normal day with an early dismissal. But for Music Man, there was a Pre-K Graduation Ceremony. The program he attends is called MPAC (Montgomery Primary Achievement Center) which is run by The ARC of Montgomery County (Association for Retarded Citizens). This program has been in existence since 1957, but starting in 2010, the public school system created a program comparable to what this program offers, so this is the last graduation class of MPAC.

It was VERY nice and sweet. There were about 12 children graduating to begin kindergarten next year. Music Man came in with his classmates and stood against the backdrop to perform "Copy Cat" and "We'll All Go Traveling By" before being presented with their certificates. Then they were all called up individually.

Music Man was the first person called who followed instructions -- stop on the podium and bow to the applauding audience.

After he received his certificate, he sat with me for a while and watched a slide show displaying him and his classmates this past school year. It was very cute and the kids all had fun calling out their friends' names when their faces appeared on the screen.

We had a piece of cake before leaving and took a moment to take some pictures with his teachers. He had an excellent year and will be seeing these teachers again next month for ESY (Extended School Year) before leaving for Elementary School next year. But this was an amazing preschool experience for him.

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A Little Bit About Me and My Family

Every once in a while, something happens to a family that seems to change everything, whether that change is positive, negative, or in an uncertain direction. One such thing happened to us in March 2009, when we were informed our 26 month old twins (girl/boy) were BOTH on the autism spectrum. Their older brother (nearly 4 at the time) had always been ahead of the curve for most developmental milestones, so we had never really considered that some of the delays the twins were having had anything to do with autism. Well, we were wrong. Since then we have been learning about learning techniques and doing everything we can to make sure they get any and all help they need so that they can live normal lives. This blog chronicles that journey.

The Autism Pizza

I don't know where this came from originally, but I found it on a post on Circle of Moms. It's a good explanation of how things line up on the spectrum.

1. The Crust: Lack of Social Interaction (poor eye contact, not sharing interests with you, no pointing/gesturing)

2. The Sauce: Impaired Communication (possibly no speech, poor conversation skills, repetitive language, echolalia, no make-believe play)

3. The Cheese: Stereotypical Activities & Interests (extreme routine, strong interest in certain things, stimming [flapping, atypical play, etc.] -- like spinning wheels, lining toys up, stacking, etc.)

If you have all of those things: crust, sauce, cheese, you made an Autism pizza. It might have different toppings, but you can look at it and know it's still a pizza. If your pizza doesn't have sauce, that's Aspergers's. If your pizza is missing more than that but still kind of looks like a pizza, that's PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified)