What's the Blog Going to Look Like Now?

What will I be blogging about now?

Well, I started this blog with the purpose of recording our journey through the Unity program, and now the program is done.

However, our story is obviously not at an end!

I plan to keep on with updates about what Ryan's doing, sharing any progress or concerns or special moments.

I'll probably be on the computer a lot less, once I go back to work full-time on Monday, and try to put some focus on improving my own health this summer.

There will likely be more entries about Kevin and Andrea, too. I've had a lot of stories about the two of them that I've wanted to share, related to Autism or otherwise, and just haven't had time to do it, with the intensity and focus of the Unity program.

So, we begin another chapter of the story.

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Ryan's Post-Unity Assessment

This morning we went for Ryan's post-Unity assessment at Dr. Saunders' office.  If you remember, we did an assessment about a week into Unity (which technically should have been done before Unity started).

 

Anyway, we had the same lady assessing Ryan as last time, and she said she saw changes in him as soon as we walked down the hallway.  She noticed the big change that everyone notices: Ryan is so much more aware of the people and things in his environment. 

 

In fact, while we were in the waiting room, he kept going up to this one lady and touching her leg, and holding his arms up to be held. I guess he liked her, but I kept gently guiding him back.  I also pulled out my iPhone and put on a little music app I found and purchased, where Ryan can run his fingers across the screen, and it plays music and makes sparkles. Appropriately, it's called "Music Sparkles." (In fact, I think it's the same app we used once during Unity, on the iPad, to get Ryan to tap). He did spend a few minutes running his fingers over the xylophone and enjoying the music and sparkles.

 

Ryan showed some differences in behaviour during the assessment, too. Last time we were there, Ryan had very low tolerance for the activities presented to him and continually turned away from the lady assessing him. He also climbed out of the chair and cried so much that we moved to another, more soothing room for the second portion of the assessment.  This time, he got mad and fussed a few times, and cried and reached for me once or twice, but he stayed in his chair for the whole hour.  I brought some items from his home reinforcement basket, and those seemed to help him cope a bit better, too.  He also became interested in some blocks we used during the assessment, and the lady let him continue to play with those to keep him content.

 

For the most part, the assessment just showed me a lot of things I'd already seen on the ABLLS we did last week for Summit Centre: improved awareness, social interactions, fine motor, and gross motor skills.  Some things I felt a little frustrated about, though, because I've seen him do them at SC, but he didn't generalize the skills to the assessment today (e.g., removing a towel from a covered up object). 

 

Still, the lady assessing us emphasized how happy she was to see how much more engaged in his surroundings Ryan has become in the past 3 months.  She remembered how Ryan was very much "in his own world" back then.  She expressed a hope that we would be able to continue intensive therapy, through the Summit Centre STEPS program or through IBI with Thames Valley, because this has obviously been very beneficial to Ryan. Well, she's "preaching to the choir" on that account! I shared with her that our hopes were very much the same.

 

I'm not sure when I will receive the official "before and after Unity" report, but I am curious to see what the professionals' conclusions will be.  And, I'm sure I'll be on here sharing the results when I get them!