RE: Kids w/ Classic Autism, PDD-NOS & Speech Delays

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Actually he's doing OK in some respect. He has no trouble sitting on the loo, its just waiting for something to happen that is tedious and a bit stressful because he wants to leave after a long stretch.

Yesterday in the afternoon I had him in there for about an hour and he really wanted out so was hitting himself on the head, so I let him go and gave up and then 20 minutes later, we had the double in his underpants; poos and wees.

This morning we paid the price for filling him up with so much water and food, it all came back up, hardly digested at all!

After that my wife had him on the toilet for 45 minutes while also trying to get our daughter ready for school, then she got up for a few minutes to get some plasters for his finger, and of course that was enought time to get up and do the double again..

Anyway today is another day, we do have better idea of timings at least, all your posts above relating your experiences are actually very encouraging

Wife's visa interview was today, all went well so we are that much closer.

The the above computers, how long do the batteries last? I am also assuming your kids wear headphones with them? My son is not used to headphones...

I'm actually still waiting for my new computers to come in. (Should be any day.) Currently, we have a cheap non-color eReader and a cheap color tablet which my husband considers "his." (Maybe I will check out his tablet further today while he is at work.) We also have a $ 25 non-color toy tablet from Scholastic (preloaded with ABC and 123 games), which is very popular with the four-year-old.

My husband mainly keeps his tablet plugged in and uses it in bed.

I need to play around with the items we have today, and I hope that the new ones come in.

I've been super-busy here preparing reading and writing lessons for my 7-year-old second grade son with classic autism. I use ready-made stuff as much as possible, but a lot of the stuff for his ability level lacks the kid-friendliness of stuff made for younger kids. This matters when he needs to be worked with every day and has a limited attention span--he'll pay attention a lot longer without fussing if the teaching material is customized to his interests and abilities.

I can get my older son to do workbooks and use computer programs that he does not find terribly interesting using motivators (candy or a small toy as a reward for completion of an activity). However, he is more cooperative and our relationship is better if I make a conscious effort to provide variety and make things as interesting as possible.

My four-year-old pooped in the potty again!

At 10:15, the therapist arrived, and I gave him 3 Fleet children's laxatives and 3 fiber gummies (he holds the stools on purpose, sometimes to the point of making himself constipated). She then had him in the bathroom for most of the next 3.5 hours, sometimes on the potty and sometimes sitting on the floor reading books, eating, or playing games. Then he finally pooped.

After pooping twice on Wednesday for her, he had been holding his stools and soiling himself again.

I gave him a toy robot and a bunch of kisses as a reward.

Yay!
Day four begins for our boy. I came home from work yesterday and heard howling from outside, and went in to find two worried looking adults, and a very distressed boy in the hall who was not sure whether to get cuddles from my wife, or hit her and kindof doing both at the same time, he had finally had a toileting meltdown, and was saying the only word he seems to know which is "go" over and over and taking people by the hand to the door, so I took him down to sit in the car so he could chill out which worked well.
My wife is at home with our friend right now with him, I really hope it is going OK.

Cool. Once we are back in the US training my son is on the agenda.

On the Tablet front we have an original iPad, and interestingly at the SN unit James will go to next year they have fully embraced these over the last year and have I think 1 for every 2 kids. When I went there recently a lot of the kids were hovering over one doing some activity.
The lead teacher told me they are sort of pioneering the use of them here in NZ in SN and explained about the different uses they use them for across the range of kids with different needs (its a general SN unit not just Autism) e.g. there are developing motor skills tasks, AAC (TapToTalk and ProloQuo2Go), social stories and seqeuncing apps, general education apps, etc.

We have just started using TapToTalk on our iPad, in the aim to move towards that instead of PECs for convenience and looking to the future. PECs is great, but the number of little pictures becomes a management problem.

So currently on the iPad we get him to choose his breakfast from it and TV shows.
One thing the therapist said was too many choices would be a problem and sure enough when I expanded TV choices from just Chugginton and NumberJacks to have 5 choices he didn't seem keen to choose.

There is however something very functional and tactile about the process of selecting a physical PEC, removing it and handing it over that works better than tapping on a screen. OTOH using a tablet you also get the audio feedback.
For example when you push the 'TV' Icon that I have setup it says 'I want to watch TV' and then you get the choices inside that also which announce what they are.

The battery on the iPad is good you can use it hard out for several hours with WiFi before it runs out, and longer when not using WiFi (i.e. not browsing), when not using it the charge stays for days.

I think Android will take over more and more and become the standard with Apple doing their higher end of the market thing, and it will be good as prices are coming down and features are going up. Also Android devices are available in 7" formats in addition to the 10" (full size Tablet i.e. iPad, Samsung Galaxy etc) and 4" (iPhone and other large smartphone) sizes.
I think the 7" maybe where we look to go for portability when James moves more towards AAC.
Also Android tablets are coming out with haptic feedback, i.e. slight vibrate back through the finger on a positive touch which will be brilliant for our kids, and of course Flash support all things Apple don't/won't have.

Blondeambition, those ahappy links you posted are amazingly cheap, hard to go wrong for the cost of a meal out!

DealExtreme is another good place, I have brought things off them before and they have cheap International trackable shipping which makes a deal breaker difference to the total cost for those of us not in the States (where shipping outside of is just ridiculous).
http://www.dealextreme.com/c/tablets-1409

One thing I will be interested to hear is how you find the screen, the one you are getting has a Resistive screen, I have a phone with a resistive touch screen, and its not quite as responsive to light touches as the pricier Capacitive screens can be but otherwise works fine (do the calibrate thing to start with). You cannot do multi-touch, e.g. pinch and shrink or expand for sizing on a resistive screen, but then thats rarely used I find except browsing, and Android automatically uses the -+ sizing pop window up really very well where required.

Anyway thats my 2c ..

Thanks. I think right now I will just bring my laptop with me on the place, and I will make some DVD's of some of my son's favorite youtube playlists...battery will only last a couple of hours though...

Well toileting went much better today. We are now aware of some of the signs. Anyway I get home and got immediately tag teamed to sit with him for a good stretch, over an hour and a bit, and when he went I was really pleased and quite suprised because he took a look down to see what was happening briefly.
We're giving lots of loud praise and high fives and general carry on and excitement when he goes plus we give him a little chocolate from an advent calender, and let him out to run about as he wants, and he does look pretty pleased about things probably being released from prison is half of it

Cool. I can't really start this with my son yet...I have read it's not good to start toilet training right before a move.

I've read that, too.

I decided to do the toilet training now because my parents gave me extra money for more therapy appointments and asked me to make toilet training the top priority. (I hated asking my parents for money, but I felt like I needed more help with the kids, and they have the resources).

I also heard toilet training is pointless unless the kid actually feels uncomfortable in a soiled diaper...it still does not seem to bother my son at all, unfortunately...

Its never bothered my son until recently, now he has started taking his off (for poos not just wet).

That's great.

You all inspired me to try harder with the potty. Around 12 this afternoon I felt bad that I hadn't changed my son's diaper since the night before. I was waiting for him to tell me he needed a change but at that point I figured he was rashy and that I should change him, but his diaper was dry so I grabbed the potty. He was cooperative so I sat and sat and gave him a hair cut and waited and waited and gave him drinks while he played games on the iphone, then I played the sound of running water on you tube and waited and waited. Eventually he started trying to put his shirt down there and my pajamas and sweater ... which I didn't let him do, he was trying to make it feel like a diaper. Then it happened, he peed in the potty for the first time - it took somewhere between 2-3 hours.

Its so tiring though. I'm tired, my wife is tired, bet my boy is tired.