Intentional Parents

Thank you for your prayers for Hannah over these last eight months. God has allowed you to be part of His great work in her life. She continues to take little steps toward re-entering “our world.”

• She calls me or one of her sisters from across the room.
• She happily runs to deliver a message to her daddy or sisters that dinner is ready (or snack time).
• She asks politely for what she wants (“May I please have . . .”).
• She picked up on saying “no, thank you” just by listening to those around her and some gentle reminders over a few weeks. We never drilled it in any of her sessions. She is integrating from her surroundings!!
• She has even picked up “umm” for some reason. She likes to say “Umm, yes, please.” (It’s so cute.)
• She can write several letters from memory and is improving on copying shapes and letters that I draw for her.

Just a couple of other anecdotes that encouraged us:

1. A couple of days ago one daughter hurt her finger. As she was (somewhat teary-eyed) showing it to an adult, Hannah turned to another sister and asked, “What did she do to her finger?” I was so thrilled that she (first) was aware of what was happening around her, and (second) used the pronouns “she” and “her” correctly! We haven’t drilled those yet (we’re still stuck on “your” and “my”).
2. Today we were driving in the van when I saw some men carrying balloons across a parking lot to afix to a sign. They were on Hannah’s side of the van, but across the street and up farther than where we were sitting at a red light. I asked, “Hannah, do you see the balloons?” and I pointed out the front window. She looked and said, “Balloons.” I thought, “She’s just repeating. Let’s check this.” So I asked her what color they were. She said, “Green”; I thought, “Lucky guess” and said, “And . . .”; she said, “Red”; I said, “And . . .”; she said, “White.” I cheered

My sister-in-law sent me an article on autism that fanned the flame to begin reading to Hannah again. I had pretty much quit reading to her over the summer because she would fight it. So now I’ve challenged the other girls to each read one book to her each day and I’ve started reading a “classic” chapter book to her at the end of our sessions. We sit in a big chair in our session room and I read a chapter aloud. The first couple of days she tried to close the book at the end of each page and said, “All done?” But I gently told her, “No, we’re not done yet” and kept going. Now she sits quietly on my lap for four or five pages of Old Mother West Wind. I’m not sure how much of it is getting through, but I figure as long as she’ll sit quietly, I’ll keep going. Last time we read a chapter about Jimmy Skunk looking for beetles for his breakfast. As we were climbing the stairs afterward, she said, “Beetles.” I said, “Yes, Jimmy Skunk was looking for beetles.” She said, “Rabbit.” I said, “Yes, he met Peter Rabbit.” She said, “Snake.” I said, “Yes, he pulled Black Snake’s tail.” So I’m encouraged that she is taking wee baby steps toward retelling a story on her own.

Please continue to pray about her counting. We’re on the 221^st time and she still doesn’t get it.

This Christmas finds us with hope in our hearts. Over the last few months we have witnessed wonderful progress in Hannah.

May 13

• No eye contact
• No pretend play
• Lined up toys instead of playing with them
• Wasn’t toilet trained, though we’d tried on several different occasions
• Screeched “no, no, no” sporadically for no apparent reason
• Took our hand and led us to what she wanted
• Laid on her bed for hours looking at one toy
• Oblivious to anyone coming or going around her
• Sat at the table with her arm over her face; ate with her fingers
• Didn’t respond when we called her name
• Only speech was echoing phrases from computer games and cassette tapes
• Was terrified of stores; wanted to be carried everywhere

December 13

• 45% to 50% eye contact with family members
• Loves to have a pretend tea party
• Plays appropriately with her toys, including singing while playing the xylophone, moving and conversing with little figures like Pooh, putting together puzzles, drawing around her fingers on a piece of paper, and more
• Daytime toilet trained
• Doesn’t screech; states what is bothering her
• Asks for what she wants (“May I please . . . - we’re working on
• Plays with various toys and interacts with her sisters
• Says “hello” and “goodbye” to those coming and going around her (with help)
• Looks at people while sitting at the table; eats with fork and spoon
• Makes eye contact when we call her name
• Is using new words every week that she picks up from her environment
• Enjoys looking around in stores; walks beside us, holding our hands

Of course, we still have a long way to go and we continue to work hard. You can pray specifically for the following skills that we’re working on.

• Counting: We’re about to start our 200th time of practicing counting, and she still can count only 3 objects by herself.
• Same/different: For some reason she’s stuck on this one. She can pretty much nail down “same” (2 identical items) but has trouble differentiating what “different” means (the 1 non-identical item).
• Pronouns: This one is tricky when we switch from receptive to expressive. Hearing the command “Touch my nose” is opposite when you ask “Whose nose is this?” (She’s to respond “your”), but it’s the same nose! (See, it’s even hard to describe in print!)
• Who, Where, When?: She’s making progress on “Who?” and we’ll be starting on Where? and When? soon.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement over these months. It means more than we can say.

Winter 2002 — Hannah is learning how to play.

Yesterday I was reading a chapter of Prince Caspian, one of the Narnia books, to one daughter. Hannah came into the room and wanted us to help her with the computer. I told her we would help after we finished reading. She decided to climb up on the bed with us and wait. She sat there for a good two or three pages. We were reading the part where Lucy wakes up, sees Aslan, and he tells her to wake the others and follow him. Lucy encounters all kinds of skepticism and sulky attitudes as she tries to wake the others and convince them that Aslan is waiting to lead them to safety. Aslan had warned her that the others would not be able to see him at first, so most of their arguments are to that point.

So, you have the picture, I’m reading aloud several pages from a story with no pictures written in C.S. Lewis’s classic style. Two sentences from the end, Hannah looked up and said, “Oh, they want to see the lion.”

Even more than an academic significance, this represents to me a spiritual reassurance that Jesus is “in there” with Hannah. I think He prompted her to say that to confirm to me that He is working in her heart and she is not alone. I have no explanation from a physical development standpoint: we’ve been working for days on giving one-sentence stories with pictures and she hasn’t even been able to answer the obvious “Who?” questions. The only explanation I can give is a spiritual miracle given from the loving hands of the Lion of Judah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The six-month mark finds us with a nasty cold. Poor Hannah has a red moustache from wiping her nose out across her cheeks. That fact, coupled with the terrible congested cough she always gets with a cold, has suspended formal sessions for several days now.

However, it has been a time of encouragement and not regression. During these days “off,” Hannah has been using many new words and all in appropriate settings! Here is a sampling:

• I want you to fix the sheet. (She used to say “bed.”)
• Daddy is making coffee. (I’d never heard her say “coffee” before.)
• I want to go down the curly slide. (She used to say just “slide.” This time she added the description “curly.”)
• I want to play the ball game. (The other children were out in the baseball field, running the bases. She wanted to do that too. I’d never heard her say “ball game” before.)
• Time to eat breakfast. (She used to say just “time to eat.”)
• That is Mom’s Coke. (She’s always said “Mom’s juice.”)

These are words she has just picked up from her surroundings. That’s a major cause for rejoicing! That’s how most children learn to communicate. Of course, we still have far to go, but this week has shown us that we’re headed in the right direction.

As you can see, she has achieved the skill of communicating what she wants. I remember back when the consultant came out (was that six weeks ago?) that we were working very hard at getting Hannah to verbalize “I want” loud enough for us to hear. Her mumbling is decreasing, and her requests are increasing! Now we move on to shaping her requests into something a little more polite, as in “May I please . . . ?”

One area in which we would especially desire your prayers is dealing with Hannah’s increased whining and pitching fits. We were remiss in disciplining her as completely as the other three during the toddler years because we were never quite certain how much she could comprehend, and we certainly didn’t want to punish her for something she couldn’t do (as opposed to wouldn’t do). Now we are having to deal with those issues. In a way, she is going through the developmental stage that a two- or three-year-old would. She pitched her first royal fit last weekend (at a new neighbor’s house :-/  In a way, it was a step forward because she was actually verbalizing what she wanted, “I want to slide,” albeit screaming at the top of her lungs. Anyway, please pray that we will consistently and lovingly establish these missing boundaries that will make all our lives more pleasant.

One last note of encouragement: I recently found a group of Christian families who are home educating their autistic children. I’ve been on their e-mail loop only a few days now, but have already been encouraged by their Biblical counsel and prayer support. If you’re interested, you can go to www.bondingplace.com and enter the PREACCH section.

Thanks for walking with us on this journey. We have a lot to be thankful for!

Fall 2002 — Hannah tries on her sister’s hand-knitted hat and muff.

God has been working these past few weeks. We received a call from the school system (to which we had applied last spring) to set up an evaluation for Hannah. I did not have peace about pursuing that option right now. We had initially applied for help with her speech back when she wouldn’t answer any questions and we had no idea what would happen with her talking. During the three months that we were waiting on their waiting list, she progressed from complete resistance when asked direct questions to describing objects with three attributes! Based on that progress and some other factors we decided to put her file in the inactive drawer.

It seems that God confirmed that decision in two ways during this week.

1. A book that I had ordered finally arrived. It had been on back order for 6 weeks. It’s written by a home school mom who was a speech pathologist. In it she gives the basic fundamentals of doing speech therapy at home, as well as outlines when you should expect what by way of articulation accuracy.
2. We found a local ABA (the kind of therapy we’ve been doing with Hannah) consultant in the area who was willing to come observe one of our sessions and give us feedback. She turned out to be a believer and gave us some valuable insights. Over all she was encouraging and it was helpful to have her spot some places where Hannah had learned to “beat the system” in my drills while still not really learning the concept I was “teaching.” For example, we’ve been working on same and different. I didn’t realize that I was pulling all the “same” items from one bag and all the “different” items from another; plus, all the “same” items were flat, all the “different” items were bulky. She suggested I use all the flat items, so I tried that this afternoon and Hannah got 100%; then I got the idea to use all bulky items and she was totally lost. Evidently, I inadvertently taught her that “same” means “flat.” <sigh> But now that we know, we can take steps to correct it.

We had a good two-hour consultation that stretched into dinner and four hours. My mind was reeling after she left! Now we’re praying for wisdom to know which strategies to implement and how far to carry them. For instance, she recommended putting up almost all of Hannah’s toys in sight but out of reach so she has to ask for them. The goal is 1000 requests a day. We can also get her to request by giving juice only in one- or two-swallow amounts at a time or just a spoonful of pasta on her plate. You get the idea. Plus we’re supposed to not give the requested item to her unless she talks clearly and with enough volume; she has been mumbling. Sounds logical, but I’m not sure how we can carry it through consistently as well as practically. We’re taking one or two baby steps in that direction while we pray for wisdom.

So, I’m thankful God led us to her but I have to retrain my thinking again to focus on Does Hannah know this concept inside out? rather than checking the drills off my list. That seems to be a no-brainer, but I was falling into the trap of “just check it off,” just another task to accomplish on my checklist.

Once again God has brought across our path the resource person we need at just the right time. He is faithful and continues to encourage us through His Word and our pastor’s teaching. A couple of Sundays ago our pastor challenged us to think about where we were investing our lives. He asked, “What are you working for that money cannot buy and death cannot take away?” Hannah’s development cannot be bought with money, and going to the arms of the Savior through the doorway of death would only fulfill our quest by giving her a whole, complete mind. Her progress is a worthy investment of our lives. Thanks for your part in it.

We’re back from our trip to see family. We had basically three concerns with Hannah when we were facing this trip:

1. toilet training “on the road”
2. regression in her skill level
3. how or whether to continue our daily sessions “on the road”

God graciously took care of all three.

• She developed a fear of rest area toilets (which I guess I have too, if I’m honest) and wouldn’t use one. I was concerned because she had drunk a pretty good-sized glass of liquid from a restaurant drive-through. We kept stopping to give her another chance, and she kept freaking out. So we drove on and she “held it” until we reached the hotel that evening.
• This was our first lengthy trip away from her secure home environment and we wondered how many of her newly-acquired skills would “carry over” into a potentially stressful situation. She did quite well for the first half of the trip, and began regressing a little during the second half of the week. Of course, we were all getting tired by then, so we figured she had done pretty well.
• We took along just a few supplies that we used in our drills (and our “lifeline” notebook of records) and determined to just do what we could as the opportunities came along. We ended up being able to do one or two mini-sessions every day and had a lot of practice generalizing. Generalizing is the term for carrying over a drill from our formal session into everyday life in various situations. For example, before we left we had been working on labeling the different rooms in our house. The trip provided great practice labeling bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens that looked different from ours at home but were nonetheless still bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens.

Hannah continues to increase her connection to what is happening around her. She plays with her sisters more often. This week when our neighbor boy came over to play, he and one daughter were running through the house and Hannah was trailing after them with a big smile on her face.

The two areas of concern right now are (1) helping her “adjust her volume” so we can actually hear what she is saying (now that she talks to us some), and (2) helping her understand the difference between “yes” and “no” in response to a simple question. For example, “Is this a giraffe?” If I’m holding up the giraffe, she should say “yes,” but if I’m holding up Pooh she should say “No, that’s Pooh.” She’s getting terribly confused after 19 days of practicing it.

We are particularly counting on your prayers as we start tomorrow with the three older girls back to full-blown schoolwork. They are learning valuable lessons about self-sacrifice and compassion and responsibility during this season in our family’s life. Thank you for covering all of us with your prayers.

This afternoon we reached a small but significant milestone (in my eyes) in Hannah’s progress. I use a 2-inch three ring binder to keep track of all the programs and drills she works on, as well as her daily progress sheets. This afternoon I had to clean out that notebook because it was getting too full. I moved all the programs she has mastered to a different binder. What an answer to prayer that she has accomplished so many skills and come this far in twelve weeks! Thank you again and again for all your encouragement and prayers.

It was a blessing to witness one daughter’s help today. We had previously taught Hannah to say “I don’t know” when confronted with an unknown object. Now we are trying to expand that to “I don’t know. What is it?” in order to learn the name of the unknown object. I had been trying to prompt Hannah but she kept getting confused, thinking that I was asking her “What is it?” and she’d respond “I don’t know” again (ad infinitum). Today one daughter asked if she could help at all. (In the past the girls have helped me with labeling possession, learning to pretend, and other programs.) I explained how I was stuck and wondered if having Hannah’s sister give the prompts alongside her would help ease the confusion. She happily agreed, but I was hesitant whether she would know when to prompt and how to use inflection in her voice and all those other subtle things we work on. Her love for her little sister just radiated from her face as she knelt beside Hannah’s little chair and carefully and sensitively helped her extend that phrase. By the end of the ten trials Hannah said it by herself twice!

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, for this same daughter has been a big catalyst (along with a nearby friend) in teaching Hannah her last name and address. They started with the numbers then added the street name little by little. I’ll often hear this daughter “drilling” Hannah in their room (in a nice way as they play), “What’s your name? What’s your last name? How old are you? When’s your birthday? What’s your address?”

For those of you who want more details, here is an update on specific skills:

• prepositions finally “clicked” around the 36th session of working on “on” and “under”; she now knows “on , under, in, behind, in front of”
• counting 1–4 finally clicked around the 56th session
• she did much better than I expected in identifying environment sounds
• we’ve started working on responding correctly to “yes” or “no” questions. Today we began with “Is this a ball (or whatever the object is)?” and prompted her to reply “yes.” She caught on pretty quickly, but when I held up a cup and asked “Is this a ball?” she looked at me quizzically so I prompted her “No; it’s a cup.” Well, when I said “no” she looked crestfallen because that’s what I say when she gives a wrong answer. We’ll have to think about this one . . .

Enough for now. We’d appreciate your prayers as we plan to travel to see extended family. I’ll need grace and wisdom to determine when and where and how to continue her learning and practice “on the road.”

Thank you for your continual prayers on Hannah’s behalf. We continue to be surrounded by God’s grace and strength. We’re into the less stressful stage of “routine” now (as opposed to everything being new and requiring extra brain cells and time).

God keeps giving encouragement along the way. I had skipped a couple of programs because I didn’t have the supplies I needed. Finally last week I ordered the materials through the Internet. When I got to the order confirmation screen at the end, the address of the company showed up. It’s in a town about 20 minutes north of us. That was an unexpected blessing. It’s also been an on-going blessing to discover all the supplies we do have from previous years of purchasing and gifts. (Thanks for all those Christmas and birthday presents over the past twelve years!)

As of today, Hannah has mastered all but three of the Beginning skills list. That’s about 40 skills she has acquired. She has also made a good start on the Intermediate skills list. Last week I compared the lesson plan for that particular day’s session with the lesson plan from her very first day.

That very first lesson consisted of making eye contact, learning how to point, obeying the instruction “stand up,” and imitating me when I tapped on the table. She got less than 50% on all four programs.

Her current lessons consist of

• identifying the missing item from a group of four
• identifying pictures and sorting them by category (animal, instruments, food)
• counting
• matching and labeling lowercase letters with uppercase letters
• labeling a described object that is out of view (I’m thinking of an animal that . . .)
• labeling and identifying prepositions (on, under)
• imitating a five-block structure that was built behind a screen; she sees the finished product and has to duplicate it (she mastered this one yesterday, 100% on 10 tries)
• using simple sentences (I see a . . .; I have a . . .)
• describing a picture using a complete sentence
• singing and doing the actions with me to “Itsy Bitsy Spider”
• playing the Memory Game with four matches (instead of all six)
• identifying pronouns (my, your)
• saying “I don’t know” when asked to label an unknown object

In addition, one of her sisters is on a mission to teach Hannah her address and phone number. So far she can answer the questions:

• What’s your name?
• What’s your last name?
• How old are you?
• How are you feeling?
• What is your address? (She recites the numbers; we’ll work on the street name next.)

When I look ahead to the Advanced skills list, I hesitate and wonder how she will ever do those things. But then I remember looking at the Intermediate list and thinking the same thing about the skills that she is doing now. All glory to God for His grace!

Oh yes, one last thing. Last week we went picking blueberries. Hannah filled about 1/3 of a gallon bucket by herself, sorting out the white berries from the blue ones all the while. As one dear friend has observed, she seems happier now than she ever has. Something has changed about her countenance. Does she still struggle? Oh yes! Many times! But she seems to be enjoying what she has discovered about the life she was formerly distant from.

We rely heavily upon your prayers and encouragement. There is always that nagging thought present: “What if she hits a brick wall and can’t go any farther?”

Once again we are grateful for the Lord’s choosing to work through your prayers.

This morning Hannah got 100% on counting 1 and 2

and

she got 100% on labeling “man” and “woman,” and this was her first try at it!

You are all a valuable part of our team. Thanks!

(1) Hannah is now saying “Hello”! Thanks for your prayers specifically for that. (2) We are also thankful that, after much hard work and perseverance, she is daytime toilet trained. That required a new approach from the other girls because she didn’t share the usual motivation (“be a big girl”) or learning by observing and figuring things out on her own. We are once again thankful for the resources God brought our way and designed to cross our paths at just the right time.

We are excited to see her little personality beginning to blossom!

Currently we are working on –

• identifying and labeling gender (boy, girl, man, woman) (Like I said, she doesn’t pick things up readily by observing her surroundings as most children do.)
• counting: she’s got 1 down and almost has 2 learned (this is after 28 days of work)
• differentiating between “my” and “your”
• identifying prepositions: she’s really struggling with “under” for some reason
• imitating mouth movements like smiling; we have to teach her to smile back when smiled at; it doesn’t come naturally
• she knows her upper case letters, so now we’re starting on lower case
• labeling possession (“Mommy’s foot”) and labeling actions in others and herself (“she’s waving”)

Sunday was the first day that she paid close attention to what was going on up front in the church service. That was encouraging! Usually she does her own little thing in her chair and plays with her sister’s hair. Now it might have helped that we had the Manhattan Grace Tabernacle choir there . . . we’ll see next Sunday