Having Autism but Living a Typical Life at 5 years old

  This will be my first post in a year and a half. I'm sincerely sorry for being away for so long. Life just kept getting away from me. Brendan is now 5 1/2 years old and he is currently in pre-K. This will be his second year in school. We had decided when Brendan was about a year into therapy that we would not start him in pre school until he was 4 years old. We thought that keeping him home and continuing his intense therapy would be better than starting school right away. I will say that was the absolute BEST decision we have made. In the fall of 2016 he started pre school at 4 years old. We put him in a typical school but he started school with kids a year younger than him. We did this to make sure he had the best opportunity to succeed with his typical peers in a typical school. He was allowed to have his aba(applied behavior analysis) therapist attend school with him at all times. He had such an amazing year. He is still at the same school in this current year with his typical peers. He still has his aba therapist with him at school, but this year the difference is he pretty much only needs her when some of his peers can't understand his language. His speech has come so far and is improving everyday but with his verbal apraxia sometimes it is hard to understand him. The teachers and principle at his school have been so amazing to Brendan and our family. I am truly grateful for the opportunities they gave Brendan. As a parent I was extremely nervous to have him in a typical school. You just want your child to fit in and they made sure Brendan had all the tools he needed to succeed. His teacher this year has been one of the best teachers either of my kids have had. She is making sure all the kids are ready for Kindergarten.

                                         


           The summer of 2017 we started introducing more academic lessons. We started with simple math and sight words. From the moment we started this we realized just how smart Brendan was. He went from simple math to adding and subtracting 3-5 numbers in his head within days. He loves anything with numbers. He now can add and subtract multiple double digits numbers in his head faster than I can.lol. It truly blows my mind how smart he is. At the same time we induced some basic sight words. Well within just a couple of weeks he had about 100 sights words he had learned. In a month of starting sight words he had learned to fully read. As his mom I just couldn't believe what he had accomplished. I didn't even know or think he was capable of learning those skills at that level. His aba team had done a years worth of kindergarten curriculum in just 6 weeks. Thats how fast he was learning. His can also write full sentences and all his numbers. This has made school very easy for him but its also given his therapist time to focus on the social and language struggles at school. We are still continuing to teach him his academics at at his current level at home. He is currently doing math and reading at a first grade level and he is only 5 years old and in pre k. I am such a proud mom. This is a moment that I get to brag about the things he is doing at or better than his peers. Something I thought I wouldn't be able to do. Next year he will be attending a private catholic school with again typical peers. His therapist will be able to attend school with him but we are working on finding times that he can be at school alone. He has currently had days this year already that he has attended school without his therapist and he has done really well.

      Brendan is extremely social sometimes almost too social. He is the happiest most fun energetic boy. He loves life and he also loves everyone around him. He has had so many amazing first and a lot huge accomplishments over the last year. He is living a very typical life which is something I am so grateful for. He still does close to 35 hours a week of therapy but this is only because it is and has been working so good that I am a bit afraid to scale back. He is most successful when we stay ahead of things and prepare him for everything. He has made so many friends, he gets invited to so many birthday parties because everyone says Brendan is so funny and super fun to be around. That always makes my heart melt and I will never get sick of hearing it.

      In my last post a year and half ago I had posted how Brendan started taking dance class. Well last year he continued to take dance and he even added a class so he was taking two classes a week. Dance brings him so much joy. In August when the new season of dance started I signed him up for 2 classes again. He kept telling me he wanted to dance everyday. I would just laugh at him and say, "B you are so funny." Well the first week of classes started and my daughter takes dance 5 days a week 10 classes, she is on the company/competition team. So Brendan and I were there everyday and everyday that first week he would go up to the teachers and say am I in this class and they would say sure Brendan you can dance. Well he ended up trying 6 classes Monday thru Friday and I told him he could pick 3 of them. Well that wasn't what he wanted. He begged me to continue taking all 6 classes.  Dance has HELPED him so much through this autism journey. Dance is a place he can go without his therapist and just be a kid. The social, following teacher instructions and performing are all things that are great for him to be exposed to. So I felt, how do I say no to my child that has been told he was going to have so many limitations in life. Well I said yes to all 6 classes. For the last 6 months he has been rocking all 6 classes everything from tap, ballet, hiphop, musical theater, tumbling and stretching class. He even gets to take 2 of his classes with his sister! He was definitely born to be on stage. He shines on that stage and he doesn't have any fears being in front of people showing off his skills.

        My 5 year olds weekly schedule is more than most adults can handle. He goes to school for 12 hours a week, has over 30 hours of therapy a week, he takes 6 hours of dance, and he plays baseball once a week. He loves structure and routine plus he has so much energy so keeping busy is the best idea!

       I will be posting about all of the adventures we have gone on in the last year. We have had so many that those need their own post. I promise I will be better at keeping up on posts.