Tom Watson age 3
Our youngest son Tom was diagnosed with autism in June 2006 when he was almost two and a half. By the end of July we had started Tom on an ABA programme with Peach. Tom progressed well and in November we started using PECS. We had read that speech generally begins within a year of starting PECS, but also had read that some autistic children never speak. Tom progressed rapidly with his PECS moving to stages 2 and 3 within days. His progress after that was variable. In April we stopped the receptive labels and people programmes we had been running and began to work much more on auditory discrimination. Tom had found these programmes tough and their removal increased his motivation during the sessions. Tom progressed with his auditory discrimination programme well and this programme was used as a ‘back-door’ into receptive labels. A label would be introduced during a series of musical instrument sounds and Tom began to learn them. An increased emphasis on PECS promotion began to work too. In May Tom began to vocalise much more frequently with the exchanges. In June Tom’s speech really took off and now in July he is constantly asking for things. His favourite thing at the moment is to come to me and say “big fat belly” which is a request for me to tickle his belly. He has difficulty saying hard guttural sounds but the clarity of his words is improving all the time. He has about 50 receptive labels now, many of which he uses expressively and the number is growing all the time. He still uses his PECS cards but will vocalise without them. We have recently started toilet training Tom too. He now very rarely has an accident and it won’t be long I am sure before toilet training is complete. Tom’s main problem I feel are his self-stimulatory behaviours, although these are reducing. Overall Tom has improved tremendously over this first year of his programme and we are now daring to hope that he will be able to attend the same mainstream school as his elder brother Joe (age 5). If he does then we will be delighted. The thought of taking them both to school almost brings me to tears.
Tim Watson - Dad
Joseph Anderson age 8
At the beginning of this school year Joseph’s time in school was increased. He found this very difficult to manage resulting in extremely aggressive behaviour. Unfortunately, this meant he had to be taken out of school for a few days until our wonderful Peach case manager could come and resolve the situation with an emergency behavioural workshop. Joseph responded really well to the adjustments made with regard to his behaviour management and also to a slower increase of time in school.
Fast forward to the end of the year; one morning Joseph was called up in class by the head master. He was then presented with the ‘Lion’ well done badge, to recognise how well he had adapted to the changes that had been made. Also for how well he now interacts with his teacher and peers, as well as his overall conduct in class.
We are all incredibly proud of how well Joseph has done.
Karen Stephenson - Lead Tutor
If you would like to help more children like Tom and Joseph, please visit http://www.justgiving.co.uk/peach/ and make a donation however small. Every penny donated goes directly to frontline services.
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