Fine Motor Skill: Handling Scissors

Today, I was amazed that J is now able to handle his scissors much better, compared to a year ago. It has been almost a year of fine motor activities, which we have been doing since he was an infant and learning to handle scissors and cutting with the scissors.

The way J handles his scissors, has improved.
He is cutting a paper plate, doing his own artwork.

Despite having tons of fine motor activities, the Occupational Therapist (OT) at his Early Intervention Centre still assessed that his development in this area needs lots of working on.

I am glad that today, I am able to see that my efforts have paid off. Though his holding of the scissors is still not perfect, I believe he will definitely master this skill one day.

If your child is like J, unable to handle the scissors well, do not be disheartened! I know, there are days when even I myself, might succumb to the lies and deception in our head, "My son is coming 5, he still cannot hold the scissors properly. Other kids his age, are already, quite an expert in cutting."

Do not fall to the temptation of comparing with others.

Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won't need to compare himself with someone else. - Galatians 6:4 (TLB)

And that includes us taking care and nurturing our beloved child.

On top of doing the fine motor activities, which is still necessary, you can consider Kumon activity books. But I would think 4 years old is a good age to do these. Before 4 years old, they should focus entirely on fine motor activities. You can read more here.

These workbooks provide step-by-step
activities from Worksheet 1 (Straightforward)
to Worksheet 40 (More Challenging)

I like these activity books because of the step-by-step activities to acquire the skills. For example, in the cutting activity book, it started with practical worksheets on cutting one line, then move on to cut multiple lines, then move on to cut zig-zag lines. and then cut circular lines, etc. I believe the step-by-step practical worksheets help J a fair bit and most importantly, he enjoys the activities.

My belief is still not to overwhelm the child with loads of worksheets to complete in a day. It is still necessary to allocate time for the child to play. Play is still important to the child. It has always been my priority.

One of the activities in the book.
At worksheet 33.
This is already coming towards
the end of the workbook.

Hence, I do not do these activities everyday. But rather, take the child's lead. There might be days when he does not want to do sit-down work. It is alright. We can do another day. Each session is less than 15 minutes. And we usually only complete 2 worksheets in a week, which explains why just 40 worksheets in a workbook but till now, almost a year, we still have not completed the workbook.

Lego Play

Nowadays, J loves to play with his Duplo Lego because he can build a tall building and mimic a lift going up and down in the building.

Photo taken on 22 Mar 2017.
This structure was built by J.
The orange block mimic a
"lift moving up and down".

I still remember how he first played his megablocks almost 3.5 years ago - For 1.5 years, it was just 4 red megablocks and 8 blue megablocks. For 2.5 years, he just did "open and close lift doors" on the 4 red megablocks and 8 blue megablocks, which we never fail to bring these whenever we went out.

We introduced Duplo Lego when J was 2.5 years old but he was not interested at all. He would go back to play with his megablocks.

His 4 red megablocks and blue megablocks.
After 2.5 years of playing megablocks,
he had moved on to include other megablocks in his play.

We have come a long way! Early last year, his dad modeled a HDB building (different structure from the photo) with a "lift" that allowed him to move it up and down. That stirred his interests. His dad even build 5 characters from the Lego and introduced them as characters to stay in the different levels. He did all these for several weeks.

At first, J would scream for us to help him build the structure whenever he wanted to play the "lift" on the Duplo Lego building. Only in recent months this year, that J started to build with his Duplo Lego.

Therefore, to see J, being able to build the Lego block upwards, is a very great achievement and to see him, being able to build buildings in many different styles and patterns, I can't help feeling emotional. It is as if we have won't first prize in a contest!

A Little Appreciation

I am so thankful to have ML as my volunteer. I thank her for being so engaged with J, at every session. I thank her for putting her very best effort to understand what J is talking about, even though the topic or subject he is talking about, might not make sense to her. I thank her for taking her time to be part of J's journey with us.

At such a young age, she chose to volunteer in this Son-Rise Program during the weekends. We are so blessed to have her.

A little appreciation, to give her a pat on the back, after every session in the playroom, I believe will go a long way.

A little appreciation for my volunteer

For they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition - 1 Corinthians 16:18 (NIV)

1st Session With 1st Volunteer

Yesterday, 18th Mar 2017, was the first session with our first long-term volunteer, ML. Yesterday, J had lots of red light so ML did lots of joining with him. He had his verbal ism and his stimulus system ism. We are so blessed to have ML as our volunteer because she is teachable and she learns fast. Thank god for her!

ML joining J in his ism "Door Opening, Door Closing"

Today is ML's second session. J had more green light, which could also mean that he is comfortable with her. J enjoyed his playroom session. This is one of the first step working towards his social development. Yippee!

Alphabet Games

Today, in the playroom, J requested to play with alphabets. He loved playing with the alphabet beanbags. I supposed he loves the sensory when he touched those beanbags.

As usual, J arranged the beanbags according to alphabet. As he was given some holiday homework by his EIPIC teacher, I decided to use their material. However, J did not want to do the materials because he could not "feel" the fishes. They are too small. He is supposed to match the fishes onto the alphabets in the material.

Some of the "fishes" are on the left.
J is supposed to match the "fishes" onto the
alphabet in this material.
J find it too small to feel its presence.

Since J loved the alphabet beanbags, I decided to tinge it a little. After J arranged the beanbags according to alphabet, I got him to pick the "fishes" randomly from a container to match to the alphabet beanbags. However, after 4 tries, he did not want to proceed. I could see his little fingers having difficulty holding the "fishes" and the print, perhaps could be too small for him. So I made it into a turn-taking game with 3Es. Woohoo! We successfully finished matching the "fishes" against the alphabet beanbags.

Activities in the Playroom

The next task was to match the "fishes" onto the alphabets in the material. J straightaway rejected doing. I again, made it into a turn-taking game. Yes! We finished matching the alphabets in the materials.

Lastly, before keeping the beanbags into the bag, J picked a beanbag and we will shout out the letters, then keep the beanbags into the bag. I did the same with his cloth number blocks last year. And that was how he mastered his numbers. This is actually one of J's favourite activity.

Well, in building J for his social development, mastering numbers and alphabets are just beside the point. I turned it into a social and interactive activity - turn taking, eye contact and interactive attention span. There were full of celebration for his eye contact, with lots of hi-5s and 3Es. Please note that all these can only be done when J is in green light.

To understand the Son-Rise terminology, refer to the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. kaufman. It has many amazing methods to help a child in the Autism Spectrum.

1st Meetup with the Volunteers

Praise the Lord that there are 1 long-term volunteer (approx. 30 months) and another 2 volunteers (about 4 weeks) coming to son-rise J. I still remember during the Son-Rise Startup Program 2016 when we were first introduced the topics of volunteers, I felt that this seems impossible. My thought was "Where do I find people?" And thanks to Embrace Autism, it becomes a reality.

I had my first meeting with all 3 volunteers last Saturday, 11th March 2017. For the past 2 weeks, I have been busy charting J's social development, setting program goals, planning works and doing the powerpoint presentation about J and the important concepts the volunteers need to know, in order to son-rise J.

2 days back, one of my friends asked me what I have been busy with? And I only have 1 child (She did not know J's condition). She said she has 3. And in the past (her children are now in their 20s), she would stay till late to print worksheets for her children and she reminded me she has 3, I only have 1 child. Well, I jokingly told her taking care of my 1 child is equivalent to taking care of her 3 children.

Well, if we look at a childcare centre or a mainstream preschool classroom, it is usually 1 teacher to 6-8 students, which shows if the children are neurotypical, it is still manageable, though I think 1 teacher to 6 students, I find it too many students to a teacher. Whereas for special needs child in EIPIC, it is usually 1 teacher to 1, or maximum 2 students.

As I think back what I have been busy with, I felt like I was back to working days - planning, setting goals and having meetings. Indeed, as a parent, I never expected myself to be doing these. If we look at parents who have neurotypical child, which parents do planning, set goals, chart social development and plan meetings? But I love this. It is definitely different from work because all that I am doing, it's all for my beloved son.

Impromptu Play Together

This morning, I brought J to the playground where there were no little children. It is very stressful for me especially when there are other children and babies around because J loves babies so much that he could unintentionally display his intense energy.

No kids at 10 am in the morning

However, at about 11 am, I saw 2 of my neighbours. Their children have returned from their school. My heart started to panic because I do not how J might respond to them even though he knows who they are and have played with them before when they were younger. When I saw the children (there were 4 of them) running towards our direction, I started to cringe. But I guess my worries were unfounded.

J was happily playing catch with the children. Of course, I do notice that J might be out of the group once in a while, to go and knocked on one of the doors in the preschool nearby, while others continued in their play.

J even asked one friend, S, if he could hold her hands. I was amazed because it took us 1.5 years to teach him to ask this question. In the past, he would grab hold of another child's hand and pulled the child along and ran, whether the other child liked it or not. What he did today calls for a celebration!

There were times when I noticed that even though J wanted to be out of the group sometimes, he would turned back and looked at his friends (Giving Joint Attention) and then joined in the group again. This is another great achievement.

I do also noticed that J looked at his friends, when laughing together. That was non-verbal communication, in which he has shown tremendous improvements too.

Overall, I am amazed that J has done very well in this small little social play and not to forget, this was an impromptu play together. I am overjoyed that he has improved very much. We have come a long, long way but when I saw how J handled himself with the other children, all these are worth it! Praise the Lord that he is improving every day.

J were playing together with his friends

Of course, after J and I went back home for his shower, I praised J for what he had done especially asking permission from another child if he could hold her hand, keeping his hands to himself and playing together with other friends. All these seems a natural thing for a neuro-typical child but for a child in the Autism Spectrum, in order to acquire these skills, it could take months and years of persistence, hope and belief.

Finding the Missing Number Game

OMG... I want to cry. I'm so, so, so excited! J not only interacted with us BUT.. He initiated a game.

YESSS... Today is the day. He has never done this before. He initiated a game - Finding the missing number. He started by arranging the blocks and asking Hubby and I, "What is the missing number?" This calls for a celebration! Yes! A Celebration *Jump Up and Down*... IT IS JUST SO EXCITING!

J was arranging the blocks and asking Hubby and I,
"What is the missing number?"

His idea came from his motivation - LIFT. In some shopping malls, there were missing buttons. That is how he has gotten this idea.

However, this significant milestone "Game Initiation" has come a long, long way....

I remembered back in May 2015 (It was 1 month before he turned 3). He was not receptive to any new learning at all. While other children his age were already into ABCs and 123s, for him, other than the ABC Song, he was totally not interested in "A for Apple, B for Boy", he was only interested in, just looking at lift when we were in any shopping mall or playing "Open and Close lift door" with his 4 red long and 8 blue short megablocks. At that point in time, I was feeling very discouraged. Like any new parent, I was in fact, very worried or rather kiasu, with his academics. In my mind, I was thinking, only the word "DEAD" and "He don't know how to read ABCs and 123s. What if he continued this way when he is 6, 7 or even 10 years old"? Of course, that was before reading the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. Kaufman.

I had always read about Montessori Education, which also believe in Child-led learning (Still, I was not totally child-led as you can see from my thoughts above) and after my friend introduced me to the book Autism Breakthrough, my belief in Child-led learning became stronger. I finally understood what his isms meant to J. I changed my belief and perspectives - Be child-led. J will surely not be like this forever. Since he loves lift, let's join him and go into his world - That was my turning point.

Indeed, the knowledge that J has - letters, numbers, counting, colours, signs, vocabulary (types of lifts, panel doors, buttons, etc), language development (he is now into 1 loop conversation from just 2-3 words back in May 2015), interaction when we talked about lifts, eye contact, safety when using lift, taking turns to go in and out of lift - all comes from the one motivation he has - LIFT. And he did not go through any formal learning, e.g. sitting down to learn in a classroom or doing table learning, because he could not sit still due to some sensory issues. He learnt all these through looking at lifts in shopping malls or during our playroom sessions.

The one thing that never fail to amaze me is when we are child-led, let the child be your teacher, let him teach you, learning becomes unlimited. The sky is the limit.

Before I know J's condition, I never know that there are so many things to learn from a lift. The lift is definitely one of the greatest inventions in all mankind. Very soon, this little man will surely learn about history and science (pulleys and axles) of lift. Woohoo! And the tears that I have today is, the tears of Joy...