Why Is It

That kids learn much better learning in a school enviroment? Damien had no interest in learning signs but now 4 weeks into the school year the kid has come home signing to me after I tried doing ASL here with him at home.

Signs so far:

Hungry
Milk
More
Please

I hope this continues and I can learn more with him. This has been awesome. Much better than the charades we usually have to play to figure out what his needs are.

Quirks

Dominic's teacher sent home a note the other day saying he refuses to use and then gets very upset over the fact that he does not have the same crayons as the other kids in his class so she's supplying him with Crayolas until I can buy him some. According to her, he can see a difference in the color between Roseart and Crayola. I have no clue and he won't tell me. Anyways it's a bit frustrating!

Change Is NOT Good

My life with Dominic could be described as anxious you could say. Every school year the first few weeks I am a worrying mess about if anything is going to trigger him, if a teacher isn't going to understand his needs, etc. Overstimulation is one of the biggest problems we have with Dom and I feel like we are always walking a tight rope.

School has been in session for about 3 weeks now. Dominic has came home upset nearly daily about 2 of those weeks. (sigh) Come to find out there are 2..count them....1....2....Dominic's in his class this year. The teacher informed me before school started that she was going to have to come up with some way to call the boys' name. Well her answer was to call Dominic "D." Yes just the letter D and he's not taking it well at all. He comes home very upset with tears welling up in his eyes (he is super sensitive) screaming or pounding on the table, "I'm not 'D' I'm Dominic!!!!" He talks about the other Dominick in an evil tone clearly despising there is another kid with this name in school. I'm afraid he may just take action and try ridding class of the other Dominick.

I wrote his teacher a note trying to explain he does not adapt well with change which is part of his IEP situation since he's been diagnosised with SID. I asked for her very nicely if she could please try to find another way to call Dominic rather than "D" because it's too much of a change for him and he's really not liking it. She wrote back she noticed that he was pretty upset with it and that she would try to figure something else out. I think the worst part is that the kids in his class have started doing it except for 2 that were in his class last year and he's probably screaming "my name's Dominic, not D!!!!" It's all very upsetting to him.

Hopefully she figures something out because it's little things like this that can really screw up the year. We've had several instances of just the slightest change that will throw him off such as having to move from a blue chair to a red or not sitting on the Dinosaur in circle time anymore. These little things can ruin him for weeks if it's not solved quickly. He's got a Para sitting with him and hopefully she can help him by calling him Dominic since she's dealing only with him (part of his IEP for the ADHD and SID)