Idea's for what's next

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Hi all, thanks for your time and suggestions.

We strongly suspect that my daughter, almost 3 has aspergers and we have started the process of getting a diagnosis and getting early intervention services, but I don't think these services will be available for another few months.

I'm starting to brainstorm on teaching ideas we can start now. My daughter is a very visual thinker and the daycare has started using flashcards with some success, so over the holidays we're going to make our own flashcards as a craft using images from magazines with stickers and sparkle's etc.

My daughters special interest is crayons and crayon shaped objects and we've been doing alot of drawing and coloring and she's been picking up alot of words this way, mostly nouns.

She loves music, so I've incorperated a daily piano playing and I'm proud to say that she's catching on to it much more than I anticipated and its fun. We also do alot of singing, she can sing jingle bells, abc's and twinkle little star in its entirety.

I've read good things about social stories and comic book conversations, but she's too little for that right now I think. Still struggling with lifeskills like toothbrushing, brushing hair, eating with utensils, dressing, bathing and of course using the potty (which has been put on hold for a few months while we try and figure out what the heck we're doing with this whole aspergers thing).

Does anyone have any good suggestions on what else I should be doing right now. Any games or tips on developing like skills or increasing vocabulary?

Thank you again

Talk to her, read to her, take her places...everything you would do to stimulate any three year old.

Making "books" together can be a great way to work on new skills. It doesn't have to follow the prescribed "social stories" pattern. Just put together words and pictures about an upcoming event or a skill she's working hard to learn and then read it together often.

Good luck. She sounds like a fun little kid.

My advice is to follow your daughters lead with playing and make it fun for her to interact with you. There is a book by Stanley Greenspan called Engaging Autism that goes into the "Floortime" method of reaching your child. It is a thick book, but has a lot of good information.

As far as the life skills teaching, the approach I have taken is to pick one thing at a time to really focus on such as eating with a utensil. I work with my son showing him how to do things, and gently encourage him to try it. Try not to get too discouraged if she won't or can't do something. She will reach these goals, it just may take her more time than other children.

I began potty training my son at 2.5 years and he got the poo poo part down, but it just didn't seem like he could tell when he had to go pee pee, so I just kept him in pull ups and backed off. Right after he turned 4, I worked with him really hard, and he finally got it in about 3 weeks.

I think reading to her and making comments about the pictures and then asking her questions about what she sees in the pictures, like asking her "What is Big Bird doing?" or "What does Elmo have in his hand?" I think that helped my son a lot.

Even if she doesn't get a diagnosis, she might be able to get some occupational therapy to work on some of her sensory issues.

I hope all of this helps!

I think you should carry on doing just what you're doing now. Being a devoted, caring mum. Keep up the good work.

A good way to handle "everyday caring" told us by our psicologist is to make a visual list of things to do. For istance you can put into your bathroom a 5-6 step image with toothbrushing. (A girl who takes the toothbrusher, a girl who take the paste, a girl who put the paste on the toothbrusher, etc..).