Sorry I've been so quiet lately, but I almost had to move all of my computer
equipment into storage until we got a new house (!!). Yes, a scary concept,
but I'm in the 3rd bedroom and the kids were having all sorts of sleep problems
-- the younger one was waking up the older one and causing them both to cry in
the middle of the night, repeatedly, so the only solution was for me to pack up
all of my computer equipment and put it in storage to free up the 3rd bedroom
to seperate the kids.
We've managed to work something out (think "Jim" and "couch" and "downstairs"
and you get the idea) so that I don't have to do this, but let me tell you, I
sure was worried!
Since kids are more important than computers, I've also been working with my
kids instead of my computers for the last 3-4 weeks. We got an official
diagnosis on Sam: He's high-functioning autistic. So we've been educating
ourselves on autism and how being high-functioning autistic will affect the
rest of Sam's life. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds; he has an
excellent chance of being difficult to pick out in a crowd at age 10 and it's
extremely likely he'll lead a normal life -- we just need to understand how he
views the world (primarily visually) and how to work with him.
It's actually fascinating, if you learn about it: He learns speech through
"chunks", so we taught him "I want" and what it means after he knew a few
words. So when he wants juice, he doesn't say "I want juice, please", he says:
"I want"
"juice"
"please"
..because that's how he's thinking, in visual chunks. A big breakthrough was
a few nights ago, when he used the "I want ____ please" structure to ask for a
VERB instead of a noun: He wanted me to hold something and he totally
surprised me by saying "I want *hold* please". That is fantastic progress for
a 4-yr-old autistic boy who until this point coulnd't say a completel
sentence. While he still "self-stimulates" (turns in circles, hits and bites
himself, etc.), he makes direct eye contact most of the time and laughs at
funny things and likes to play physical games, which is all a great sign. I've
even got him playing Nintendo 64 ;-). I have a lot of hope for the future!
(Max, our youngest at 11 months, is totally normal -- in fact, we can't get him
to shut up ;-)
The moral of the story: I'll start answering my email again now! Sorry for
being so quiet...
--
http://www.MobyGames.com/
The world's most comprehensive historical PC gaming database project.
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