I have been meaning to sit down and write a post on here for a while. It's just been busy around here lately and I haven't taken the time. We have made the difficult decision to send Joshua to public school next year for preschool. He will be in a preschool class with 7-8 children ages 3-5 with a teacher and 2 aides. It is an all day program and I am concerned about that but his day will be busy and filled with activity that is good for him. It will require him to be more independent and it will allow him to learn to be more independent, both of which are good and needed. He will get PT, OT, and speech at school and we will continue as much outside therapy as we can. He will have some activities with other children as well as there is another preschool class next door and they do activities together. He will also have lunch and recess with other classes. He has been getting ABA therapy at home for almost 2 months now. Right now he is getting about 15 hours a week which we may increase when he has time off from school and after the transition is made to school if we feel he can handle more. He is allowed to get more but we are trying to ease him into and don't want to put too much on him at once. He has had success with it already and of course there have been some bumps along the way but he is doing well. He is doing more signing, vocalizing, and speech. He consistently signs more, please, and all done. None of which they are teaching him in ABA, they do more specific signs but those are ones that we have been teaching him for a long time at home, therapy, and school. In ABA this past week he signed puzzle and swing independently. He has many vocalization approximations, basically he says something that sounds like a word or phrase or he sings along with a song. Like when he signs all done he has a vocalization that goes with it. It doesn't always sound exactly like it but it is his way of saying it. I know that music therapy has helped a lot with his vocalizations and I have heard him in music therapy talking or singing along. It has been really nice to see these positive changes happening.
We have all been busy around here with the additional therapy and making decisions about next year for Joshua. I have finished 7 out of 12 courses for my degree! When I finish the one I am taking now I will have 1 semester left. It is so exciting! I am going to attempt to take full time classes for my last semester since Joshua will be in school more hours during the day beginning in August. If all goes as planned I will be finished at the end of November. Unfortunately with the conferral dates the way they are for this school I won't receive my official degree until February but that's okay. I managed an A in statistics, the class I just finished at the end of May. If all goes well I should be able to graduate with honors as right now my GPA is higher than the minimum required to graduate with honors. They actually have an official ceremony where you can walk if you want to but it is in Maryland and I'm not sure I will go. I want to but we will have to see. It was today, they only hold it once a year although they confer degrees 4x per year the ceremony is held in June.
