Home Therapy With No Money
From the beginning of Daniel’s therapy I was very frustrated and discouraged. All of the items that I was told he needed were outrageous in price and virtually impossible to get unless you went through online specialty stores. I would tell David “Daniel needs this” ” We have to get that”. The more I went through the catalogs and all over the websites the more I got frustrated and felt like a failure not helping my son. I started going to sensory diet websites and looking in my local stores for similar items.
That was the start of a great new adventure.
For things like a sand box, which we cannot afford, we found a storage box with a lid and bought play sand. We purchased storage boxes and filled one with rice and one with beans. I started thinking of ways to help Daniel with his motor skills and we found items like shapes that you can thread for a couple dollars. For his language we have collected a ton of flash cards that have been at Target for a $1.00 or Wal-Mart running about $2-3 dollars. We found a box set of computer learning games at Sam’s a few years ago and Daniel loves playing the Clifford phonics and Disney drawing. This has helped him with his coloring on actual paper and trying to draw pictures. Our biggest purchase has been a trampoline since our couch is getting destroyed and the beds don’t work from all of his jumping on them.
He mainly draws circles.
I am homeschooling the kids and using all of my everyday homeschooling items to do Daniel’s therapy. There are times when I feel like none of this is working or that I am not doing enough to help him learn the skills he needs. But then yesterday after weeks of not talking very much and then only whispering, he begins spelling words for me. He starts playing with Ariel and Joshua and interacting with them.
Some great things have happened this last week.
We got the movie WALL-E and David had a feeling Daniel would really connect with the movie so he got a WALL-E book as well. Daniel did, he has just recently started watching movies with us. In the past he would come in and out of the room. Maybe look at the show for a few minutes and then run off. In the past few months he has started watching shows like Toy Story and Nemo. However he has never grabbed the book and had me read it to him. He has been doing that this whole week. He loves the story. He has only brought me a Clifford book and his Fan book that I made him never a book that is connected to the movie he is watching.
I am sometimes afraid that he is going to loose what he has learned.
When he stops talking or won’t do any of the activities I plan for the week I think he may have lost the information he had. I am always wrong, after he gets over that hump I realize he has gained more skills and knowledge. He just doesn’t communicate it by talking. He doesn’t do all of the activities all the time but he CAN do them. He does them when HE feels up to it. So I am learning do not give up.
I have the visuals all around the house.
The themes I am doing for the month I keep on the wall in our living room. I have their crafts, pictures, and paintings all on our kitchen wall. I have the calendar for the month in plain view. I have made our home into a learning center all over. Their rooms are clear and uncluttered. But I have all of this visual for all of us so we do not forget what we are learning and so we can talk about it. That doesn’t work for some people but for us it is what works. It was hard to get used to at first because I like my walls white and uncluttered. Very simple in decoration and all hanging things symmetric throughout the house. So I try to keep it as clean as possible. The children learning has trumped my issues. Sometimes I clear it all out when I am feeling overwhelmed I am sure Daniel does too but then I give us several days and it is all good again.
My AS makes it very difficult to keep organized and focused.
So I do everything I can to help me and the kids stay excited and focused on what we are learning. You have to do what works for your family. David wants to be very much involved in their learning so doing this helps him to know what we are learning and including him to be an active participant. Instead of me filling him in on what we did for the day he gets to see and asks questions or come up with other ideas to do with the kids that they can do with “Dad”.
Everyone gets excited and talks about what is on the wall during dinner or after dinner sharing the words they spelled for the day. I have noticed by doing this Daniel is starting to want to participate as well. When he sees and hears us talking about the crafts or something he will go over to them and look at them or point to his own, then Ariel’s and Joshua’s. So any effort like this helps him feel connected to us and us to him.
It is SO worth it.
I plan on including some pictures of items I use in a later post it is not exhaustive but they have been great helps. I take my cues from Daniel when he is in the mood to learn that is when I keep going until I can tell he is over it. When he doesn’t feel like it I make it a day of sensory fun. Jumping, sand, beans, Play Dough, whatever I can get him to do. He loves the computer which has helped him in a lot of ways with communication. Some of the links I use are:
http://www.zacbrowser.com/
http://pbskids.org/
http://www.kidzui.com/
