Ryker's Successful Transition!

Right after his birthday, Ryker started attending a new school. He had been attending a "sensory class" at UCP in Winter Garden four mornings a week (a looong drive from our house). Here are some pics from his last day there...

Ryker's WONDERFUL teacher, Cheryl (who has 2 autistic sons) and her WONDERFUL aide, Denise! Their love for Ryker made it so hard to leave...Denise is crying because we are saying goodbye. Ryker is yelling because Mom is taking a photo when we are supposed to be leaving!

I made these cupcakes to celebrate Ryker's birthday with his class.

ME WANT COOKIE!!

When Ryker turned 3, it meant a transition from the Early Steps program to the public school system. This transition gave us the opportunity to either keep him at UCP, or enroll him at Apopka Elementary in a Pre-K autism class. I agonized over this decision...did the pros of changing classes outweigh the cons? It seemed so hard to decide, not knowing how Ryker would react to a new environment. Would he regress? Earlier this year, changing to a different class at UCP made him cry everyday for 2 weeks...which seemed like an eternity! But after almost 2 weeks in his new class, I am THRILLED to report that Ryker has made a smooth transition and is doing great! :0) He is there 5 days a week for the full day, so has the same schedule as his sisters but at a different school.

Here is a list of things that Ryker is currently doing. I wanted to write them down because my blog is my journal, and I don't want to forget. These things all involve verbal communication - a relatively new skill for him! He is at least a year ahead of Ellany's schedule for these things, which is very exciting. We just expected him to be like Ellany...which I think many parents tend to do. The first child does things one way, so you expect the second to be the same. But we are quite happy that he has surprised us!

• Knows all the letters of the alphabet AND the sounds they make. Will sound out each letter in short words, then say the word!
• Recognizes numbers, counts to 20 and counts backward from 10 to 1.
• Identifies lots of animals and makes their sounds...so cute!
• Knows all his colors and uses them to label things. (He will call a basketball "orange ball")
• Identifies shapes
• Is starting to use phrases...says "I want ______!" to request things.
• Says "No!" in the sweetest little voice...a LOT.
  

One morning this week, when I dropped off Ryker at school, he did something that made me SO happy. He looked at his teacher/aide (they were standing outside), then headed for the door to go inside. The teacher opened the door but Ryker stopped, turned around to look at me and said "Bye-bye!". Without prompting!! For those of you not familiar with autism, getting a greeting without prompting first is a VERY big deal. Hooray for Ryker!!