Social Skills Group, Speech Therapy

Joseph went to his first session in a social skills group run by Children's Hospital this afternoon. It's facilitated by an occupational therapist and a speech therapist. I didn't get to observe the session, but it was Joseph and two other boys. The other two were pretty sedate, particularly compared to my little ball of chaos. Joseph apparently really enjoyed it. They were impressed that he drew a face on these little foam pumpkins the kids decorated. He even drew triangles for the eyes. :) They also said they heard him speak in complete sentences. Which is news to me, I've still only heard him do that once. I sometimes think he's holding out on me, though I can't imagine why.

The social skills group meets during his previous speech therapy time. We can move speech, but I think we might take a break from it for a while. We're having trouble getting our house reorganized how it needs to be for PECS to work. Joseph has too much access to everything, and most things, if he can't get us to get it for him, he will get it himself. In order to make him use the PECS cards (or talk, for that matter) he needs to be forced to ask us for things. Why talk when you can scale the cabinets and get your own banana? Which he can, and does.

Saturday, Kristy and I are going to leave the kids with Celia and go to a support group meeting in Hilliard. It will be nice for us to do something together without the kids, even if the activity itself is defined by Joseph and his disorder.