Taking the Scenic Route

Waiting with his ST while the other student does an activity.  (turn taking and following directions activity).  He did really well again, even following a 3-step direction at one point.  That is the first time he has done that, so I was really excited about it.  I am also amazed at how much he looks like a “boy” instead of a “little boy”.  When did he decide to grow up so much?  I can’t keep up. 

Yesterday, when Zach took him to his Heartsprings appointment, he ran up to the desk and said “Hi”, Danette (who knows him really well and is Zora’s snuggle buddy) was at the desk, and gave him a surprised “Hi, how are you?” back.  Much to everyone’s surprise, he answered that he was “Fine.  How are you?”.  Despite her surprise, she kept the conversation going, asking him what his name was.  For once, he quickly answered “Zane”, and she asked who he was here to see, and he told her “Carrie”.  Everybody about fell over. Not only did he finally get the skill in the Friendship group, he generalized it to a place outside WSU ST.  Unfortunatly, he still had to be heavily prodded to say hi to Carrie, but it was great to see the skill used at least once.

I found out the new ST at  HS is one that used to work with the Clinical Educator we work with at WSU, so there is a comfort level between them, which is a good thing for Zane because they can communicate more freely between each other.  Since Zane is improving, there is a much wider variety of things to work on, so having the coordination between the two helps with getting him to generalize things and just make sure they are on the same page (or at least the same book.  lol).  I am really going to miss Carrie when she leaves in August, but I feel better about it knowing that it should be a good match for Zane.  I couldn’t have asked for a better start though. 

I called and left a message with the SpEd Coordinator for Zane’s school.  They aren’t expected back into the offices until next week, but I wanted to be higher up on the list of ‘people to call back’ because I have a feeling he will have quite the list when he walks into his office.  From everything I have heard, he is a great advocate for kids and I am lucky to have him as a resource.  I have no reason to doubt the person I heard this from, so I look forward to finally getting somewhere with the school system soon.