- Re: Lane

[Guest guest]

,

Could you refresh my memory? How old is Lane? I forgot to mention it in my

post, but none of my kids are any good at jumproping. And our physical

education program in the grade school devotes a period of time to it every

year (first through fifth grade). The kids earn stars for being able to

jump rope (at least 10 jumps) in various styles (forward, backward, one

foot...) My kids never get very far. We have tried at home but they just

can't do it. My daughter, who just turned seven and is NT, has poor gross

motor skills (can't be completely untouched by the gene pool I guess!!).

She has had an extra half hour of " adaptive gym " every week since December.

She still can only manage one or two jumps. And she wants to and is

TRYING!!

Tying shoes is always hard for my kids too. My sons learned it by the age

of seven, but I still don't think they're very good at it (14 and almost 12

now). They stick with velcro - and now, the sneakers that have zippers, or

are loafer style. My daughter managed to learn how to tie her shoes after

much effort last summer. It was a loose tie, and quite clumsy style, but

she was doing it. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of buying her velcro

shoes for school. Now she can't remember how to tie shoes and we have to

start from scratch...AAARRRGGHHHH!!!!

My Aspie son learned to swim at age 5 - much to my amazement. He enjoys

swimming. He looks awkward, but he loves it....except the middle school's

gym class. They had the kids swimming laps lengthwise, and were teaching

them the proper method to stroke, etc. had had swim lessons for years

with no problem, but this class sent him off the deep end. He was terrified

of it and convinced that they were going to let him drown. I had to get a

letter from his psych. to get him excused from it. My other son learned

by the age of 6. And my NT daughter got a little better last year, but is

not trustworthy in the water yet. I'm hoping for more progress this year.

All love to swim.

All of my kids have had trouble putting socks on. Long after they became

independant at dressing themselves I was still being call upon to help them

put their socks on. My daughter just got the hang of it in the last few

months. And all have had trouble with snaps, buttons and zippers. I have

used pull on pants and shirts as much as possible. It's not a problem for

the boys anymore, but still an issue for my daughter.

As for looking you in the eye when she speaks, I have read in more than one

source that this is difficult to downright impossible for many Aspies. My

son can look me in the eye, but when he gets nervous, eye contact with

others goes down. It can actually cause Aspies great stress to try to look

people in the eye. You might consider trying to teach her to look at

another part of a person's face. That way she doesn't have to make actual

eye contact, but will give the impression that she is.

Kathy

Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 00:57:59 -0000

From: " " <jnvicbrown@...>

Subject: Lane's info ...

I ended up getting quite busy at work and am just now getting to read

your posts about your kids. Thanks for answering my questions they

sound fairly familiar to me.

Lane is having a terrible time with jumproping but has managed to get

to the count of 5 or 6 if it is a long rope and two other people are

turning it. I have to count out loud...jump-one-two-jump. There is NO

WAY she can get the rope over her head herself. Bike riding has

eluded us, so much for the nice bikes we have purchased. I will tell

my husband about the coasting tip! It took a long time to get the

hang of a hula hoop and she still cannot keep it going for a long

amount of time. She gets very upset when they have limbo at an event

because she has alot of diffculty with that. Swimming is so-so but

she did quite wearing a life vest last summer and replaced it with a

noodle or swimmies. Skating has been a nightmare but after two years

of some pretty embarrassing school skating parties she has gone from

pretending to skate with her socks ( my husband was mortified,

especialy when she danced around the poles in the middle,lol!!! )to

tennis shoes with wheels to rented skates and has just in the last

month ventured into the middle.

Just this year we started working on getting dressed in the mornings.

She can now put on her shirt,pants and underwear ( although the

undies are most always on backwards..I cannot believe that does not

feel funny )..fastening jeans is quite difficult but has mastered

buttons on shirts ( takes a long time ). I was happy to hear that

most have had trouble with socks as we do as well and they have to be

on perfectly. She is not even close to tying, even with the bunny ear

style. Here is how we achieved this :

I wake her up at a certain time and then put on a

timer for ten minutes, when it goes off she is to get up and go potty

and brush her teeth. Then go back to her room and start dressing. She

is not aloud to turn on the TV until she is dressed and if she is

successful she gets a quarter that she puts in a container. This was

instigated by her OT and I had to agree to be willing to send her to

school in her pj's if she did not conform. Thank goodness it worked.

I am not saying that it is smooth sailing at all but it is better.

My daughters obsession is fantasy itself. She LOVES the TV,VCR and

DVD player and I bet we have enough movies to fill the local rental

stores children section ourselves. ( one reason she conformed to the

dressing because I used her one true love...no TV until dressed.)

Starting at about 9 months of age she watched The Wizard of Oz daily

until about the age of 4. We went through probably 10 pairs of ruby

slippers!! She also had a love of everything Disney for quite

sometime and finaly branched out into very odd movies for a young

child. Nightmare before Christmas,

Scissorhands,BeetleJuice..and then anything with witches,zombies or

vampires, YIKES!!! This phase really bothered me as it was laced with

an obsession of watching religious movies as well. I thought I had a

little Goth girl on my hands..even dressed up like Wednesday

for a party she attended ( then used the dress later for a pilgrim ).

She likes to act the movies out and sometimes memorizes the entire

dialogue. She has TONS of dressup costumes. Oh my, and one day she

caught GREASE on the TV and about drove us crazy with it after we

bought it for her. Just the other night she saw about 1/2 hour of

CLUELESS and as I was putting her to bed asked me if she could wear a

plaid skirt to school the next day and did she have any highheels?

She also has hundreds of PVC figures of her favorite movie characters.

We have been trying to work on not being so outspoken ... this gets

her in trouble quite a bit. The other day she told two girls who had

buddied up leaving her out that they were IDIOTS!! I also spoke some

with her this evening about looking me in the eye when she spoke to

me. My husband agreed to work with me on this. We are going to try to

take one thing at a time. She sometimes does and sometimes does not.

She also loves the computer and will spend the entire day there if

aloud, but rarely plays with video games or her gameboy.

Thanks again for filling me in a little, this makes me feel better

about a few issues.