The Art of J (Part 2)

Playing with Peers

During a trip to the dentist in Mar 2019, I was heartened to see J being able to interact with another peers. They were both laughing, making comments and giving opinions. They not just communicate, play together and have fun, he started to have interest in both the activity and other children involved in playing. This is one important step to lead to Cooperative Play. For more information on the Social Stages of play for Children 0 - 6 years, you may visit here.

J played with a peer while waiting for dentist.

Prior to this, it has been between solitary play and parallel play. It was a remarkable milestone even though there was a difference of about a year. 

Taken when he was 5 years old. It was still parallel play.

Today, while waiting for our turn to visit the Occupational Therapy, J joined in with a pair of siblings and played with them. They were interacting. "You First!". My heart rejoiced when I hear him said that!

J joined a pair of siblings and played with them.

We celebrate every little achievement, every little milestone.

 

Changi Beach Park

Two weeks ago, we brought J to Changi Beach Park. J loves this park very much. It is one of the oldest coastal parks in Singapore. What attracted us are the playgrounds and the various sand play area. He did lots of climbing, crawling, pulling and motor planning in the various structures.

Climbing, crawling, pulling and motor planning are involved.
These skills are essential to help in his handwriting.

It is a good place to help J hone his gross motor skills, which in turn, will help in his handwriting.

In order to cross over to the other side, some motor planning
is needed.

Gross motor skills are abilities that allow people to do things that involve using the large muscles in the torso, arms and legs to complete whole-body movements. Gross motor skills is not just about acquiring sports, etc. Many research talks about the relations between gross motor skill and handwriting. You might like to read the relations here.

The structure requires J to put in some effort on how and where he needs to climb.

Strength and Motor Planning Skills

Further down the park, there is another playground that has swing. Swings gently develop muscle strength and fine motor skills. Balancing on the swing seat can strengthen the core. Holding on to the cord or chain of a swing strengthens grip strength and finger coordination - an essential milestone for children learning to write.

Holding on to the cord or chain of a swing
strengthen grip strength and finger coordination.

Another activity in this park: Sand Play. Playing in the sand helps to develop fine motor skills when using a small shovel, digging and pouring into the bucket. Sand play also helps to develop a sense of textures.

Sand Play.

Lastly, at this park, airplanes will fly above us every few minutes and it is great opportunity to see the body of the plane.

Airplanes flew past every few minutes.

There are many activities that can help hone gross motor skills in Changi Beach Park. A very good recommended place to go.

Be Kind!

Last Saturday, 28th Jul 2018, I was taking the lift at Novena MRT station with my 8 mo in the pram and my helper.

And there was a little boy and his helper with him. while waiting for the lift to arrive, the little boy was jumping around and touching the lift door. His helper was using a firm voice "Don't touch the door" and she looked very stressful.

When we were in the lift, the little boy was just turning around to look at the pram and the helper quickly held onto the little boy and said, "There is a baby." My baby was sleeping.

From that little observation, I deduced the boy might be different. And he might be in Autism Spectrum. So I patted his helper on the back and said, "Don't worry!"

And she immediately said, "He is autistic."

I replied, "My son too."

And she was looking at me, seemingly surprised at what I said and she asked to repeat.

So I said, "My son too. And you are doing a great job."

She smiled at me.

Looking after an autistic child is already very challenging. It is draining. On most days, we are being judged, we got scolded for what our child did and we hear lots of negative comments. This would be even harder if the caregiver is not the child's parents but someone else like the maid who has no blood relation with the child and have to love the child like her own.

Hence, having someone to have a pat on the caregiver's back puts a smile on the caregiver. At least the world is still beautiful.

Be kind!

Fixing From Scratch Together

On 15th May 2018, J wanted to play with his police station set. It is a dismantled set kept in a box. On that particular day, he wanted me to fix the set together with him.

How the completed set looks

And this mummy of his is very bad in fixing boy's stuff & building Legos, etc. Looking at how my dear son pleaded with me to fix the set together with him, I obliged.

We opened the box. Gosh! There were some parts I had no idea where it should go. Then J would say, "Mummy, it is over here."

I had a hard time fixing this panel

And when I did it, J would reply, "Good Job!" How amusing!

Throughout the time when we were finding parts and fixing the set, he would use descriptive words and sentences like, "This piece is on the blue surface", "Look at the square... this is over here", "We put this on top", etc. I realise how much he has improved. He is able to describe, though sometimes the description isn't clear and sometimes he may find difficulty in explaining why.

Lastly, when we had to fix the lift in. Yes! That is his favourite part and he wanted to attempt it himself.

Building his Lift.
Loves his seriousness.

It is now time to play. I cherished our interaction moments and proud that he has improved tremendously, in my opinion. I would not have dreamed of these moments 1.5 or 2 years ago.

Tackling Preschool Work

2 weeks ago, on 13th April 2018, we were doing a typical Preschool work involving understanding instructions, cutting the picture out and then pasting the picture into the right box.

Cutting & Pasting Work

When I was looking at the work he did, I realised how much time, sweat and tears we had put on just to accomplish this preschool activity.

For the past 2 years, J has been cutting, pasting, folding and colouring using the 4 Kumon activity books while most of his neurotypical peers were busy recognising words, writing and reading.

Compared to his neurotypical peers, he seemed lagging behind, still doing these stuff, and he is turning 6 soon. But when I looked at how he was able to handle his scissors and glue so much better, I took delight because he is improving. He is still moving on. And most importantly, we never give up!

J can handle his scissors so much better.

This is a little achievement but worth celebrating.

Building with Recycled Items

One Saturday morning, on 10th February 2018, Daddy did an incredulous project with J - Building an apartment using recycled materials such as boxes, containers, ice cream sticks, etc. Of course, this project includes his one main motivation - Lifts.

Daddy guided J in the planning, sourcing of items,
pasting and building

As I was looking at the teamwork between Daddy and J, I witnessed how J participated in this project, I realized that we have come a long, long way. I am so thankful!

He is now willing to participate and accept new ideas, being a team player, J asking for help, interactions between the 2 of them and seeing J being flexible at his best. And he was able to work on his fine motor skills from the cutting of papers, pulling the masking tape and pasting with masking tape. I also see his creative juices running. I literally can see his brain juice churning inside him. This activity helped him to be flexible, to be creative and to think things out of the box.

The Final Structure

But, all these didn't come overnight. It wasn't a natural instinct for J. If we were to do this 1 or 2 years ago, it might have been very challenging. I could remember how hard it was to ask J to say "Help" if he needs help instead of screaming or crying at where he was at. I could remember just 6 months ago, he could not even hold his scissors properly. Just 2 years ago, he would not even build upwards. Just 2.5 years ago, he would not play beyond his 4 train set blocks and 4 big red megablocks. Looking at his interactions with Daddy while building the structure, it involved a number of spontaneous speeches. He was able to say and describe which area he would like to put the parts. Just 2.5 years ago, he was still into 3 words maximum only and echolelia, tjen slowly moved into sentences, 1-loop conversation in 2016, then moved on to 2-loops conversation. His spontaneous speech started only exactly 1 year ago in March 2017. We have indeed come so far!

J happily playing his works

I thank God for the home-based program that we are in. He has improve tremendously. Even though he still need facilitation in peer-to-peer group work, I hope one day, he will be able to work with his peers and while working with them, they would interact together, laugh together and complete the project together.

For now, we celebrate these little achievements!