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God's Way Homeschool: The online Journal of a Homeschool Family
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The Preschool Years 1/2002-7/2004
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We never really thought of what we were doing with AP as "preschool", but I
guess it was. We had a child who, even as a toddler, was very eager to learn.
He seemed to do everything early... walking, talking, climbing, etc. And once he got
started, there was no stopping him. He was walking alone by 7 months, running by 9 months and climbing by 11 months.
He began talking before his first birthday, and quickly became very articulate. It wasn't until my younger son, RR,
came along that I learned that my older son wasn't exactly "normal". I thought that all babies and toddlers were like
AP and I began to become concerned that something was wrong with my younger son when he wasn't sitting unassisted by 5 months,
or walking by 8 months, or talking before 18 months.
Due to a severe illness in the summer of 2001 that put AP in the hospital, I decided to
have him evaluated for neurological problems. I got concerned that his extremely high fevers during the illness had
caused some brain damage. I learned that he did have a slight fine motor delay, and a slight social delay, but definately
nothing serious. And I first heard the word "advanced" used in connection with him. His speech, gross motor, self
help skills, etc. were "advanced" for his age. I decided to go ahead and have him placed in play therapy for the "delays"
he had. That decision would in essence, change our lives forever.
Through out the course of this play therapy, I began to learn other things about my son.
His speech tone was a bit monotonus, something I hadn't really noticed until a therapist pointed it out. One day while
working on puzzles with AP, the therapist told me, "your son is gifted". Gifted?? Ok, so he was saying the alphabet
forwards by the time he was 2 and backwards by the time he was 3. And he knew all of his shapes, and colors before his
3rd birthday. He spoke well, and could clearly and accurately communicate. I didn't think that this qualified
him as "gifted". I knew that my son would rock, headbang, and monotonusly humm on a fairly regular basis, and he was
obsessed with the moon and stars. And he was "attached" to his bottle even though he could drink from a cup.
Even the therapist noticed it. But, I didn't know that those actions along with his delays and "advances" were
a clue that something was neurologically abnormal. Within a couple of months, we learned that these were some of the
"classic" symptoms of Asperger Syndrome. I didn't even know what that was until I asked that therapist to explain it to me. She recommended for him to
be evaluated by CARD (Center for Autism and Related Disorders), and I agreed. The people came and evaluated him, and
told me, "yes, your son is definately considered to have Asperger Syndrome, he's definately an Aspie".
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I wasn't really sure what to make of this diagnosis. But, I set out on one mission, that was to understand my son.
I wanted to know why he did what he did and what it meant. It took me about 6 months to figure things out. Like
what certain rocking and humm patterns meant. But I did it. I didn't look at this diagnosis as a "curse" of some
kind, I saw it as a blessing, I got a chance to think and live "outside the box". And it was a very valuable learning
experience that still continues.
I had a son, who despite a diagnosis, wanted to learn. I decided to teach him what he wanted to know. He
wanted to do puzzles, I bought him puzzles. He wanted books, we bought him books. He wanted Educational toys,
we bought them. For hours on end he'd sit with these toys, puzzles or books playing with them, looking at them, and
talking about them. He wanted to draw, so we gave him paper and crayons and let him draw to his hearts content.
Pretty much, for preschool, if he wanted to learn it, we taught it. If he wanted to watch TV shows like Blues Clues,
Sesame Street, Dora, etc. we let him watch them. His preschool was very unformal, and very self directed. But
he was happy, vibrant, and loved learning.
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