Summer of '69...

DS has reprised Bryan Adams 40 years later... DS has said this summer are the best of his life so far... and we are only into 3rd week of his summer holidays - its another matter that 3 weeks have flown by !

It has been a long time since we had updated the blog. Touch wood, things are going ok and well. More importantly, DW is happy and DS is happy with DM and both are happy together... This itself implies that the situation is positive :-).

DS has finished his schooling year - the first in the US of A. The school report says he has done well. And he has said that he likes the school, very specifically the class room that he goes to. He is getting a lot social cues at class and is beginning to talk to his class-mates about his likes and dislikes and share those stories. I also believe he feels more comfortable with the school here, since he goes to a special day class and does not feel the pressure as much as it is in normal classes. Although this is probably slowing down his academic progress, we believe it is helping him develop is EQ and functional thinking..

Re summer activities - this summer has been labelled as "physical summer" - He has suddenly found interest in Tennis and we have put him in a Tennis class - the coach who has taught special kids before seems very patient with him. His swimming classes start next week. Additionally, he continues to go the Karate class which he seems to enjoy. I believe these are all providing the neccessary sensory inputs to him and that is the reason he relishes it himself. And my own belief is that physical activities help in high level of mental engagement.

On others, this summer, he has got into group session at Michelle Garcia Winner center of Social thinking - this is now known as Teach Social. This is in addition to the individual classes. All of this is helping significantly. We have also started using Connector Rx. It has helped us (ie DW/I with DS) to be "in the moment" - he has shown some initiation skills when we have strapped this on. We are continuing with RDI, Impulse creations, aura healing, whole movement... we believe each on its own is not the sole reason that contributes to the development. To me this is like, solving the a problem in the "complex" quadrant of the Cynefin framework. This framework is a good way to look at PDD - we apply "Emergent Practices" approach, where the Cause and Effect are not immediately seen and aren't close to each other. One probes, senses and then responds. So these multi-dimensional practices helps us to probe different possibilities - for example, Impulse creation helps learning with the body; Whole movement is a tool that I believe helps DS to look at the way one can organize information and to be able to address a larger problem, but starting from fractals. RDI helps in developing functional thinking, Teach Social helps him in the intersection of functional and skills. His regular school is where he is learning specific skills. To us, function is the thinking part (why, what) and skills is the doing part (how, when). Each of them separately isn't that helpful.

And with all this, DS has said this summer has been the best for him ! So, something is working for him - like they say, dont fix it, if it ain't broke...

In spite of all the uncertainty in my job front, things are looking up... Hopefully, the trajectory continues to remain true North. Touch Wood. Thank God.